Hard Water

I finally found a slow day with mild temperatures so that I could get out on the ice and try some ice fishing again.  So far this winter the ice has been solid for most of the winter, but the temperature has been too cold to entice me onto the ice.  I do not own an ice hut or tent.  Son #2 came with me and we headed for Fritz's lake.  We drilled our holes, baited hooks, and set the poles, and waited.  Nothing happened for the first half hour or more.  Then, all of a sudden one hole started producing.  As soon as we took a fish off the hook and dropped the baited hook back in the hole, we had another one.  Fifteen minutes later the other holes (we had four poles out) started producing.  It kept us real busy for the next half hour going from hole to hole pulling up panfish.  Finally we decided we had enough fish and we needed to get back home, so we stopped baiting hooks and started packing up.  It was a productive day on the ice, and we have a mess of fish for a fish fry.

Phil took his old farrowing house and turned it into a warming hut.  It is a pretty impressive conversion!  They also built a hockey rink near it.  I brought my skates in case the fish weren't biting, but never had time to put them on.

Last weekend we headed west across the state line and spent the weekend in Burlington.  There was a couple of wedding showers that involve Son #2.  We stayed in a motel this trip so that the grand-kids ( who came along with their parents) could swim in the pool and have a little vacation.  We had a nice evening meal at the Wagenbach's and a blessed day in church.  It was an enjoyable weekend.

The weather has still been mostly frigid, with an occasional day or two of mild reprieve.  I think that this winter has had more days with subzero temperatures than any year in decades.

  And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every fowl of the air, upon all that moveth upon the earth, and upon all the fishes of the sea; into your hand are they delivered.
Genesis 9:2