A slow day on the lake

An ice fisherman’s persona is one of toughness, muscle and grit. If you’re going to plant your backside out on a lake’s frozen surface in January, you’d better be something of a “He-man.” It’s cold out there.

The required amount of machismo an ice fisherman requires explains why I haven’t gone angling this winter; I’m a bit of a panty-waist myself. My wife will tell you. However, with the weekend temperatures set to be in the low to mid 30s, I thought perhaps this was the time to get outside and shake off the cobwebs. And I did.

Now, I’ve got this lake I like to fish in the winter — and each time I’ve mentioned the lake by name some old man calls me at home; screams and rants about how I’m giving away all the great angling secrets of the area; says I’m an idiot, a writing hack and a bottom feeder. There are typically some threats of physical violence and a loud hang up. It’s a given. And though my father-in-law is all bark, I’ll refrain from revealing the lake’s name.

Anyhow, my nine-year-old son and I went to this lake on Sunday. The sky was as bright a periwinkle blue as I’ve ever seen, and the sun shone so brilliantly the day actually hurt the eyes. We wore light jackets and big broad smiles. It was perfect in almost every way. We were glad to be here.

And though I am a guy who seemingly spends all his time fishing and hunting I have as sparse a collection of outdoor gear as any man. I don’t own a single duck decoy, for example. And I don’t own an ice auger. What I do have is a big metal bar, which I brought along in hopes that other anglers had been here recently and I would simply chip out their left-behind holes. My optimism paid off, at least in that aspect of our trip.

Filled with the joy of being out of doors in the dead of winter — away from the house and indoor life — as our thoughts turned to the possibilities that lay before us, Jack and I edged out onto the lake. And we had the entire place to ourselves. I chipped out some holes and Jack scooped up the remains. We laughed about nothing; we talked about things of little importance — we were an angling team on a mission. Our fishing-hole construction choreography was perfect, and in no time we had lines in the water.

We knew it wouldn’t be long before we were hauling in bluegills and crappies — keepers and fryers and trophies of every size — or so we thought.

In fact, it never happened. While seemingly the rest of the civilized world wasted their Sunday afternoon watching football, Jack and I wasted our time staring at a series of ice-fishing black holes from the edge of angling outer space — bait and hooks went in, and nothing came out. OK, the holes did cough up two bluegills so small they’d have fit in an aquarium at the doctor’s office, but that’s next to nothing in my book.

To sum it up — the fishing was not good. Not good at all.

Sure, sure, the day was nice enough. It was warm. The pines stood majestically on shore, their branches stretched out to welcome in this January thaw. The wide snow-packed trail that led to the lake was pleasant enough, and the babbling creek that giggled along beside us sparkled. Blah, blah, blah — even I get a little tired of reading this mush. I wanted a fish. I didn’t get one.

I tapped out roughly a dozen holes. Together, Jack and I sent enough wax worms down into the depths of the lake to lure in a fine fish-fry of bluegills and crappies. We got nothing. Occasionally our bobbers dipped below the water slowly, an indication that something small was on the nibble — something tiny and thin — but still, something. We couldn’t get them. I imagined the fish below were so miniscule they weren’t able to stretch open their wee-little lips wide enough to reach over the barb of the hook.

We did have a spirited snowball fight, each of us tossing softball-sized bombs at one another from great distances, and that was fun, until I got hit in the eye and lay prone on the ice with my hands over my face. Jack kept firing away and eventually I had to threaten him with grounding to get him to stop. But we never caught any fish.

And I would tell you where this all took place, but it’s not likely you’d even care.

Darrell Pendergrass of Grand View, is a Wisconsin Newspaper Association outdoor writing award winner and director of the Washburn Public Library. His articles have appeared in the St. Paul Pioneer Press and the Milwaukee Journal. A collection of his stories appears in his new book, “Still Out There: A life afield,” is available for $18 at: Darrell Pendergrass, 52405 Otto Olson Road, Grand View, WI 54839.