well, cindy responded to my note. said she can't go on the ice because of health reasons. i never said to go ice fishing! i said she should go to iceshanty.com and see what we are about, that we are not all fish hogs. she never came on the site! blah-blah-blah!
Thank you for your note. As to beating a dead horse, I told Jim last weekthat if we printed this last column, that would be it, no more, subjectclosed. As for the catch and release thing, this is where I standpersonally: my husband and all his friends regularly catch dozens of fishat a time. In fact this past week as the ise thawed, they stood on thebank of our lake place, catching upwards of 140 crappie, bluegill & perchover a 2-day period. Some they kept -- about 4 dozen -- and the rest theythrew back. The kept portion goes in the freezer for group fish fries.Then my husband, who is retired, stood out on the bank for three days in arow casting, casting, casting. Each time he came in, he said he'd caughtabout a dozen. When I said, "Where's my bluegill?" he'd say "I threw 'emall back." Then finally the day before yesterday he and a couple friendswere out there doing some serious fishing again. They hauled in 50, Ithink they said -- and they kept them all, except for 6, which my husbandfileted and put in a bowl for me to eat this weekend while he's at aLegionnaires convention in Indy. And, yes, they've done likewise out thereon those shanties. Sometimes they bring in Jim's definition of a fish hogload. Other times they just go with the pure joy of the catch & throw themback, whether it's into the ice or water. Me, I like to fish when it'swarm. But I have rheumatoid arthritis and asthma and those two thingsdon't set well with cold air. So I stay in the house when it's coldoutside. But I do appreciate your note.
