For Mama

It's a bit overwhelming to think about how I'm going to summarize 6 months and several hundred hours on the water in one post.  I was at my parents' recently and my mom said that she missed reading new entries on my fishing blog, so I need to figure it out quick.  I haven't been writing because the hamster wheel has just been spinning too fast lately.  I won't get into it too much, but home is busier and work is busier.  By day I run a residential program with 12 at risk teenage boys, and by night I run a home with 3 wild savages and the worst dog since that tourist rescued a chihauhua from Mexico only to find out it was really a giant rat.  Jamming in late night fishing trips every chance I get pretty much pushed me over the edge.  It has been a monumental summer for me, but I can't help but savor the much needed rest I've been getting lately.  I actually made it to bed before 9:00 the other night and, of course, the first thought that went through my head was that on an average night on the river I'm not even settling into my first flathead spot for another hour.

The big spring channel cat run slowed down noticably on the bayous sometime in late May.  I made a couple of flathead trips out there because I wanted a chance at some of those big flatties that don't get blocked by the dam.  There isn't a lot of structure out there, so it was tough to find them.  They probably don't even bother to hang around those waters for too long.  I caught a few here and there.  In the mean time, a fishing buddy of mine was hitting a launch that is just 15 minutes from my house.  It's down river from the 6th Street Dam, so it still fit the big flathead bill.  He was catching some nice fish, so it didn't take much to convince me to trade in my hour long drive for one that barely gets the engine warm.

I don't remember why, but I got out late my first night on this new stretch.  It was dark when I hit the water, so I didn't venture too far from the launch.  I found a deep run and tossed out my bullheads.  They were getting smashed left and right.  Holy smokes!!  It was looking good.  No big fish, but I caught 7 flatheads that night.  I had never done anything close to that in my "home water."  I left that night feeling like good things were going to be happening.

I spent most of my spare time in the early summer catching bait.  I stocked up on bullheads, chubs, and any panfish that I could find.  My next time out, I met my friend at the launch and followed him close to  2 miles down river to his honey hole.  The river was really low for much of the summer, and particularly so at that time.  You have to pass 3 islands to get to the hot spot and they presented the biggest challenge.  The river gets really narrow and shallow around them.  If you don't know the river and stray just a little too far one way or the other in some of these spots, you will find yourself bow beached with your prop grinding gravel.  Following him up river at the end of our first night felt pretty surreal.  I chased his wake in the pitch dark as he zig-zagged around all of the hazards.  I was just waiting for the whack that would put a hole in the boat and send me headfirst into the tar black water.  Luckily it never came.  Because I've been out there somewhere between 50 and 100 times since, I now know that 2 mile stretch with the intimacy of a lover.  Man that sounds gross, but it's about right.

At this point, specific nights would be pretty tough to recap.  I'll have to just run through the important stuff.  First of all, we discovered that huge schools of blue gills were stacked around and especially just behind almost every snag in that part of the river.  We caught quick limits of huge gills either with a worm under a bobber or a micro plastic on a small jig.  We also found that the crappies would start hitting just before dark and also late into the night in case you were running short on bait.  This was perfect because the flatties seemed to be keyed on the panfish.  We fished them live, cut, and most frequently alive with their tails cut off.  This seemed to provoke the quickest bite on most nights.  I'll let my pictures speak for my success this year, but I will say that it was just awesome for a Michigan river. We caught between 5 and 10 flatheads most nights and usually a good number of them were around or over 20 pounds.  I caught a handful over 25 pounds, with my biggest and new PB weighing in at 28.

We had one particular snag that we liked to start on.  It was in the deepest hole for miles and just before dark the fish would start moving out of it like they had an alarm clock set.  Waiting for the bite to get hot and then knowing that it was starting always induced a fun kind of anxiety.  Those poles would start getting smacked all around me and if I wasn't ready or I wasn't sharp, there was a good chance that I could blow it.  Some nights I did.  I whiffed on some fish, I waited too long to set the hook on others, and I let some heavy fish bully me into the junk where they tangled up and broke off.  I also had some brilliant moments when I did everything right and worked a monster off of a heavy snag, I hooked and caught 2 fish at a time more than once, and I even had 3 going at the same time on one occasion.  I only landed 2, but it was pretty sweet.

During the peek of the summer, I was catching around 10 flatheads a night.  Sometimes just under, sometimes just over.  The only bad part about that was that I found it all but impossible to make myself go home.  On a handful of nights, I told myself you only live once and stayed out until I finally had to leave to just make it to work on time.  The rest of my life suffered some because of it.  It can be kind of subtle, but when you're sleep deprived for months on end, you don't think as clearly, you don't relate to others as well, and you just plain don't get as much stuff done.  I was feeling like a fully imprisoned addict.  I loved every single minute that I spent out there this summer and found myself always craving my next fix.  I loved the somewhat relaxed ritual of catching a livewell full of hand sized gills and then the rush of the flathead chase that would ensue as the sane people were seeking the refuge of their beds to recuperate from their long days.  I thought about fishing constantly and once it got in my head that I might be able to make it out, I was driven to make it happen.

This hunger led me to continue chasing flatheads long after I ever have before in years past.  Most of the threads on the catfish forum talked about catching big fall flatheads during the day.  I followed their advice and gave it several tries.  I ran into insane wind and a maddening, endless carpet of leaves in the water.  The wind would spin by boat in complete circles if I didn't have two anchors down and the leaves would pile up on the line just about as soon as I got my bait wet.  I did manage a few midday lunkers, including a 26 pounder.  I still can't say that it was worth all of the effort, cost, and hassle.  Not that I'd be able to pass it up if the opportunity suddenly presented itself again.

One day, the gills just completely disappeared.  Hundreds on one trip, not one the very next time out.  I think they headed into a nearby gravel pit or maybe they migrate down river to Spring Lake.  I'm not sure, but wherever they go, they went.  That all but shut down my flathead chase.  I managed a few suckers out of the river after that and I have a place near my house where I can catch carp.  I caught a channel here and there on the cutbait and managed a few more small flatheads, but mostly by this time of year that bait was just getting hammered by unhookable gar pike.

I had mentioned several times by this point that I thought I was ready to get the boat put up for the winter.  Then I got the bug for catching pike and walleye.  The big ones are supposed to get really active as the water cools.  I spent one unproductive day on the bayous and then had some success back in the hot stretch.  I caught some nice pike and walleye, along with a few big smallies.  I even had a huge steelhead on one morning.  I saw it hit my lure and I watched the whole fight.  It was over before I knew it.  Without any big thrash or run, it popped my line and I watched it swim away with my $10 lure stuck to its face.

The end finally truly came a couple of Sundays ago.  It was a really warm, but windy November day.  The boys and I headed out with a few hours left of daylight.  They had their movies and snacks to keep them busy.  After landing only one smallmouth and with it getting dark, I started up the motor ready to head closer to the launch.  When I put it in forward, we just continued to drift down river with the current.  We ended up drifting into a snag that had caught a bloated deer carcass.  I scrambled to get clear of the snag and then quickly dropped anchor.  I checked the motor.  Sure enough, the prop wasn't turning in forward or reverse.  Then the rains came.  What to do?  I got the boys under the old comforter that I usually bring for them, turned off all lights and electronics, and put the trolling motor to work.  I had very little faith that it would make it the mile that we had to cover up river and directly into the wind.  An hour and a half later with rain coming down in buckets and the boys, more or less dry, sleeping in the bottom of the boat, we inched our way into the launch.  The motor is now in pieces in my basement and I am awaiting parts so I can put it back together and get the boat stored.  Probably just in time for good ice to allow me onto the lakes.

Now I can't call this entry "For Mama" and only include the boring stuff that's actually about fishing.  There's only one thing that she really wants to hear about and that is her grandkids.

Hayden didn't leave me too much to tell as she announced early this summer that fishing isn't for her.  She did have one cute moment when I came home from work one night.  As I got out of my Jeep I saw her busily getting her fishing pole baited up.  She looked very serious.  I asked her what was going on and she said that she saw a creek chub coming in and out from under the bank and she wanted to catch it for a pet.  Sure enough, she took me to the spot and within a minute we saw it pop out for a second and then quickly dart back under the bank.  She dropped a worm down by where it had come out and it shot out and took a quick swipe at it.  She yanked up, but only managed to get the bare hook caught in the tree above our heads.  I asked her if I could try.  She gave up the purple rod and reel and the crafty old sea dog had the chub swinging helplessly from the hook in a matter of 5 seconds.  Hayden put the fish in a bucket and scolded me about using it for bait.  I promised that I wouldn't.  Unfortunately, her fleeting interest left me to find that poor fish split belly up with its entrails dangling in stagnant 90 degree water 2 days later.  I should have snuck it into my bait bucket.

The boys took countless trips with me this summer.  Most of their time involved snacks, the iPod, and sleeping.  Those boys knocked out in that fresh air.  Sometimes at night they'd go quiet long enough for me to forget they were there and then one of them would let out a snore that would perfectly mimick the sound a bear would make if it were creeping up behind me ready to swipe and chomp.  Hearing sounds on the river at night is fine, but when you're lost in fishing focus and a lapse has you thinking you're alone, a low growl coming from inside the boat can just about send you swimming.  The other heart stoppers out there are the beavers that apparently don't like your boat sitting in the middle of their territory.  They swim in quietly and then smack their tails with the force of a boulder dropped off of a cliff.  When that water suddenly explodes close enough to get you wet, you have to work pretty hard to override the fight or flight instinct.  You spend the next hour wired like Kramer. 


Anyway, the boys.  Luke has built quite a lure collection, mostly by guilting me out of some of my best plugs.  It's a source of great pride for him though, and he is forever looking through it and rearranging it.  He even made his own lure this year.  How do you tell an enthusiastic 6 year old that a toy alien impaled through the gut with a 7/0 octopus hook wouldn't catch a fish in a million tries?  You don't.  You let him beat the water with it and curse the fish for being so stupid.

Luke is every bit my little clone, and he shows the most interest in fishing, so he and I have had plenty of great moments this summer.  Some of the standouts were his new love for bass fishing and then his fascination with gar pike when one happened to get its teeth caught in our braided line and actually made it all the way back into the boat.  Most of the bass came when we were throwing small jigs and plastics for panfish.  If I hooked one, I would turn the rod over to him and he would have no problem claiming it as his own.  He always wanted a picture with his monster 12 inch smallmouth.  I turned one of my smaller spinning rigs over to him this summer and he continues to get the hang of it.  Though the lure doesn't usually make it too far from the boat, he did manage to hook and land some of his own fish.

Perhaps best of all in my book is the complete awe he had for my constantly bleeding and scarred up hands from lipping and reaching into the mouths of thrashing flatheads.  In Luke's little world, this defined tough.  No band aids.  Ignore it and let it drip.  Maybe soak it into a dirty rag if you've got the time.  Maybe swish it around in the river.  When we settled in to wait for our next hit, he'd take my hand in both of his and inspect the damage.  He kept an inventory.  The next time he'd see me after a solo run, he'd take a look and say, "You got a couple new ones, right Dad?"  By the end of the summer, he was asking to handle every flathead we caught in hopes that he too would get some sweet scars.  After each release, he'd turn on his headlamp and carefully study his hands.  He announced to me during one drive to the river that all the kids in his class think he's the toughest kid in school because of his scars.  Don't worry.  I've gone over those hands and they remain perfect.  I haven't allowed my boy to be mamed and disfigured at such an innocent age.

Old Linc is a piece of work.  Most of the time, I don't think he remembers that he's fishing or even in a boat.  I could be fighting 3 fish and trying to get a 4th off of the hook and he'd be sticking a Gatorade in my gut asking me to get the cap off.  I don't know how many times I said, "A little busy here, Linc."  Another favorite of his was sneaking in and sitting in my seat when I stood up to fight a fish or make some adjustments.  I must have sat on him 50 times this summer.  We're working on his awareness.

His need to take a pooh at the absolute worst moment became legendary.  I think his record was 5 times in one night.  My responses in order were as follows, "Really?  Okay, just give me a minute."  "Geez boy, what did you eat today?"  "What?!  You're kidding, right?"  "Lincoln!!  What is going on?!" and "You know where the bucket is.  Mom said she wants you to keep her company next time."  His responses in order were, "Dad, wite now!" "Peanut buttoo and jewwee . . . and fwoot."  "No, Dad.  I'm seewious."  "Nothing's going on, I just have to poop." and "Good, I love Mama.  Wayws the bucket?  I need you to  hode it fo' me."

The boy is actually really good at fishing.  He's got a knack for it.  When the line isn't wrapped around the end of the pole, he zips it out there nice.  My best memory of him was probably when I set up a line with a hook and sinker for both of the boys with no pole.  We sat the boat over an absolute cloud of gills in about 3 feet of water.  That kid was loving life at that moment.  We called it "Hillbilly Handline Fishing," and he had it down.  I could barely fish I was so busy taking his fish off the hook for him.  He was mesmerized.  Not too many kids have a giggle cuter than Lincoln's, and it was just rolling out of him that day.  I made him out to be a fishing god and the pride was just dripping off of him.  Great moment.

He wasn't awake for my second favorite moment.  I took these pictures and a few more on an impulse so that I could show them to him the next day.  I pulled the pictures up on the computer and called him into my room the first chance I got.  Before I could say anything, he let out a huge gasp and yelled, "No you did not put that catfish on me!"  Then he fell down laughing.  I told him that it had cuddled with him and told him bedtime stories all night.  The picture of it whispering in his ear just about convinced him, but he knows my game by now.  Man, that made me laugh!  Both in the boat when I was looking through the pictures and saw the one where it looks like the fish is talking to him, and then the next day when I got to see his reaction.  Lincoln is a notorious mama's boy, but I think he has fun screwing around with me.  He's pretty good at giving it back to me.  I hope he's having fun.  Otherwise, there will be therapy.

This new stretch of river is my new heaven and my new drug of choice.  I'm probably struggling more than ever with that fine line between enjoying a blessing and allowing myself to be controlled by my passion.  I actually scare myself at times.  I'm a different me out there.  I'm fully engaged, fully at peace, and fully natural.  Does that not sound like a meth head talking about getting high?  I guess all I can do right now is thank God for broken outboards and start organizing my ice fishing gear.

Back In the Boat

I spent much of the early spring so far trying to find new creeks and streams with public access to give me more options for catching bait.  I even contemplated starting a small business selling creek chubs and other live and cut bait.  It turned out to be a little more complicated at this point to be worth my while, but it may be doable in the future if I get a good system figured out.  Chubs can be a lot of work to keep alive, so I've got to get a good and affordable livewell system in place that can hold high numbers without my having to spend very much time changing out water.  I also have to have a lot of spots where I can catch them.  Two or three good days on a even a nice long section of creek can deplete the chubs to nothing until you get at least one more heavy rain.  I did find a few more decent places close by to fish for them and also discovered brown trout.  I caught several of them out of Buck Creek and found it to be a great time.

With the warmer than normal weather that we've been having, the cats were always in the back of my mind.  I finally got the boat and my gear ready, and the boys and I spent half a day out by Bruce's Bayou yesterday.  It felt warm and calm at home before we left, but we found it to be pretty windy and quite a bit cooler once we got on the river.  Sweatshirts and light jackets left us just a little a little too chilly to feel comfortable.  I gave up my coat and let the boys use it as a blanket to keep them happy.  Snacks and an iPod loaded with Superman cartoons also bought me some peace.  I almost paid dearly for it, though.  Towards the end of our evening, I turned around just in time to stop Lincoln from dropping the iPod in the river.  It was dangling from two of his greasy little fingers just inches above the water.  "Lincoln!!  What are you doing?!  Give me that thing!!"  "Doesn't it float, Dad?"  There was also plenty of squabbling, whining, and over-the-top silly talk about pooh, butts, and peckers.  I patiently corrected them until I was blue in the face.  Finally, when they had each other by both ears (4 hands, 4 ears) and were an inch from each other's face with their teeth clenched and the angry insults flowing, I gave them a little pop to the back of both of their heads (2 hands, 2 noggins).  Transformed them into perfect little soldiers.  Screw Super Nanny!  Sometimes a measured amount of pain delivered from a controlled hand is about the only thing that will get through to a kid.  It's downright tough fishing with two little boys, but despite the many difficulties we all would say that we had a good time.

It goes without saying that I could have caught a ton more fish by myself or with another adult, but we didn't do too bad.  We caught a 10-pounder right off the bat and then a 5 just about as soon as we set up.  That spot slowed down, so we moved a little and dropped fresh bait.  Same result.  Caught a couple fish in no time at all.  Then it died.  We were in a big flat, so this didn't make much sense, but we went with it.  We found a pretty long run that averaged 13 feet deep, so we gave it a try.  Caught a dink and then our biggest fish of the day.  It was a 14-pounder.  It bent the rod and kept it down, and then pulled out some drag on a tight reel.  That was a good time.  Things slowed down after that, so we decided to take a ride up river to find some snags.  We probably only went about half a mile.  It wasn't bordered solid with woods, so the visible snags were limited.  We fished two in 4-6 feet of water.  Both coughed up 2 fish, including a 13.  We got a double on the second snag and Luke did a really good job bringing one of the fish in by himself.  Last year he demanded that I hold the rod because the fish were too strong for him.

Lincoln had been talking about having to drop a deuce since about two hours in and we were all just a little chilled, so we decided to wrap it up at about 6:30.  We had boated 11 fish.  Not a bad day.  Made me anxious to see what I can do on a solo trip.  I had 5 cats in the livewell for a friend from work.  We noticed that they were sucking up the oxygen and killing the chubs.  I still had a bunch left in there, so I decided to put the cats in the bottom of the boat for the ride home.  What a mess.  I had to get the scrub brush and wet vac out today.  That boat sure cleans up nice.  I need that kind of carpet in my house with our evil little dog and 3 kids who seem to look for things to spill.  We need something that we can scrub with bleach and hose down.  Anyway, I'm checking the weather and my work schedule to see when I can take a day off.  I'm hoping that Mort can join me for at least a few hours.  When we hit that 10-pounder before the silt settled from dropping our first bait, I knew that he'd have the time of his life if he was with us.  He's got plenty of chances ahead of him.  We just popped the top on a new season.  Let me breathe that in for a minute.  A whole new season ahead of us.  Life is good.

Wrapping It Up Before I'm Belly Up

The warm trend kept up this winter, but it stayed cold enough to keep ice. We never had more than 5-inches around here. Easy on the auger, hard on my mom and the other people who worry about me. I did find myself extra cautious. I rarely went without my spikes hanging from my neck and even hung a boat cushion off of my shoulder on the last day of my season. My kids always wore their life vests, at least until we'd covered a lot of water and drilled a lot of holes to determine that it was safe.

This will by no means go down as my best year ever as far as the fish go.  I had my share of mishaps, too.  I got wet again trying to make it over the shore ice at the end of my last day out, leaving everyone exasperated by my stubborn drive to fish.  No new records.  Caught a few more nice pike, but flags were few and far between.  Never seen the panfish so skiddish and lock-jawed.  Could hardly find the perch and never found an active school of nice hungry jumbos like in years past.  I think the strange weather probably screwed things up under the ice.  I don't want to think that the lake is out of monster pike and pig perch.  I'm actually sure it's not.  The fishing pressure is next to nothing and I am quite certain that nobody is taking either out of there in any kind of numbers.

Though it wasn't the year I was drooling about in December, I found every trip to the ice purely enjoyable.  It's that "never more alive" thing (which is ironic because my family was sure that ice fishing was going to result in my death).  Losing myself in that wide open is intoxicating.  Searching and tweaking and adjusting until I solve the puzzle and find the active fish puts me in a euphoric state of mind.  Knowing that a flag could pop at any time and I could go into battle with a 40+ inch pike is just good stuff.  I'm happy out there.  I'm happy otherwise, but having a passion that exudes from your bones is the cherry on top of a good life.  I can be objective and understand why someone would say, "It's just fish, get over it."  I don't know why they get my serotonin flowing, but man they do, and I thank God that he made this part of who I am.  If it isn't too late and you're not already muttering "freak," I should digress and highlight some of the good and some of the bad.

I took a Friday off to hit the ice alone in early February or so.  I wasn't intending on bringing Lincoln, but when it was time to drop him off at preschool/daycare it dawned on me that this was a great opportunity to spend a day just him and me.  He was thrilled with the idea, so I suited him up and headed north.  Lincoln is barely four, so he can pretty much drive you crazy at any given moment.  For example, the process of getting him dressed usually involves him walking to 3 different rooms, wrestling with the dog, playing with 7 different toys, 2 arguments with his brother, a story about why he loves his mom so much, and getting hurt and screaming like he's just been scalped alive and the open wound is being soaked in salty lemon juice.  All the while I'm standing there with his shirt in my hands and have called his name so many times the dog has started coming to it.

ADHD Lincoln didn't show up to the ice that day.  After a bit of searching, we found an active school of gills.  I sat the boy down on a junior sized bucket, gave him a fishing pole, and let him go to work.  No ADD medication has ever worked like this.  He was on his game.  He sat just as quiet and still as one of those British guards with the tall fuzzy black hats.  He listened intently to my instructions and jigged with the precision of a grizzled veteran.  He was in the zone and he stayed in the zone.

I haven't been able to break him of his mama's boy thing, and let me tell you it's incessant and extreme, so you can bet I was thumping my chest in man pride.  Daddy's little fisherman.  He now announces to Hayden and Luke that he still loves his mom, but he loved his dad that day he took him ice fishing.  Then he says, "Right, Dad?" like it's just normal and everything's cool.  Small victories towards the greater battle, I guess.  Anyway, Linc pulled a couple through but was having a hard time getting the timing down on setting the hook.  Pretty soon I became the hooker and he became the reeler inner.  In his world, the reeler inner gets the credit for the fish.  He also tells everyone that he was a better fisherman than Dad that day.  I'll give him that one if it will keep the passion alive.

All of a sudden, I'm remembering the exact date of that trip.  It was February 10.  You know how I know that?  Because it was Luke's birthday and we were several hours late getting home.  After Lincoln had caught several gills, he got hungry.  We ran to McDonald's to get some food to eat in the shanty.  A  pretty good snow storm had kicked up and Lincoln had started talking about being cold.  His eyes were getting heavy and I saw him sneak a few yawns.  The light bulb appeared above my head.  Lincoln taking a nap=uninterupted fishing time for Dad.  I should also add here that I had recetly lost my cell phone and forgot to bring my watch that day.  Why this is an important detail will make sense later.

I turned on the heater in the shanty and grabbed a couple of boat cushions for Linc to sleep on.  He knocked out almost before I could back out and zip up the flap.  When he woke up, I remember being a little disappointed that he had taken such a short one.  In reality, he had been asleep for over 2 hours.  He had also started the nap later than normal.  My fish brain doesn't have room for all of those details.  It also didn't have room for how long it takes to break everything down in a snow storm and then drive home in said snow storm.

Let's see if you're with me.  Luke's birthday.  Mom is hoping to go out for dinner and then do presents and cake.  Dad is on the ice with Mom's baby in the middle of a blizzard.  Mom has no way to contact Dad.  Dad's fish brain doesn't tell him that he should contact Mom.  Dad is several hours late.  Whose head do you think is about to explode?  I won't tell you, also, that I started up the Jeep and put Lincoln in there so that he could be warm while I packed up.  I apparently took so long that he developed the urge to pee, held it as long as he could, and then finally gave up and let lose all over his 2 layers of pants, his snow pants, his socks and boots, and the car seat.  Still haven't learned that "don't give Gatorade to your kids when you take them ice fishing" lesson (see Sophomore Blues entry).

Michelle could have let me have it way more than she did when I got home.  She was pretty understanding or at least had calmed down by then.  I should add that Luke's real birthday party was the next day and I was every mom's dream as a birthday party thrower assistant.  I even stood on a chair holding a pinata so that 6 year old boys could swing a two inch thick wooden dowel at my knees.  Yeah, I've seen the America's Funniest Home Videos clips.  I knew what was at risk.  I wanted to be able to fish again with my wife's blessing, so if it meant taking a wild shot to the knee cap, bring it on.

In my head, that story was in the "good" category.  I guess I forgot about the whole ruining Luke's birthday thing.  That picture that I have in my head of Lincoln, the dialed in fishing master, must have blocked it out.

Yeah, it must have.  Because I screwed up in an all too similar fashion later that same month.  This time with Hayden.  My trying to figure out the fish thing takes place at home probably more so than on the ice.  I read everything I can on the internet, including forums.  I stumbled across a few different threads about how dead smelt is the bait to use if you want to catch the kind of pike that give small children nightmares.  As soon as I read that, my mission in life became getting my hands on some smelt.  I started by looking into frozen smelt but the only way that I could get them was ordering them, and the shipping was through the roof.  Then I discoved that they have them in Gull Lake and it's quite a big deal for guys to go out and catch them.  My new mission became finding out everything I could about ice fishing for smelt, and to troll the forum for any information about how it was going on Gull Lake this year.

Luke and I had a pretty good initial scouting trip, with the exception of finding the lake 90% open water when we got down there.  People were helpful and we found where there were two small bays at the south end that had good ice.  We got there early enough to try for some pike and for Luke to skate.  No flags and Luke face planted and got a bloody nose.  Why are my good trips coming off smelling less than rosy?  He was okay and still in the game, so we joined the little shanty town that was starting to grow over in the second bay.  Once in the shanty, Luke was content to eat beef jerky and potato chips while I tried to figure out how to catch the pike candy.  The schools showed up right away and I got all kinds of bites.  What I didn't have was the knack for hooking them.  Got about 100 bites.  Caught 4.

It could only get better from there, so the very next week I asked Hayden if she wanted to come with me to try it again.  I promised her ice skating and non-stop action on the fishing pole.  We were both pretty excited about it.  What I didn't factor in was that I had taken a half day off of work when Luke and I had gone.  I worked a full day before Hayden and I headed down.  Made it tough to get down there with any kind of daylight left.  It also started sprinkling the minute we exited the expressway.  The sprinkles turned into a full blown rain shower by the time that we got to the lake.  When that voice inside my head (logic, reason, sound judgment) tells me I better go home, I answer it with, "I'm here.  I'm gonna fish."  We were there, so we were gonna fish.

I apologized to Hayden that she wasn't going to get to skate, but promised that it would still be fun.  I asked if she wanted to wait in the car until I got the shanty up.  She said she wanted to stay with me.  I put my extra coat on her so that she could stay dry and we trudged our way out to Smelt-ville.  I picked a spot and started to set up, but our would be neighbors came out of their shanty smoking, drinking, and cursing.  Probably not the best atmosphere for a daddy-daughter moment, so we moved to the other side of shanty town.

Once we were set up, Hayden got busy on the snacks.  I tried to find the fish.  They showed up immediately just a week before.  That night, there was barely a trace.  No schools, just individual fish here and there.  I dropped my bait above the first fish and it went screaming away like its tail was on fire.  Uh-oh.  Tried another one.  Same reaction.  Went like that all night and not one full school showed up.

In the mean time, Hayden was done with the snacks and had figured out pretty quick that the fishing wasn't worth her time.  In a small shanty full of equipment, chairs, and a red hot lantern, she was all over the place.  She squeezed behind me because she wanted to see what was in the bag in the tight place between my chair and the wall, she cut it close with the lantern a couple of times, she dropped my braid cutting scissors down the hole, broke the scoop off of my ladle trying to dig a swimming pool for the minnows, kept trying to wander outside . . .  I wasn't getting much fishing done.  She finally put some minnows in their new pool and named them all.  This kept her busy for a little while.  Not that I was able to catch anything anyway.

I started feeling bad about dragging her out there.  Of course I had envisioned her skating to her heart's content with a bright orange sun setting in the sky behind her and then pulling up fish after fish, and enjoying every minute of it.  A cloud of dread formed around me as I thought about her standing in the cold dark rain while I took down the shanty and tried to fit everything back in the sled.  It got a little darker when she said that she was cold and hungry.  I got the coat back on her and got to work.  She was a trooper.  If she was miserable, and I'm sure she was, she never said it.  She actually helped me pack up and stayed tough as we sloshed back to the Jeep in rain that must have been a half a degree above freezing.

Between the drive, unloading everything on the sled, walking out, setting up, taking down, walking back to the Jeep, loading everything again, and driving back home, that trip takes forever.  I got Hayden home at around 10:30 on a school night.  To make things worse, the evil dog was asleep with Michelle and went ballistic when the garage door went up.  Understandably, she was less understanding this time.

That trip was kind of the beginning of the end.  The fish got really tough to catch on my home lake.  I'd find them and they'd take a good long look at my bait, but they just weren't eating.  Sometimes they'd sit on it for minutes at a time without so much as a taste.  I'd still catch them, but one or two at a hole and they'd shut down or move on.  Flags became almost nonexistent.  I'd go whole days with one or two flags and it became common to pull in a roughed up minnow.

My enthusiasm unwavering, I told Michelle that all I wanted for my birthday is 2 days of complete ice fishing indulgence.  She granted me my wish, so I was up at 5:00 on the morning of my birthday and on the ice before the sun was up.  My dad called to ask about the ice and to say that he and my mom were worried about me.  The first thing that I had done when I got out there was measure the ice.  It was ugly on top, but it was 4-5 inches thick and there was still some good, solid, clear ice under the junk.  I told him that I had a boat cushion on a rope around my neck and my spikes.  He didn't seem too reassured.  I've always wanted to please my parents, and the day I turned 38 I started getting a nagging feeling in the pit of my gut that they were none too pleased.

I caught a 40-inch muskie on my birthday last year.  I thought of it as God's little present for me.  He must not have been too happy with me either, because no such present waited for me this year.  I had a typical day of late.  Caught a few here and there, but only if I moved a lot.  A few flags, but they kept dropping the minnow.  Caught one small bass on a creek chub.  In the evening, I put my shanty up over 40 feet of water to fish for crappies.  Someone who lives on the lake felt compelled to yell out and ask me how thick the ice was.  He was using his "You're an idiot" tone.  This was the thickest ice on the whole lake, so I felt okay.

The crappies didn't disappoint.  There was a distinct school just off the bottom and another suspended in the upper half.  When I dropped my jig to the lower school, the screen would fill from top to bottom as the fish crawled out of the woodwork to investigate.  I used a glowing Ratso tipped with a minnow and they found it to be delicious.  I used a second dead-stick rod with a minnow on a bare hook.  I had to give it up because I couldn't keep up with both rods.  Pulling fish out of 40 feet of water is a death sentence for them.  The pressure change blows up their swim bladders and causes their eyes to pop out of their heads.  I kept them for a couple of fish eaters at work.

My dad called in the middle of the maylay to suggest that I sit in front of the fire and watch some TV with him.  This meant that my mom was still worried.  Oh man.  Chasing these crappies was probably what I had been looking forward to most since I had a hunch that they'd be aggressive when the rest of the fish in the lake were not.  They were living up to my expectations and then some.  Guilt for making my mom worry and knowing how concerned everybody else was made me finally start to wonder if I should be concerned.  I decided that I had pushed my luck far enough.  I abandoned the hundreds of active fish, broke camp, and headed back to the dock to drop off my shanty and other things before getting my tip-ups.

When I approached the dock, I noticed a little more water around it and that the water was starting to creep on top of the ice.  I made it on the dock as dry as a bone, but still had my tip-ups on the ice behind me.  I put my spotlight on them and found that I had a flag up.  I tested the ice and it moved a little, but it had just held me.  I tentatively put my weight back on it, but no sooner did I let go of the dock when the ice caved in around me.  It's only waste deep there and I scrambled out quickly.  I wasn't cold, just wet.  Wet and stupid.

I was supposed to sleep at my parents' that night because they live close by and I had planned to head right back out in the morning.  I sat out there in the dark in my wet pants and boots, phone in hand, for several minutes before calling them.  This whole fishing thing for me, although annoying to everyone because it's about all I talk about, is considered overall by my family to be good and healthy.  By making everyone worry and then proving them right by falling through, I felt that I had tainted that.  I know that I carry my obsession too far at times, but it's usually pretty harmless.  This was one of those times when I was purely selfish and hurtful to those around me.  After screwing up Luke's birthday and keeping Hayden out in the cold until 10:30 in the rain and dark, I was beginning to recognize a theme.

When I tell that voice, "I'm here, I'm gonna fish" there's usually more to it.  I stifle it to keep it from becoming a full conscious thought, but it's there.  I'm here, I'm gonna fish . . . even if Michelle gets frustrated because it's my third night away this week, and she's been saying she'd like some time with me . . . even if my mom and mother-in-law are worried sick about my safety . . . even if I haven't seen my kids much lately and should get home to help put them to bed . . . even if I have a million things to take care of at home that should have been done 2 weeks ago . . . even if I'm dragging my kid out for the millionth time and they just want to be home . . .

I'm blessed to have a passion.  It's brought me endless joy.  I have the opportunity to share it with my kids and others around me.  What I'm just starting to learn is that I have to get a handle on managing it.   Find the brakes.  I don't think I have any right now and didn't think I needed them until I fell through after ignoring countless warnings.  God thumped me on the head that night.  Got me good with one knuckle.  He could have used a sledge hammer.  I could have gone through in 40 feet of water in the pitch dark, without a single soul around to drag me back out.  I better start listening before he reaches for something with a little more heft.  I better wrap it up before I'm belly up.  More practically, I better learn a different answer to that little voice when it tells me that it's time to go home.  If I don't, I might not end up belly up, but the good graces of those that are important to me will be belly up, bloated in the hot sun, and floating amongst trash and dirty foam in stagnant brown backwaters.  Put the fishing pole down, Matt.  Put . . . the fishing pole . . . DOWN!