Woo Hoo! Ice Fishing Contest!

The 16th annual Big Wood Lake ice fishing contest was on Valentine's Day this year. It was awesome I went up to Sarah's grandparents house with ALL of my fishing buddies; Nick, Nik, Jeremy, Andy and of course Xavier. Sarah and Nicks girlfriend Nicole were there too; and my mom showed up and fished for awhile!

We'll start with the ride up. Sarah, Xavier, Nick, Nicole and I all rode up in my truck with the gear in the back. We borrowed one of my co-workers portable ice fishing shacks so the back of the truck was pretty full. Here's the funny part, Andy's girlfriend Liz was going to come, but she was exhausted from school and needed a break so she stayed home. She was going to drive her saturn up there and we would have plenty of room for everybody. But since she didn't come, Jeremy had to drive....with Nik and Andy....in his Ford Ranger. Needless to say it was pretty cramped for those three but they made it with a few stretch stops along the way.
The weather was good, not too cold, a little overcast, and not too windy. The big ice shack was out there and we took our borrowed shack out there along with Stan's (Sarah's grandpa) other portable shack. We put out about 12 tip-ups and all got comfy in the cold shacks and started fishing.

I remember a little saying; If fishing was easy, it would be called catching.

And we were fishing, the camera and Stan's vexilar found the fish, but they were not hungry. Nick and I were even jigging waxies right in front of their noses and they wouldn't bite.
So after a while my mom went inside to play with Xavier after she spent some time cooped up in the shack with Jeremy (that must have been fun...).

But there were some Sunfish biting. Nik got the first and second ones, Nick then got two watching the camera, I got one, Nik got a bass, Nick caught 2 more, Jeremy caught one, and finally Andy caught one. We caught one pike on a tip-up but that was it.

All-in-all it was a great trip. Grandma's chili warmed us all up at lunch and supper, and Sarah's grandparent are the mose welcoming family in the world. We all felt like we were at home and that was the best part. Not many fish, Andy got to take those home after some cleaning tips from Stan, and we were all tired after a "hard days work."

Till next time,
Good Fishin'
Joe