Ice fishing - so this is why they do it.

Our Northern Illinois fishing buddies finally got together for some overdue hard water fishing on Niemi residence at Paddock Lake. David and I am beginners at this, and this was literally our first time ice fishing. Our guide & expert was Ross, and this was his second time ice fishing. We had several tip-ups, a couple of rods, and plenty of beer. All bundled up, we walked out onto the lake. We assumed it would be kinda tough walking through the recent 2 feet of snow, and boy were we right. There was a lot of action on the lake with the fishing derby and it was pretty exciting to see all the ice shanties and tents up…my guess is that there was at least 50+ anglers out there. Ross had some inside info from his neighbors and he guided us to the productive spot. We drilled through the 15” of ice with the augers and for a beginner like me, this was pretty exciting. Just the concept of walking to a spot, drilling a fishing hole, and kicking back on a chair & catching fish from the hole is fantastic...all with the beer can handy.

We picked up some 4” shiners at the bait shop and I had some wax worms to jig with. We walked out mid morning so the hot fishing action was over by then, but it was such a beautiful day, we were just happy to be out there. We set the tip ups here and there, and sat in a circle and cracked out the beers. There were pro fishermen around that’s been there since yesterday in their shanties and they gave us the update on the derby. A few small blue gills and perch came up on the wax worm jig, but it was kind of humiliating because our bait fish on the tip ups were bigger. After a short while, the “shot man” from the derby came by in his snow mobile to give us a shots of some good stuff. As I sat back in the chair with the warm winter sun in my face & cold brew in my hands, I thought – so this is why they do it … I should do this from time to time.

Jill, Ethan, and the family swung by to say hello and dropped off more beer. Ethan all bundled up and sitting on the carrier chair on mom’s back looked so cute. Liz helped me pull up a small blue gill and that was fun. As we sat there for a while longer, we discussed the pros and cons of a full shanty vs. a folding tent type, and where one would keep it if we got one. We didn‘t have luck on this day to hook into a big northern or a bass, but we did watch the next tip-up just to the left of us, pull out a nice northern. We finished off the day with some delicious chili & beer bread Jill cooked (thank you so much Jill!). I can’t think of any better way to spend a beautiful winter day.