An Icey Adventure

Not like sliding on the road losing control of your car ice adventure.  (Which has been a frequent occurrence to many lately!)  I’m talking heading out TO the ice.  

Last Saturday, after breakfast out and then a quick trip to the bakery for donuts for Sunday morning, we went out on an adventure that we won’t soon forget!!  Makenzie and I went out ice fishing for the first time.  The winters here really haven’t been that good and heading out onto a lake isn’t the brightest idea some times!  But with the way this winter has gone, there is some MAJOR ice out on our lakes!  Matt packed our gear and headed out in search of wax worms.  Let me tell you… difficult to find those little buggers.  We ended up calling and driving around for almost an hour and a half!  That got kind of frustrating especially when we didn’t know how long we would actually be fishing since we’d have a three year old in tow.  But we thought the experience would be worth it!  And it was!!

When we got to the lake no one else was there.  I thought that was good… that way Makenzie could kind of wander around without bothering anyone and we could do whatever without being “watched”.  (Little did we know that MAYBE it was because they all knew something we didn’t know!  And would soon learn.)  We hopped out of the truck and piled all of our gear into our big purple sled, including an old shanty we borrowed from Matt’s dad, 5 gallon buckets to sit on, our “bird seed” (sunflower seeds), fishing poles and tackle box.  Matt pulled that rig over a little creek we had to cross and I followed with Makenzie.

To be honest, I was TOTALLY nervous.  I rather save walking on water for Jesus to do.   

Down the ditch we go to cross the creek and SPLASH.  My right leg goes right down thru the snow into the creek.  Holy cow, really?  I was already scared to begin with and now my right leg is dangling in the water while I try using my other leg to pull myself up and arm to push Makenzie back.  If I can’t even cross a shallow creek without falling thru how are we going to go out on a lake?!?!?  Eek!

I got out and Makenzie and I both got to the other side where Matt was waiting.  We quickly talked about heading back home but decided after all the work that went into getting OUT there we were going.  So through some brush we went, water sloshing back and forth in my boot, to the lake.  My heart was stinkin’ racing.  The theory of ‘if Matt can walk on it I can’ went out the window the moment he crossed the creek and I went in. 

I walked slow.  One foot at a time, taking a deep breath each step.  There were a couple of times where my foot would sink a little from some of the top layers of snow and ice melting… I would hold in a scream so I didn’t scare Makenzie!  Every little bit Matt would use the ice auger to drill a hole to check how much ice there was and he would keep going.  Onward we went. 

There was a dead deer laying out on the ice that the coyotes had gotten.  What a little learning experience that was!  Oh the questions… how do you explain the cycle of life delicately to a 3 year old.  Whew.  Sure gave us something to talk about the few hours we were out there.

Matt found us a spot to fish, drilled some holes, scooped the ice out with the giant “poon” (spoon), popped up the ice shanty, put our worms on and showed us what to do.  Into the little “house” we went and the fishing began!  Wow was that ice deep!!!  I bet it was like two feet deep!!! After I was able to SEE that my heart rate went back down to normal.  It’s no wonder my wet foot wasn’t froze… I was too worried about falling thru to even remember that my foot was wet!  Ha!

 

We had SO MUCH FUN!!  The sun was shining, the wind had died down and I was out with two of my favorite people with nothing (besides the deer and coyote questions) to distract us.  It took a while for me to get the hang of it but once I did I was able to pull a fish out and so was Matt.  Makenzie sat with the pole, longer than I thought she would, but she is just a little squirmy worm that nothing was happening with her rod.   She was a good helper carrying the giant spoon as she followed Matt around to help scoop the ice out of the holes he was drilling. 

After she started getting a little antsy and I started getting cold, we packed up and headed back across the lake (followed some raccoon tracks and coyotes), thru the brush and back to the creek.  “Oh Boy!” I heard Matt say.  Poop, what’s that suppose to mean?  Well… remember when I said that people weren’t out on the lake and probably knew something we didn’t.  Here’s where that plays back in.  The creek was totally thawed out.  No snow, no ice on top.  Us on one side, our truck on the other.  Sweeeeet. 

Well we had to cross!  Matt grabs Makenzie and puts one foot in and down it goes.  WAY farther than either of us had thought.  He stumbled and took another step half falling over but getting Makenzie across.  For a second I thought they were BOTH going to go down.  As he stayed in the water I pushed our loaded purple sled to him and then he grabbed me and tossed me across.

At that point we put it into 5^th gear and headed back to his parents to get Madison and head home.  Once we got there we ended up stripping down and putting some warm clothes on while ours dried in the dryer!  Haha!  Seriously… what an adventure!!  We surly won’t forget that anytime soon and although Makenzie probably won’t remember it I know she will remember the story!