Ice fishing is a blast!
In case you have not heard the classic ice fishing joke, here it is:
“I went ice fishing yesterday.”
“Really? Did you catch anything?”
“Yes, a cold!” Har har!
Truthfully it can be cold while ice fishing, but if the sun is shining and the wind is not too strong, and you are bundled with so much clothing that you can barely raise your arms, then it can be quite comfortable.
So my son Mike and I decided to drive about 5 hours to Northern Wisconsin and fish on the Eagle Chain of Lakes. The Eagle Chain is a beautiful and remarkable body of water. It’s known to be the largest chain of navigable lakes in the world – 28! We fished on the the one called Duck Lake.
We used a device called a “tip-up”. It’s essentially a 1 foot long piece of wood with a metal rod perpendicular. There is a spool of line on one end and a flag on the other. Essentially when a fish bites your bait/hook, it then pulls the line, turning the spool which then raises the flag which then raises your heart rate and blood pressure as you run to the tip-up cheering and yelling “fish-on!”
Here is a 43 second video of my son catching a Northern Pike:Ice Fishing Adventure
We used small minnows for bait called Golden Shiners.
The fish we caught were called Northern Pike. The smallest was about 16 inches and the biggest was about 27 inches. These are considered respectable, good-eating sizes. They do grow as big as 50 inches and 35 pounds if you’re lucky enough to catch one and survive the extreme cardiac trauma you’ll get from the excitement of pulling one of those monsters in!
We did have a huge fish hooked for awhile. We pulled on the line and battled it for several minutes. But unfortunately it swam into the weeds and eventually the line broke. It was huge!!!! Praise God I survived.
Mike is now 11 years old and loves the outdoor sports like fishing and hunting just like I do. What I enjoy most these days is watching him get excited when one of those flags goes up!
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