Ice fishing can be nice fishing ~ January 9, 1992

David Heiller

Is there a better sight than to see a bobber sink into a hole in the ice on a warm December day during Christmas vacation?

Let me know, because I can’t think of one.

That’s the first thing we saw, me and Noah and his friend, Joe, out on Fox Lake on Dec. 29. I didn’t even have Noah’s hole scooped out, and there went Joe’s bobber, sinking slowly from sight.

“Set the hook and back away from the hole,” I yelled at Joe, who calmly did just that. A nice crappie soon flopped onto the ice.

Joe, fishing in warmer weather.

We all laughed and talked at the same time. We had been fishing all of 15 seconds, and already we had a keeper. We smiled lustful smiles. We thought we’d have our limits in half an hour, the fish were that hungry. You never know what’s under the ice.

That jinxed us. The fish weren’t THAΤ hungry. Over the next two hours, we ended up with a total of 14 keepers. All but one were caught by Noah and Joe. That was fine with me. I spent most of my time putting minnows on hooks and trying to keep my hands warm. Murphy’s Law 27-G states: When you fish with kids, winter or summer, you don’t catch a lot of fish.

You lower your expectations and have fun watching the kids have fun. You don’t catch fish. At least that was my excuse that day.

Ice fishing is not high science. Eight-year-olds can out fish grown men with the right hole and the right hook and the fight depth and the fight luck. Who knows why?

Sometimes you even get a helping hand. An older guy, Leonard Kiminski, walked over to us soon after we had settled in that afternoon. He told us that he and his friend, John Bentz, were just a few fish shy of their crappie limit, which is 15 each.

Noah and Joey playing in the snow 
with Malika and Queen Ida.

“Fish at about nine feet,” he said. We were at about 12 feet, a foot off the bottom, which conventional wisdom says is proper.

Leonard didn’t have to tell us where the fish were hiding. Not all ice fishermen would do that. Quite the contrary. But Leonard did.

Leonard also nonchalantly remarked that he had caught a nice-sized crappie too. “Come over and take a look,” he said.

The boys were over there in a matter of seconds, and they came running back for me. It was indeed a beauty, about 14 inches long, weighing well over a pound, I guessed.

“And it was the first one we caught today,” Bentz said, with a lustful gleam in his eye that looked pretty familiar.

Not all ice fishing trips are as nice as that one was. Sometimes you stand in the sleet with a raw wind blowing up your shirt. Sometimes the guys next to you only offer four letter words instead of advice. Sometimes you get skunked and cold and wonder why you even bothered.

But even on days like that, you breathe some fresh air and get some exercise and feel a bit better for getting your carcass off the couch for a spell. Who cares who won that football game?

And you never know what’s under the ice.