Gone Fishin'

Considering I wouldn't thank you to take me fishing on a beautiful, sunny, summer day down South, I don't know what prompted me to sign up for an ice fishing trip this weekend. I think I justified it as one of those things that I've got to be able to say that I've done. Oh, and I signed up on my way home from the bar last night at 12:30 :)

So, I woke up today at 11 to get brunch and hit the road. I banged on Byron's door too, because if I'm going to freeze in a little shack being miserable, you can damn well bet that he's going to as well! We and 8 or 9 other hearty souls piled into a BV and headed out for Lower Dumbell Lake and the fishing shack there. Luckily, I was the first one into the back of the BV, and scored the only cushion. Those wood benches are nasty for any trip longer than 24 seconds, and that's not cross country like we were going!

Once the generator was going for light and the power auger, we started drilling the holes. This time of year there was 3 feet of ice (which I take if from the actual fishermen there is a lot), but in a few months apparently the ice gets to be over 7 feet thick! The lake at that point was about 20 feet deep, and we were setting the lines at the very bottom. We baited our lines with some bacon (everyone knows that fish love bacon) and got to work. I actually got the first nibble of the day, and the first fish was scored in a matter of minutes by one of the other guys. All there is in the lake is Arctic Char, so it's only a matter of how big a fish you're catching. This first one was a good 4 or 5 inches long...pretty standard by the standards set earlier in the year.

What followed as a period of about an hour where nothing happened. We all sat around talking and occasionally jerking at a line. A few more little guys were landed....and then it happened. I'm not a fisherman, so I was just copying the technique of everyone else...namely, let the fish nibble a bit, then jerk the line and pray. I got my nibble, I gave my jerk, and VOILA!! FISH! While I will say that I 'caught' it, I was told by others that if your hook is not technically 'in' the 'mouth' of the fish, but rather 'stuck' through it's 'side', it's called 'snagging' :D Still, below is my fish. He swam away (definitely didn't sink out of sight) when I dropped him into the hole, so he was Ok :)

That put me one-up in my bet with Byron, and with the amount of fish caught so far I was feeling pretty good about my chances. That is...until the guy next to Byron got up to go to the bathroom. As soon as he left the shack, his line starts to dance. Byron grabs it and hooks the fish. He starts reeling and the pole is bent double! He pulls out a foot-and-a-half long fish that could have eaten my fish in one gulp. We were just taking pictures when the other guy comes back and realized just whose hook is in this fish's mouth :) Byron went on to hook one more reasonably sized char to beat me handily.

I have to say, fishing was WAY more fun than I thought it would be. If I didn't still smell like fish, I'd be ready to do it again tomorrow :D

Miss you all, but Christmas is just around the corner!

Graham