Tuesday, February 22, 2011

The Bull Fish Inn



  My dad and his neighbor built a spearing shed for this winter's frozen fun upon the lakes. The Bull Fish Inn, and what an in it is - 4'x8' with the shortest wall being around 7'. What a beast to move. We had good intentions of spearing some pike and catching some monster size blue gills, but as it usually goes, good intentions are easy to come by but the full reward is ellusive. There were some fun times had though this year, like when we decided to move the shanty for the second time in three weeks. It was warm enough that we had four inches of water under a light crust of ice, and then another ten inches of punky ice under that to hold us up. If you've never had to contend with pulling a two or three hundred pound box across these kind of conditions, I feel sorry that you don't know what "fun" is. Once we got it over to where we wanted it I started cutting the hole with the chain saw totally soaking one leg of my Carharts, which later became pretty stiff. Moving the shed was a pretty good payoff though. We had good size perch coming in and one small pike until the muskrats from the shoreline found the shed and decided to store seaweed inside the hole.

                                                       

the decoy




The decoy and his friends
 
Sitting outside on the ice fishing used to be fun, or even in a shed. I think that I must be getting old though. I don't find as much enjoyment in getting frozen sitting still, staring at the same weeds and lake bottom for hours as I used to. Oh well at least I'm up out of my recliner for a little while.


Yes I was awake, but dutch hadn't woke up yet
 Maybe next winter I will hitchhike to somewhere warm and full of trout streams.......probably not.


4 comments:

  1. Fun post. I've always wondered what type of people build mansions on the ice. Now I know...crazy people. I need to try this once...

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  2. It takes a special kind of crazy, A guy we knew used to put in a small kitchen so you could stay out for the whole day...or a couple I guess

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  3. Who did that? I don't remember ever being in THAT shanty.

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  4. Love the banner, and great post Luke. Somehow all that hard work on the ice lost its charm for me, but you bring back a lot of great memories. The last time I sat in your shanty on Crooked I had these HUGE browns swimming through the hole.

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