heys just a boy

[jbscowboy99]

 last winter i had been given a very nice ice scooper from my cousin (nothin special but it had belonged to my uncle who had passed away) so needless to say any ice fishin gear given to you is truly priceless. i had used the scoop many times and always thought of it as kinda a good luck charm since my uncle was a BIG outdoorsman. one day i figured my boy was home and wanted to get on the ice (he was 12) so of course i was more than gung ho to get him out there. so we pack up all are gear and headed out to the local lake. we get to the lake i drill our holes and start settin up our tip ups. he said that he would set up the shanty. i said get 'er done! so he sets the shanty up and asked me to drill some jiggin holes in it. i drill the holes after all the tip ups are in. i sit down in my chair and scoop out my hole, hand the scoop to him and he leans foward from his chair to scoop and somehow the scoop left his hand in slow motion bounced off the ice and landed nicely in the 6" hole that i had just drilled and 'bloop' it was gone. my son looked at me as to say "please don't hurt me" . so i told him and myself "hell, hes just a boy"
                              good fishin JIB

[gcrossman]

Go back with a Magnet.  You can get large magnet rollers at hardware stores.  I have seen scoops and lures retrieved.

[SPARKYICE]

i now have a lanyard on mine.
at least i had the satisfaction of dropping my own through the hole.
once when i was 10 or 12, i dropped and broke not one, but two, themoses of coffee belonging to my older brother's buddies.
always remember-theyre just kids, and thats what kids sometimes do.

[Fishin is the Mission]

always remember-theyre just kids, and thats what kids sometimes do.

And adults too.  I've done it...it happens.  No sense getting all worked up over something material.  Go get another scoop with your son and make it the new "lucky" one.  Maybe some day you can give it to your grandson...along with the story about how you got it.

[holehawg]

well ya did the right thing..its only a ice scoop compared to ya boy...had my new son-in-law (first time hunter )drop my win. model 70 on his first deer hunt (dinged the end of the barrel../ knocked scope out of wack...)..after my heart started beating again..i told myself its only a gun & i dont want to scare him off from hunting forever...its hard but..... ..ya get over it...

[jbscowboy99]

oh yea. my boy (same a step son but MY boy) he still loves going out on the ice with me. he knows stuff happens everyday.cant blame him. like my granddaddy always says " s**t happens then you die" lol hes one to be in the grumpie old man shack.
                     good fishin and thanx for sharin JIB

[Tombo]

I would bet your late uncle would have been so happy to see you ,out there with your son,that he would have laughed when it slipped out of his hands.I've just started to take my grandson out fishing and he always wants to clean out the holes and even though I tell him to hang onto the scoop, I just know what's going to happen someday. He doesn't know but,I've got a spare and to me it's worth several scoops just to have him out there with me. Keep on doin' what your doin' those will be great memories for him someday

[fishmaster2004z]

i get my son his own gear so when he drops his we still have mine

[gonephishin19]

Good Job on not killing your son...lol

[newbuckeye]

Imagine the lesson in tollerance you taught your son.  One day, he will pass that same patience on to his kids.  It's called good parenting, good example, good times turned into good memories.

[tipup71]

My boy has dropped 2 scoops down holes in the last 4 years. First one was when he was 5, second when he was 7. When we are sitting in the shanty on some of those cold days he always says "Remember when I dropped those scoops down the holes?" and we laugh about it. He's 9 now and it's amazing how fast they grow up. Especially when I look over and he's catching fish using my vex. But the best part is when he tells me how lucky he is that his dad takes him ice fishing!!  Rob

[SPARKYICE]

Imagine the lesson in tollerance you taught your son.  One day, he will pass that same patience on to his kids.  It's called good parenting, good example, good times turned into good memories.

absolutely.
 every reply to this so far has been very positive. bunc of good solid people out there raising kids the right way.
we've all been to team sports compititions where you witness parents screaming at and demeaning their kids for dropping the ball or whatever.
i think thats whats so precious about spending time with kids out of doors- it lets them grow and mature without being forced to compete with other kids.

[jayswimmer09]

time to start a new item to be bequeathed

[freshfish]

As a kid we didn't have much money and buying a pizza on Friday night with some grape soda was about the greatest thing in the world.
Well we get home and i wanted to carry that pizza, so i bugged until I got what i wanted. Well i dropped it face down and the look on my dad's face said it all, he was mad! I started crying so he came over and set me at ease. I now have two young kids and everytime they do something like that I remember that day and my fathers reaction. Nice job with your son.

[gonephishin19]

  these stories are putting me to tears...lol :'(you guys sound like some great fathers

[pot-belly-perch]

get a underwater camera & then use  your magnet  to retrive the scooper

[tbirdbassr]

the first time i took my kid fishing the only thing she dropped in the hole was herself lol I drilled the holes and was setting up the shack before I could get that done I had to go get her boot outta a 6" hole!!!

[slamminwalleyes]

How sad it can be to lose some thing's special but that's just what it is a thing object item all tho it hold memories of some one that has past. Its still just a item thing object. The memories you have of the person live on through you to pass on to the young ones an they will pass them on to there kids an on an on.  Those are the Memories that last forever.

[rich81]

sounds normal.  there always losing/breaking stuff.   the funny thing is i'm worse than them   i break/lose forget more stuff than they ever will   my daughter was moving my hand auger last weekend and it was to heavy so she dragged and banged it off the fllor until she got it were she wanted it, well i was at work and didn't know this until i went to use my auger and it wouldn't cut.  i asked my kids and she fessed up and said she was just trying to "organize my gear for me",

[Germ]

Just read all this but go to anyone of your DOller stores and Buy the magents called SIzzlers? YOur boy will know what they are...Possibly anyhow they are powerfull magnets kids use to make sounds...Spend like 4 bucks and you will now have 8 Of them...Which has some weight to it..  Place them all in a sock... drop them (tied to a rope of some kind down.. the Ice hole.. With the wiehgt uou should be able to figet around down the hole and hopefully pick up the Ice scoop... I bought the magnets this year to retrieve all the stupid mistakes we do in the huts thru out the year lol.. ANyhow the magnets are super cheap and super strong and if You get the chance Try randomly placing this same SOck down other fishermans holes and the magnets will in one catch of a lure pay for themselves!:> Good luck and GLad you didnt kill the kid:> lol!!! (P.S the linyard is always a good idea)  Tell lil Mr slippy hands he has a good father!:>

TIght lines!

[Walltrout]

the first time i took my kid fishing the only thing she dropped in the hole was herself lol

Been there, done that.  First time out with my daughter who was 2 at the time I drilled only one hole.  She sat on the sled all afternoon while we fished out of that one hole.  It was time to go and she stood up and took one step off the sled into that very same one hole we had been fishing in all day.  What can I say?  We got her back in the truck and put on some dry clothes and tried not to freak her mom out too much when we got home and she said she fell in the lake. 

[WANNAKETCHUM]

absolutely.
 every reply to this so far has been very positive. bunch of good solid people out there raising kids the right way.
we've all been to team sports competitions where you witness parents screaming at and demeaning their kids for dropping the ball or whatever.

I used to see so much of that when my son played little league baseball...I often wondered how some of those kids turned out. I was fortunate...my son was pretty good about taking care of his gear and mine. But MYSELF....now that's another story...WK

[bigfoot697]

losing a scoop no big deal. spending quality time with your kids priceless and cherished memories forever. my dad always had time to take me fishing. we never icefished but that was back in the 1960s when ice fishing was not even heard of. i get my emergency scoops from garage sales. beats scooping by hand burrrrrrrrrrr. try using a large ladle with holes. not as fast as a scoop but gets the ice out.

[d3]

I remember fishing on a pond open water and me my uncle and dad were in the john boat. I was casting and the rod went out of my hand .  you got it right to the bottom of the lake.  My dad did not get mad he just looked at me and said "how" and like a good little kid I said I don't know.  LOL  we tried but could not get it back oh well.  I dropped many ice scoops down the holes before and There was always a new in the box.  The best story I have is we were fishing a pond in mass that they put a bunch of breeders in to empty a section of the hatchery well any way me and a new guy went out to check a bunch of traps there was about 40 traps our.  We picked them up and decided to move some up from 20 feet to about five and some others. WEll the end of the day came and we were picking up the traps you know what happened there were four fish on some of the traps.  We had wound them backwards and some others we set on the opposite side of the flag.  Needless to say there was a lesson and the cheap traps were taken out of the box and disposed of.

I became hooked on ice fishing ever since.  20 plus years later took a few years off in between.

D3 

[oletimer]

I remember dropping a couple when I was a kid, hence dad and my uncles saying oohh here let me do that you get the tip-up ready lol, they never yelled or anything just got the spare out and kept fishing. Now my son is 17 and is an addict, after I took 10 years off from ice fishing. He caught our best this year, 34" 10lb pike. He saw my buddy and I work on one over 40" and only lose it half out of the hole.( leader bent gaf unhooked and ploop back down the hole.) He was looking at me and I patted my buddy on the back and said huh, thats fishin. He said on the way home, he thought I was going to yell or swear or get mad. I explained that having the day on the ice with all my friends was way more important than any fish.
 Scott
         By the way just joined here and what a great bunch of people.

[holedriller]

about 4 years ago my  at the time 3 year old daughter and my friends little boy went fishing with us and they were getting bored so I told them to go get the scoops and clean out the tip up holes. about 2 minutes in I heard the 2 kid call my name in a tone that sounded like they thought they were in deep trouble I walked over to the hole already laughing on my way they told me they dropped the scoop down the hole all I could respond with was oops run back to the shack and grab the other one and kkep having fun. the way I see it is bait shops have lots of scoops if we get mad at kids for stuff loike this they will want nothing to do with our sports and then possibly end up involved in what ever bad there is out there. and now we have a memory forever

[Madpuppy]

Good job with your son, tell him everybody has or will drop something ( or someone) down the hole in their lives. The magnet idea works, a friend of mine dropped his shotgun over the side of the boat and found it the next day dragging a magnet back and forth behind the boat. Took some patients but it worked.

[perchnut]

I still use a pair of hand brush snips when i bow hunt that belonged to my grandfather....ive used them for years...one year, i noticed that they werent in my pack,,,i was really bummed, but figured that my grandad would still have loved that i got all that use out of them long after he had passed.....then the next year, i happened to be up in one of my trees, and i was looking around....looked down, and there they were, just a little bit of them sticking out from the leaves....a little wd40 and they still are working like a champ.  I let my son use them now...

[camocrazy82]

My son LOVES to borrow my fishing gear. I smile and show him how to use it and he goes to town. Hes lost many lures and broken many poles. I dont mind. 

[BoydChurch]

I was fishing with two 14 yr. olds this ice season, letting them use my camera. They can get bored if there's no action. So they let the tripod fall down the hole.  I hear " Mr. Boyd, come here" I went over and they told me what happened. I said "It's just a thing no big deal" and went back fishing.  Well, they proceeded to drill two holes and jig with a silver buddy and got the tripod back. Well, you would've thought they had landed the biggest pike in the lake, yellin and hollerin, "we got it". I wasn't so much impressed by the catch but that the kids were able to work through a problem, make adjustments and get the job done. Sometimes we need to let them figure it out for themselves. These were great kids, too, respectful and considerate. Some parents are doing a great job.