Now that the local season is pretty much over (still ice on Barton’s!) im in that nostalgic phase thinking about things that went well and want to do again and things that didn’t go so well so wanna work on for next year.
The single best moment of my ice fishing season was when a guy and his 10 yr old kid came out on the ice to see what we were doing out there. It happened that we were standing on a mixed school of pumpkin seed, bluegill and crappie. They come over and I show the kid the flasher and how it worked and proceeded to pull up a few bluegill. He seemed pretty excited about it so I asked him if he ever caught a fish before... answer was a meek “nope”.
Finding that intolerable I hand him my jig rod and showed him how it worked. He lowered the jig down the hole like I showed him and a second later the tip twitches and he pulls up his first pumpkinseed. The look on his face said it all.
He was under dressed for the conditions but little dude hung out for over an hour pulling in fish after fish even losing one that I’m pretty sure was a decent bass. It wasn’t until he was completely shivering that I took the rod back and suggested his dad go buy him cocoa.
I don’t have kids of my own (getting major pressure from the lady though) but next year I’m going to be inviting all my friends with kids the right age to come out for an hour or two to catch their first fish. I’ve never left the ice feeling as good as I did that day.
Other than that, I’ll be planning my Champlain trip earlier in the season than I did this year and vow not to lose as many sounders down the hole.
(And make it to the Barton’s gathering... where there’s still ice (just sayin)
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Curious what other folks took away from their season.. highlights, lessons learned, whatevs’.