When US Senator Bernie Sanders boasts of our good old Yankee hardiness on the national stage, one doesn't ask questions, you just load up your best gear and you get out there! The trouble is, it had been a lot of years since "getting out there" meant ice fishing for Wayne and I. Though our coats in my estimation, are on par with Senator Sander's, the rest of our gear looks like something out of the 90s. Truth be told, my jigging rod is actually one of our children's first fishing poles. Wayne was feeling a little outdated when we arrived at Lily pond and wasn't entirely certain that he wanted to use his heavy pry bar as an ice spud when the other guys out there had gas augers. I mentioned that my grandfather used to use one just like it and suddenly we were in business!
There wasn't really any need at all for anyone to question Wayne's methods. If anyone knows how to handle a pry bar it's Wayne who honed his mad skills by removing tree stumps with that bar and a maddox. That long red bar has an arc that Wayne put in it twenty years ago when standing on it while convincing a stump to give up.
It takes a lot of thinking to load an ice fishing sled with such precision. Is is any wonder that I make Wayne crazy when I suggest things like we should bring the dogs too. Wayne won that argument by pointing out that it was around twenty degrees out and the dogs would get too cold.
Suddenly it was my turn to do some heavy lifting. I didn't volunteer mind you, he just handed it to me and stood back.
With five inches of ice, a lure at the end of my line and a five gallon bucket on which to sit upon, there was nothing left to do but take in the scenery, watch the other people fish and wait for a bite.
Fishing in the crisp (freezing really) clean air of Vernon offers one the rare opportunity to quietly contemplate the beauty of the winter season. It's either focus on that or the gradual loss of feeling in your extremities. Just when I was wondering if it had all been worth it, a rainbow cloud formed over the tree line. I know that it truly was a cloud and not just my windswept frozen eyeballs playing tricks on me, because I actually managed to tap my purple finger on the camera icon and captured it!
It's amazing really how the day just slowed right down. If it weren't for the ice popping, groaning and threatening to drop right out from under me, I might have drifted off to sleep. The Clark's house sure did look warm....
When the shadows had crept over the ice, one of the families began packing it up. Fearing that I was about to miss the social scene that so many love about fishing, I hollered over to them. "Did you catch anything?" seemed like an appropriate ice breaker. Adam said that it had been a long cold day, but they had caught three pickerel and one was sixteen inches. Knowing that some fishermen closely guard their choice of bait, I kept it vague and asked if he was using live bait. It seemed that I was beginning to gain a few social skills on the ice. To my amazement, Adam immediately offered to share some of his minnows with us which I gratefully accepted. How nice are the people of Vernon? They are Adam nice!
With live bait, Wayne decided to set his tip ups,
and Adam called it a day.
In all we spent two entire hours on the ice and the only fish we saw were bait in the bucket.
I suppose there's always tomorrow. - Norma Manning
Special thanks to Lilli who made it possible for me to fish along side of Bernie. Is seems that Buffalo NY has a few nice people too.
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