In January 2010 I went ice fishing for the first time.   I walked onto the ice with two tip-ups and worms.  I did not catch any fish.  But, I learned a lot about presenting bait through the ice.  Experience is the best teacher.

Now in January 2011, I went back to the same pond.  I walked onto the ice with five tip-ups and shiners swimming in an aerated and insulated container.  Using a power auger and my work gloves, I drilled five holes in a “T” formation.  I rigged up my five tip-ups and left the shiners swimming at various heights off the weedy bottom.  I then trekked back through the 12 inches of snow and slush to base camp.  I waited patiently and scanned the entire pond from left to right.  The action under the ice turned to in-action.

The wind started to blowing.  To keep warm, I decided to sprint to my tip-ups to generate body heat.  I cleaned out the newly formed ice around my tip-ups with my ice skimmer.  As I was sprinting back to base camp, my friends shouted “FLAG!”  I immediately turned around and sprinted to my raised tip-up.  I reached the tip-up exhausted and fell to my knees.  I lifted the tip-up and slowly pulled line hand-over-hand….then with a sudden jerk, I set the hook.  Fish on!  As I winched up the fish, I literally felt each head shake.  The fish was a 0.7 lb chain pickerel.  I never worked so hard for a 0.7 lb fish.  But, it felt good to finally pull a fish through the ice.

An hour later, my friends said “FLAG!”.  And once again I sprinted to my raised flag.   I slowly pulled line hand-over-hand.  This fish felt larger.  A bass?  To my surprise, a 1.3 lb chain pickerel surfaced.  Chain pickerel totaling 2.0 lbs is nothing impressive.  But, it’s better than the 0.0. lbs from my first ice fishing trip. ;-).

Each fishing trip teaches me something.  The fishing trips without fish teach me the most.