Miserable is memorable

Some of my most memorable times in the outdoors have been my most miserable too.  I'm not sure if it's that way with anyone else.  I relish in those memories now, but I'm pretty sure at that given moment it was anything less then misery.

A few weeks ago I decided it was time to take my youngest daughter ice fishing for the first time.  I picked Horsethief Reservoir as I knew it was a great fishery and I didn't want her to get skunked on her first outing.  It was cold when we pulled into Cascade around 8am, and only about 10 degrees without the wind chill.  As we headed up into the mountains it quickly dropped into the single digits, leveling out at 5 degrees as we pulled into the parking lot, I refer to this as cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey.  The coldest weather I've been out ice fishing in, in a very long time.  Face mask, hand warmers, toe warmers, layers upon layers, my daughter reminded me of Ralphie from A Christmas Story.  My youngest daughter is pretty tough though, a lot tougher then I give her credit for I guess, maybe because I've always thought of her as the baby.  She loves to fish though, trout is her second favorite food...only to lasagna.

We didn't have to go too far out onto the ice, probably only 50-75 yards.  I fired up my trusty Eskimo Z71 with a 10-in auger and went to work punching holes.  I punched the maximum number of 15 holes in a horseshoe pattern in about 15 minutes through at least 18-in of ice.  I'm pretty sure that would have taken at least an hour and a half with my 6-in hand auger.  Actually I'm pretty sure 15 holes wouldn't have gotten punched, and I would have been too tired by the end of it to do anything else, sweaty, freezing, and sore as hell the next day.  Do yourself a favor if you plan on any serious ice fishing, get yourself a power auger.  I got mine from Glen Outdoors last fall when they went on sale at a screaming deal, about $150 off.

The girls had put out the tip-ups next to the holes, and I started baiting them and dropping them.  I didn't expect them to take their gloves off and help with any of this, it was way too cold out.  I only got about half of the holes baited before the flags started tripping, and I never ended up setting up anymore.

The girls were busy pulling them up and I was busy removing hooks, baiting them and resetting them...and of course trying to keep my hands warm.  Not since I worked in Alaska have my hands been so cold, they were on fire they hurt so bad.  But the fishing was good so who cares...you push through it and move on.  There was really no let up, in fact I had to start pulling the tip-ups I did have set so we didn't over quota ourselves.  I ended up just having a couple out as we neared our limit, and the girls were able to take a small break.

I don't ever remember seeing my oldest daughter being so cold, she is pretty warm blooded and a serious trooper when it comes to ice fishing.  She steps it up a notch and really helps out a lot.  She showed no selfishness at all and tried to get my youngest daughter on as many fish as she could get on.  We were only on the ice a few hours.  It was cold and miserable, but looking back now we can all agree it was a great day.