A Fishing Weekend – Part I

A Fishing Weekend – Part I

By Allan Olson

It happened again. We finally got to go on another hardwater fishing adventure up on Lake of the Woods, and yes, we took the kids again – at least those who wanted to go.

And when I say it happened again, I mean it really did. Once again Abigail got her foot wet, and once again I had to go diving for a fish that shook and broke the line.

These plans were made a few weeks ago: my wife would leave with one of the four kids, and head up north to go fishing early. I had to stay back because school and work interfered with my departure. However, my plans were made known on Saturday – I was going fishing.

Abigail also made her plans known. “I want to go fishing!” she said emphatically on Friday evening on the way to her destination. Marcus quickly chimed in with his opinion as well. “I don’t want to go fishing.” Nikolai was uncertain – it depended on if his cousin was going.

On Saturday morning, I couldn’t talk Abigail out of going (trust me, I tried). I didn’t dare ask Alivia (thankfully, she was still sleeping when we left). I decided Nikolai wasn’t going to have a choice. He wasn’t thrilled about being “forced” (his words) to go, but he accepted his fate. Of course, it helped that two of his cousins were going.

Off we went, all seven of us – three adults (two of my brothers and myself) and four kids, with Abigail the youngest at age five.

We reached the resort and located our fish house standing virtually by itself on a wide expanse of frozen ice. My brothers and I realized immediately that we needed to move the house, since all the rest of the houses on the lake had been moved to deeper water.

I grabbed the auger and started punching holes in the ice near the house, since there were too many people to be inside one house, and I wanted to get the kids fishing while the house was getting ready.

Finally the house was ready, with holes drilled and the heat turned on, all only about two hours after we started off on our fishing adventure.

The kids, of course, were too restless to wait in the truck, so I had three of them fishing outside in the holes I drilled while the house was readied.

For the most part, I stayed outside fishing in the sunshine and fresh winter air, leaving Abigail in the care of her uncles inside the warm house.

On one occasion, I entered the house to warm up and my oldest brother exited. No sooner had he left than my younger brother hooked onto a fish – naturally on the pole that our older brother had been using. Being a nice uncle, he let Abigail crank the fish up the rest of the way. The little sauger that was pulled up managed to tangle two other lines on his way to our dinner pail.

I ventured back outside soon and resumed my spot on the ice. Of course, the main reason I wanted to stay outside was that I kept feeding the fish on one line, never setting the hook at the right time. Finally, the fish hit the opposite pole than the one it was nailing before, and this time I got it – a nice fat jumbo perch. When I got it up on the ice, I glanced over to where the other pole was supposed to be. I shouted to my brother, “What happened to the other pole?” “It was there when I got this one.”

I walked over to the adjacent hole and realized that the missing pole had somehow managed to get tangled up with the one I had just reeled in. I pulled on the line, and up from the ice cold waters came the other pole that I had been using. I shook my head in frustration and walked over to my brother’s truck and threw it in the back. I got a new pole – one that hadn’t been submerged – and started fishing again.

Before long the kids were getting restless – Abigail in particular – and she did it again. Somehow she managed to get her foot totally submerged in the fishing hole her brother was using. At least I thought it was only one. A while later she complained about needing to go to the potty. That was a downfall of bringing only one girl along. I delayed her for as long as I could, but finally we ended up making the nearly three-mile trek back to the resort. After she took care of her business, I decided to check her feet to make sure they weren’t cold. I took one boot off – it was wet – along with her sock. They weren’t cold, just wet. She then informed me that wasn’t the foot that fell in. I took her other boot and sock off. That one was soaked; I squeezed as much water out of them as I could and put the boots back on. “How did both of your feet get wet?” I asked. “I don’t know,” she said. “You drive me crazy,” I said to her, shaking my head.

Finally, we were back in the truck again, heading back to the fishing hole. She wouldn’t sit still (imagine that). “Have I told you lately,” I said. “How much I love you,” she said, finishing what I was going to say.

The remainder of the afternoon we pulled up a couple more fish, and the kids spent most of the time playing on the ice, slipping and sliding around.

Abigail came out of the fish house a couple times. I let her play, and then I remembered she had a wet foot. “Get back in that house,” I told her. She did so without any fuss.

To read how the rest of the fishing weekend turned out, be sure to check out this column in next week’s edition of the Cass Lake Times.

Thanks for reading, and be sure to take a kid fishing. As always, feel free to drop us a line and/or a photo, and have a great week. For more of my columns visit http://allan-crazykids.blogspot.com