My friend, Larry and his brother in law, Mitch wanted to go ice fishing. I was having a conversation with Larry the other day and asked him if he would ever want to go fishing in a little pond. He said he would be interested so I text messaged my dad and asked him if it was OK if I brought my friend over to ice fish on their pond. The answer was positive so we planned it. Saturday, noon-ish, Larry would call me when he was leaving his place so that I would have time to grab my camera and make the five mile trek to my parent's home.
Make sure and click on the first picture and then it will turn into a gallery and you can see the pictures much better and with more detail.
The pond.
Larry drilling a hole in the ice. He has this handy dandy auger thingamabob and in 30 seconds flat he has a solid eight inch hole! It was amazing to watch the first time I saw him go at it.
He has some kind of handy dandy scoop thing that he uses to dig out the chunks of ice in the hole.
A little better view of the tool.
Notice, even his box is in camouflage. He is big time.
He measured the ice using the handle, a solid 10 inches thick, maybe more.
I felt safe walking on the ice knowing it was that thick. :)
There it is, one of the half dozen holes he dug trying to find where the fish were hiding out.
This is how you set things up so you don't loose them in the snow. Larry knows every trick in this trade. He is a boy scout leader and if I was ever lost in the wilderness I would want to be lost with him. He knows things....lots of things and he is prepared!
The handy dandy auger drilling machine. There is a blade at the end of the auger and it is sharp, very sharp. Once I seen that blade I better understood why it took thirty seconds to drill a hole.
Larry didn't really want a front view shot of him, but didn't care if I took pictures from his back and side view. He knew I was going to put the pictures on here and felt a tad shy.
Some fishing lines, extra gloves and tackle box.
Here he is showing me his fishing lines. Now, I really learned something here, I didn't know you used shorter lines for ice fishing. They were so cute! Like a toy, almost, but I bet they are expensive.
Here he was telling me he likes the one line better than the other but then something happened and his favorite line broke, so he had to use part of another line on his favorite one to make it usable.
See, short line in the hole. Mitch is in the background. He was kind of shy too, but very friendly when the camera wasn't clicking away. :)
Here Larry is checking to see how deep the water is. He surmised it to be roughly eight feet deep right there.
No gloves for Larry.
He tried it over there under some brush my dad lets grow around part of the pond. Hoping it would prove profitable.
I tried a different angle, through the brush, I took a couple of shots, and kind of liked this one.
After this shot my toes were so cold I had to be a wimp and go in and warm up in my parent's house. I asked Larry to call me on my cell phone if he caught anything.
He did. He said it was one small blue gill so far. I told him I would be out in a few.
I returned to the pond to find this little feller. He looked dead. Dad and Larry had agreed that any "small ones" Larry could leave for the coons. I understand, too many small ones in the pond makes so nobody grows in there...and that's not good for the pond or the fish. After awhile Larry and Mitch gave up, no good fishing today, only the one small blue gill was to be caught this day.
I probably talked too much and when I was walking all over the place I probably made too much noise...I did notice when I went in the house is when Larry caught the one fish! I just had to ask my questions and try to get the best shots possible. A girls' gotta do what a girls' gotta do.
I looked at the small fish, it flip-flopped, it looked sad. I knew it was alive and I looked up at my parent's house, knowing dad said to leave any small ones on the bank..but I just couldn't let it stay there to die. I asked Larry if I grabbed it by the tail, does he think I could throw it back in....he said, "sure"...so I did...I saved the small fish's life this day. Dad will probably fish him out next Spring, but I don't have to be there for that. He lives and that is all I cared about today.
Across the road from the pond is a field. those brown markings in the snow is liquid manure. I bet the area stunk to high heaven whenever they sprayed that on there. It does make the crops grow so well, but it really stinks too!
On the road you will see three bikers...they are the neighbor kids coming over to my dad's property. Their dad was cutting up some trees in my dad's woods. I wanted to take pictures of the tree cutting operations, but didn't have the nerve. Some Amish really don't want their pictures taken at all. I didn't know about these guys so I left them alone.
Here the one little boy was walking through the woods from his house to dad's woods to help his dad cut down the tree.
On the way home I paused in front of an Amish home to get this shot for my readers who aren't from the area. Mr. Horse has a blanket on, this means his owner is taking care of him...very well.
One can pause on the road in Amish Country if nothing is behind you.
More buggy shots.
And the horse's feet. For some reason...I wanted a shot of them.
And that, my friends, ends my fish tale for the day. It was a lot of fun for me, probably more of a hassle for Larry and Mitch, but they blessed me by humoring me and allowing me to take pictures of the process.
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