Author Topic: Oh........that unsafe Ice time.........just what do you do??????????  (Read 1317 times)

Offline wsj_outdoorsman

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  • Wandering the Ice somewhere
Well, with the weather giving us folks south of the big windy city, that most anxious feeling of unsafe ice.  There is not much to do except go north, (wsj does not like the N word for his limited ice times), do chores (which could be a good thing when the Coho are in) or remember the past ice times.  Well our friend wsj did choose the later of these choices in remembering some of the early days on the ice.

Seems our friend wsj always picks the worst weather days for his new forays into the great outdoors.  And this day would be no exception.  With the north winds howling and the wind chill temperature well below 0`, our friend wsj and his long time softwater/hunting buddy did decided to take up the sport of ICE fishing.  How hard could it be, get a hole though the ice, drop a line in and wait for the fish right?

Well this first day on the ice for these two newcomers to the sport went something like this…………………….

Stopped at the bait shop to pick up a few large golden roaches for the pike that were told to inhabit this body of water…………next stop.  K-mart and a few of the 0.99 tip-up were had.  Now armed with a means to catch the toothy critters that were told to swim in this lake our friends are ready………….right?……….Wrong…………

When this did take place, our friends did NOT have an auger, but with their newfound desire they just figured they could chop, with an axe a suitable hole in the hard water surface.  After thinking this through a bit, they did on their leaving bring along a few rusted crow bars and a tire iron, just in case the axe did not work as well as they had thought.  Armed with only a bit knowledge gathered from the sporting chronicles of the time, there was no such thing as waterproof clothes.  It was either a vinyl coated rain suit (that would surely crack in the cold temps) or this new idea of layering your clothes.  With the rain suit idea out, it was decided on to wear multiply layers of clothes, with the thought that if the top layer got wet…………sure would be awhile before the rest did.  Now our friends are off to their destination, and once lakeside began the task of the “layering” of clothes.  Once that was accomplished our friends did take on the resemblance of the “Michelin Tire Man” and proceeded to the ice…….

Minnow’s….ready,  tip-ups…..ready,  now the only thing needed was the hole to present the fish with dinner.  So an axe was used as it was thought it would make quick work of getting to the water below………..well with the chips of ice flying all over the place……and the sweat begging to flow quite consistently…..the axe was put aside in favor of the longer and heavier crow bar.  This was pounded into the ice surface with all the might of the eager fisherman, with rust hanging from the ice edges, chips flying every which way, and the hole……….still not getting very large.  After what seemed like an eternity, our eager anglers did strike soft water.   And strike it they did,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,with all their might too. Have you ever seen what happens when an axe, crow bar hit the soft water?  Yep thought so.  Now our friends are finally through the hard surface, but need to enlarge to hole for the tip-up to work, so the tire iron was called in for this task.  Yes it did work when you were close up to the hole and angled it down just right.  Now the problem of all of the splashing/slashing/beating of the hard water to turn it into soft, did take it’s toll.  You see our friends were now soaking wet.  But not to worrying they thought, “we layered our clothes”……………..  and with the strong winds, was not long before the water on the top layer froze, but it did block out the wind until they moved. And after their assault of the hard water surface, they had their own little softer water pond to sit in, to watch the tip-up.

Now this whole time from the start of getting out of the car, till the 2 holes were made, tip-up’s baited was about 2hours.  Now the wait on the buckets began.  With the winds blowing fiercely from the north, their clothes froze solid, feet were non-existent, and if it were not for looking at their hands to make sure fingers were attached, they would not have known.  They both looked at one another and “this is fun, right?”  Well not to long after the buckets had even frozen to the ice from sitting amidst the large puddle of water created by the hole makings, that our friends did decided they needed to do some more research on this new sport of “Ice Fishing”, off the ice they went, with the only thing warm was the burning desire to return again…………

And when they returned…………..well that another tale.


Wsj ;)


So just how did you start??????????
If a man can't laugh at himself....he leaves the job to others

 



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