ice, snow, and wind

We've been getting into ice fishing this winter.  Jen's brother gave me a manual auger for Christmas, and we gave it a try in January.  We've been out a few times now, and are learning more every trip.  Aida has come with on all but one of the times.  She's a pretty big fan, and she held a fishing rod this weekend and tried fishing!

Here is a picture from a couple of weeks ago, when my mom was in town:

Gramma caught the first fish of the day!

And here is a picture of her and me.

When we went fishing yesterday, there were spots of open water, so I'm not sure how much more ice fishing there will be this winter, although the ice was still thick where we drilled a hole.  It was really windy yesterday, with lots of blowing snow.

Before this winter, I'd only been out ice fishing with my dad a couple of times...once in North Dakota and once in Minnesota.  The time in Minnesota, my dad had entered a fishing tournament on the lake near their place and I walked across the lake to meet him after the tournament had already started.  There were tons of people on the ice.  My dad told me what he would be wearing, so that I might find him more easily.  He said something like "I'll have duck canvas coveralls and a blue stocking hat on."  Well, I got out to where everyone was fishing and standing around, and there must have been 500 people with duck canvas coveralls on!

I did find him--pretty quickly, somehow--and sat with him while he fished.  It was very, very cold.  I had heavy pack boots on and my feet were still icicles before much time had passed.  I didn't see anyone there catch a fish, but we had fun!