Ice Fishing with Kevin Rencher

Last night, my husband and three of his buddies went ice fishing. Now when you think of ice fishing, you probably think of drilling a hole in the ice, putting a wood shack over it, sitting in the wood shack with a little fire going and watching your poles all day long to see if any fish have dethawed enough to eat something dangling in front of them. I also see the guys drinking beer and talking about sports, but Kevin and his buddies are all LDS so they would only have root beer in beer bottles. But if you get the organic, all natural root beer, it has some bite to it.

The four outdoorsmen did not ice fish this way, however. They all got on their winter hunting gear, some with camoflauge even. They went out to the ice and used a gas powered auger to drill some holes into the ice. Kevin had purchased five ice fishing lines that they placed over the holes. Ice fishing lines, in case you don't know, look and work a lot like a mouse trap. Once a fish is caught, a spring is sprung and a bright orange flag sticks up. You can be far away and still see if you have caught a fish. No need to watch the hole and wait for your line to go taught. The four outdoorsmen didn't wait. They put the lures in the water, went back into our condo and cooked a nice steak dinner. After dinner, they looked out the window and didn't see any flags, so they decided to play wii. (They did choose a hunting wii game, so camoflauge did come in handy.)

Two hours later, they decided to check the flags again. This time, however, it was dark and they had to go outside. They bundled up and walked out onto the lake with head lights on. No flags were up so they were back playing wii ten minutes later. Some of the guys went home and the two left checked the lures again at midnight. After all of their hard work, they caught two fish! They brought them inside, cleaned them, cooked them, ate them and went back to bed. At seven, they checked the lures again, found nothing, cleaned up and went home.

Overall, it was an exciting event. My children were able to watch grown men work hard to catch and eat food. Actually, no they weren't because my children were asleep during that time. Come to think of it, my children really just learned that if you tell your families you are ice fishing, you can go to a buddy's house and play wii for a few hours on a Friday night. I'm not sure that is a lesson they really needed. Kevin has mentioned, though, that he is thinking of becoming an outfitter for ice fishing. He just needs to invest in a few more wii games first.