I started ice fishing about 25 years ago. Just showed up to a nearby frozen lake one day when I was about 15 years old. I had no ice fishing gear, no auger and no clue what I was doing. I had never met anyone in my life who had ever been ice fishing and had little knowledge other than a couple of magazine articles. I showed up at the lake with a six foot spinning rod and a container of mealworms and a handful of hooks and sinkers. I scavenged a previously used hole and fished in sight of a handful of older guys who undoubtedly were laughing at my follies most of the day. I showed up several times that week until one of the men in that circle invited me over to join them. Piece by piece, those guys taught me the basics of ice fishing.
It took me three or four trips before I got my first bite and my first fish but I still vividly remember putting that first one on the ice - a 12" stocked rainbow. I had just set a mealworm below a red/white clip-on bobber in 10 feet of water under my 6 foot spinning rod. I turned around to set up my second rod and happened to look behind me. The bobber on the first rod was two feet below the surface of the water thrashing violently. It took a few seconds for me to realize that I had a fish on the line. It was a combination of shock and joy that rendered me motionless. After so many fruitless trips, I was beginning to think I was cursed. I grabbed the rod, set the hook and reeled the line up about two feet until the bobber stopped dead at the tip of the rod. I suddenly realized that a snap-on bobber with a two inch diameter wasn't going to make it through a 1/4" diameter guide and was therefore a poor choice for ice fishing in 10+ feet of water.
I hand-lined the fish the rest of the way to the hole and sat in amazement as the trout flopped in front of me. I had probably caught a hundred trout prior to that one and many that were much larger but it still rates as one of the most memorable fish of my life.
