Ice Fishing and Geocachers

Last Sunday we decided to get up early and go do a little ice fishing.  It's been unbelievably cold this year and we have quite a thick layer of ice already.  There was a good 8" on the lake.

We headed out to a nearby lake and scored parking very close to where we wanted to fish.  Depending on which lake we go to, the parking can be anywhere from 1 block to 6 blocks away from the ice.  Parking farther away can be a pain when you've got to drag everything you need from the truck to the lake.  We usually take a portable ice shanty, fishing rods, bait, an ice auger to cut holes, an ice dipper, thermos of coffee, 2 buckets to sit on, and if I'm feeling ambitious and we're going to be out there all day, we take a portable grill with hot dogs and condiments. 

The day we went it was about 35 degrees out, so we decided to forgo the ice shanty and just sit outside.  My nephew Kyle got there before us so he already had the holes drilled for us by the time we got there.

Ice fishing is pretty easy.  All you do is stick a wax worm on your hook, lower your line into the water and jig it a little.  We like to fish for blue gill and crappie through the ice....

There were quite a few fishermen out enjoying the day.  Ice fishing is a great activity and on a nice day it's fun to get out there and walk around, visiting with everyone and seeing who is catching what.

Fishing was a little slow for some people, but somebody out fished everyone.  I won't be saying who since I don't like to rub it in.  LOL!

While we were sitting there fishing, there was a group of 3 men sitting not far away from us.  I wasn't paying much attention to them since I was doing such a great job of reeling in one fish after another, but Louie happened to overhear one of them mention geocaching.   My ears perked up when I heard that, so I pushed Louie over there to find out who they were. 

It turns out that I knew one of them - Tony, aka tnt63 and his caching buddy GeoandMarTea.... 

Tony is the cache owner of one of my all-time favorite cache hides - The Lonesome Bridge.  That cache took us 3 separate trips out to find, in the middle of winter I might add,  and currently has 58 well deserved favorite points attached to it.

I walked over to say hi and grab a photo.  That's me in the extremely attractive, but very warm, red hat.  You just never know when you're going to run into a fellow geocacher.  Tony gave me a couple of tips on a few of his caches, we chatted about some upcoming events and then I returned to out-fishing my group.  Hey guys, it was nice running into you!

After about 2 hours we pooled our fish with Kyle and our buddy Pat, and we had 51 total.  We decided to call it quits since it was a Sunday and getting dangerously close to football time.

Once we got home we cleaned a nice bucket full of blue gill.....

And then fried them up for lunch with some potatoes, macaroni and cheese and baked beans.   I'll tell you one thing, there's nothing quite like freshly caught fish for lunch!

We had such a good time and I can't wait until we can go again.  Only next time I hope to make a day of it, complete with hot dogs and brats.  There's nothing in the world like standing out on the ice and frying up a pan of sausages.  The scent wafts across the lake and pretty soon we have a bunch of fisherman drooling in our direction.

Has anyone else out there ever gone ice fishing?