After prepping myself and the family for a lazy Sunday at home doing chores and other boring but necessary tasks, I received a welcome phone call from my Auntie inviting us to go ice fishing at Eena Lake with them.
Growing up in Prince George, most people have gone ice fishing before and many other people make fishing a regular part of their summer time fun. I have been lake fishing a handful of times in my youth and I have caught exactly three fish in my lifetime. The first two fish I caught by using raw hot dog wieners as bait off the back of a paddleboat on a small private lake that friends of the family used to own. The third fish was caught off a boat on Stuart Lake and it was also on the small side (particularly compared to the char that my friend caught right after me to show me up).
Since we've moved back to Prince George, my husband and I have gone ice fishing with my family three times. The first time was my husband's first time ice fishing in his life. Of course, I have been ice fishing a handful of times growing up in Prince George and I have never, in my life, caught a fish while ice fishing. So of course, my husband grabs a rod, puts it in the nicely augered hole and proceeds to pull out a fish within five minutes. Braggart that he is, he said: "Well, that's how it's done Megan." Grr.
The following year, it was bitterly cold and neither of us caught anything except a cold.
Just when we are so sick of winter, cold and snow that we can hardly stand to look outside, we found an eleventh hour winter activity that was lots of fun and only a little bit cold. There is something bizarrely magical about being on a lake and not in it. As we were dragging the baby, the toddler and the dog through the snow on the lake, we thought to ourselves that we really hoped the ice was still frozen. Luckily, even though we're not really outdoors people, we have friends and family in our life that make sure we're not going to die in the middle of a lake, in the final days of winter, by falling through the ice and drowning. The ice was thick and we had hot dogs for lunch cooked on a fire burning directly on the lake.
This year, I'm proud to announce, I have caught my first ice fishin' fish and boy, was it small. Truthfully, an argument could be made that my pretty little rainbow trout with its bloody nose, was actually a large minnow or guppy. Though my husband's fish was substantially larger than mine (he caught one too), I am still proud of my wee fishy. I even touched it with my bare hands. I'm so hardcore it's embarrassing.
