We had the best time ice fishing last week!
A few weeks ago, KC saw some snow mobiles on KSL classifieds. Him and Kelley had been talking about getting some and these looked like good ones so he called the guy and drove up to Idaho to get them. It sounds like it was quite the harrowing adventure getting there. The roads were way icy and it was so so cold, but he made it! (We were out of town when he bought them) Anyway they were a great find!
I'm not gonna lie, it was freaking freezing! Yup I wanted to go fishing that bad! We have had some really cold days this month (mostly due to the dang inversion). I knew it was going to be sunny up there though so I thought it would be ok. I dug out my trusty snowsuit and snow boots and got me some new gloves ( I don't know what happened to our bag of warm stuff! completely disappeared!) This snowsuit is the best thing ever though! I found it at our young women yard sale a few years ago and besides being super sexy, it keeps me so warm!
We only had one problem that first day...we didn't have any equipment! Will had borrowed everything and was not in town to get it to us. Kelley scrounged up any fishing stuff he had on the boat and we stopped at Sportsmans on the way and bought a few cheap poles.
It was crazy driving up there. There is so much snow! It was like driving down a little tunnel cause the snow was piled so high on both sides of the road. Since we didn't have the sled, we had to wrangle all the stuff we wanted to take out on the lake on our laps or on the back of the snowmobile. I was riding with KC and about half way out there, we lost thre fishing poles. We didn't realize it though so I was glad Kelley was behind us and saw them fall. We retraced our tracks and felt lucky to find them cause the snow was so fluffy and deep!
When we got to a good spot, we had to shovel down about 3 feet of snow to get to the ice, and when I say shovel, I mean try to swipe it away with our boots because our shovel was in the sled with all the other equipment. Ha Ha! Thank goodness Jerry let us use his power auger. The ice was really thick!
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Aren't these two the cutest? They take such good care of me and take off their gloves to put my cheese on and get me all fixed up. (There was no way I was taking off my gloves that first day! It was so cold I really don't know how their fingers were even working)
After a while of no action at all, we decided to move to a new spot. After we got all set up there, this couple drove up on a snowmobile and were talking to us. The gal said she would take a picture of me if I caught anything. I was like oh sure that's going to happen! Just then I got a good hit on my line! I grabbed it quick and started reeling. The handle on my cheap fishing pole was falling off so I had to hold it on with one hand and crank it with the other. I was so surprised when I pulled out that big fish! And luckily that lady was right there to take my picture and send it to me! (my phone had died long before that because it was so cold!)
Not too long after that, Kelley caught a couple. KC got restless and went for a ride on the snowmobile. As soon as he took off, his pole started getting hit. Ha ha, we yelled at him to come back but he couldn't hear us. Kelley reeled in KC's fish just as KC was pulling up. It was getting pretty cold so we decided to go. The one snowmobile is pretty hard to start. KC would pull on the starter thing and I would hold the gas on, but then if you waited at all to take off, it would die. So I would try to hop on quick, but was never fast enough. It was pretty funny!!! But once that thing gets going it can fly! It goes super fast! Anyway KC was pretty patient with it. I would have laid down and cried cause it was so cold but with Kelley's help and some starter fluid, we got it going and back to the trailer. This was even funnier! Kelley was driving one up onto the trailer and maybe didn't judge how fast it would go. He rammed right into the front of the trailer and busted the front off. What made it even funnier was that there was a bunch of other people loading up their snowmobiles right by us and when he hit the front of the trailer it made the biggest bang! Hardly no one noticed though.... Haaaaaa
These next pictures were from this last Saturday. It was considerably warmer and just amazingly beautiful up there. There was some big ice fishing contests going on that day so we headed over to the other side of the lake. There were a bunch of people doing this kite boarding thing that really looked like a hoot! These big kite things would just carry them along on the snow and sometimes pick them right up off the ground.
Kelley and I both caught a few
Ok this was really fun! I got to ride on the back of the sled out to the lake and back!. I felt like those Eskimos that have dogs pull their sleigh! It was a wild ride and I was holding on for dear life but then I thought what's the worst that could happen if I fall off? Fall into the fluffy snow? So I just held on and enjoyed the ride!
That's my honey fixing up my lure again. I had a fish (must have been a monster haha) bite the whole lure off leaving my line just dangling. It would sure be fun to see what goes on underneath the ice!
I've decided instead of hating and dreading the winter and the cold, I'm going to try to embrace and enjoy it. There really is so much beauty in every season if you look for it.
