What were we thinking?

So today my friend Nick and I got bored at about 11pm and decided to go fishing.

No, not ice fishing, but casting into the Chippewa River.

Yes we know this is Wisconsin, it's about -2 degrees outside, and it's almost midnight.

I don't need much sleep, so time of day is not a factor. Wait for the posts about our midnight catfish adventures in the summertime. I also have the clothing to suppress frostbite at least for a while, and I grew up in northern Wisconsin so cold is not too much of a factor. But were we really going to catch anything? No. We knew that, but hey, you have to try everything at least once in your life right?

It was cold, and the ice had re-formed around the shoreline so the only place we could cast was past 15 feet of ice into a pool. I can hear the pros laughing right now, but like I said, if you don't try something once, you won't learn (unless you read it in a book). We only fished for about 10 minutes as our fingers froze to the reels and the lines were forming icicles.

Definitely not doing that again, at least until it warms up a bit.

So no fish, but we did find an aluminum boat. The place we were at was by the paper mill dam on the City Shops side, just down Hobart Street. This is a popular place in Eau Claire for catfishing and sturgeon fishing. Last year we caught 7 sturgeon there at midnight using nightcrawlers.

Till next time,
Good fishin'

Joe