Ice, ice, baby

Today was my first ever ice-fishing trip. Drilling holes in the ice is harder work than it looks. About 10 minutes in the day, Jason--the guy who took me fishing--caught a 12-inch rainbow. (We'll say it was about 12 inches, anyway. Wink, wink. Actually, I don't think that's a huge lie. In fact, I might be underestimating the fish. Maybe it was more like 14 inches. Yeah, let's say 14 inches.) Then we caught no more fish in the next five hours. What I discovered, though, was that fish don't hit your bait until you've reached a critical level of distraction. When we were sitting there tending the lines, no bites. But, turn your back to take a pee-pee, open a beer, re-bait another line, open a jar of honey-roasted peanuts (mmmm, honey-roasted peanuts), answer a call, or take a picture, and, whammo!, here comes a fish. Also, obviously, combining any two distractors increases your odds of getting a bite. Another way to get a hit: drill holes a little too far apart: when you're at hole 1, fish nibble at hole 2. And vice-versa.
All in all, it was a damn fine day. Cloudy in the morning but no wind. Then the sun burned off the clouds and warmed us up just when my fingers were starting to feel like frozen sausage links. Still no wind. Plus, there was hardly anybody else on the lake. And there was snow on the ice, which meant good traction. A great day to walk on water. A great day to be alive.