Hardwater Reflections
By Darrell Pendergrass
On at least three or four occasions this winter I’ve found myself out on the ice staring at hard-water holes, the goal of which was to bring home a fish. That is to say, I’ve done a bit of ice-fishing this season.
Normally my winter days aren’t spent fishing. Between farm chores – which only seem to be amplified during the colder months – and work – I leave home in the dark and come home in the dark – there just never seems to be enough quality day-light hours. Sadly, ice fishing just seems to get pushed to the back burner.
But I like ice-fishing. There is something to be said for standing around with a bunch of other guys, talking smart and watching for tip-up flags to pop off in the distance, signaling a hook-up with a northern pike or bass. Or, one might jig a wax-worm a bit and try for panfish. Either way, it’s great fun.
I’m actually a good guy to go ice fishing with because I don’t normally get very cold. I don’t know if it’s because I’m more insulated than a regular person, or whether I’ve got good blood circulation, but for the most part I simply don’t get cold. It’s almost freakish; in fact when my wife and I are outside in the winter we continually trade gloves – she gives me her cold mitts and I warm them up on my hands and we switch back and forth so her fingers stay warm. It’s weird.
My main fishing partner received a new power auger for Christmas, so the drilling of holes hasn’t been the chore that it once was. After a few pulls on the cord we’ve taken to drilling a gazillion holes on whatever lake we’ve chosen to fish, a luxury we’ve gone without in the past. Having more holes gives us the chance to move around a little, instead of being anchored to the one hand-augured hole we’ve managed to punch through. I don’t care much for hand augers.
Fish? Have we caught fish? We’ve brought home some eaters, yes. At our home we don’t always get to enjoy many fish fries during the colder months of the year, but this year has been slightly different. We’ve had a few; mostly dinners of panfish, although there are still some meals of pike tucked away in the freezer. There will be more.
Our ice-fishing focus is set on mid February, that’s when the annual American Legion fishing contest for our part of the country takes center stage in the ice angling community. I’m sure that on that weekend I’ll find myself outside with a gaggle of boys, putting out tip-ups and drilling holes on some unsuspecting lake in anticipation of hooking into a money fish. A money fish; I can’t even imagine how exciting that would be – to hold up a fish large enough to be the envy of another angler. Anyhoo.
The garage has become a fish-cleaning shack of sorts, there’s a board perched on three truck tires that’s used as a cutting board. There’s also a bit of fish scum that’s slid off the fish that’s now affixed to the tires, which I imagine will smell pretty ripe come June. We have to do our fish cleaning out there because the powers that be have cut off our access to the kitchen for such things. Oh well.
We’ve also acquired a few new tip-ups. We did get to string those beauties up in the living room, provided we didn’t put the hooks on in the house. String only. Heaven forbid if either the dog or the cat ended up with a hook in the side or in a paw. I’m not sure the house could stand such a tragedy.
This winter we did travel to a certain lake we like, a lake that requires a 10 minutes walk into from the parking lot. When we arrived there was one car at the entrance, indicating there weren’t many people on the ice, but when we got to the lake itself there were 10 to 15 people. And a tent. Evidently they were spending the night – and it was on one of the coldest nights of the year to date.
From our holes we could see they weren’t catching much for fish. They did seem to be having fun though.
I guess that’s the main goal.
Darrell Pendergrass lives in Grand View.