Wayne in BC
New member
Royal's post reminded me of an adventure that can only come from youth and just plain goofyness!
I was always a fisherman, my first and clearest memories from childhood have almost exclusively been of piscatorial pursuits. This fixation, tho i do not remember from whence it came, cause my Dad did not fish and was always gone somewhere with the military, always played a huge part in my life. It also kept me out of much more serious trouble
After leaving the West coast for the "frozen prairies" at about age 10 in the mid fifties, my fishing seemed to be over. No longer would a couple minutes walk in decently warm weather even in winter, bring me Trout, Salmon, etc. We were some 20 miles from any water that held fish, and those fish were considered "trash fish". Pike, Perch, Suckers, etc.
As time went by they became much less trashy, even sought after enough that i and a friend would ride our bikes many miles for these smelly critters
My fishing even progressed, due to withdrawal, to "ice fishing"! The domain of a hardy breed of desperate fools, who, bereft of all the modern conveniences such as warm clothing, "ice augers" and "ice tents", would spend hours with an axe chopping holes through up to 3 feet of ice ( the hole started 3 feet wide, narrowed to 8 inches and you got real wet finishing it!) to have fun, while our Sainted mothers would attempt to cook the, often scrawny and boney, frozen stiff "trophies" we proudly brought home.
One day the inevitable finally happened, you can only tempt fate with stupidity for so long then.....
I was 25 years old, recently married to a female critter who fished....(only while we were dating
) I had a day off, it was winters tail end, late March, but still lots of ice on the lakes and i had a hankering to get some Lake Whitefish, one of the better eating critters the prairies had. I rounded up my gear, consisting of my ice auger, short rod and lures, a plastic covered pad to lie on, an old tarp which i would throw over my head to block out the light, making it easy to see my quarry, and a toboggan to haul it on, in the trunk of the car. Then i was off on a 40 mile drive to the lake, most of it on a main hiway.
It was a nice sunny day, temp about 50 when i arrived at Lake Wabamum. This lake is quite large, nearly 10 miles long by 3-4 wide. It has a coal fired electrical generating plant on one end which has a warm water discharge. We liked that end of the lake as the ice was not near as thick, often only 8-10 inches thick and that made cutting holes much easier. One had to beware and not go too near the area near the plant, there was open water no matter how cold it got, plus a huge cloud of ice fog you could get lost in!
This day i was a mile away from the open water, but the bay i was in had only 8 inches of ice due to the warmer weather and effect of the power plant. The water was clear, maybe 20 ft deep, and you could see every weed on the bottom with the tarp over your head. There was still several inches of slushy snow on the ice so i followed a hardpacked snowmobile track out a few hundred feet, cut a hole, and immediatly caught a fat 5 lb Whitefish. Whoo hoo! Life was good
Now you all know darn well that i am gonna fall through the ice, and that is sorta but not really what this story is about which i will continue........
I was always a fisherman, my first and clearest memories from childhood have almost exclusively been of piscatorial pursuits. This fixation, tho i do not remember from whence it came, cause my Dad did not fish and was always gone somewhere with the military, always played a huge part in my life. It also kept me out of much more serious trouble
After leaving the West coast for the "frozen prairies" at about age 10 in the mid fifties, my fishing seemed to be over. No longer would a couple minutes walk in decently warm weather even in winter, bring me Trout, Salmon, etc. We were some 20 miles from any water that held fish, and those fish were considered "trash fish". Pike, Perch, Suckers, etc.
As time went by they became much less trashy, even sought after enough that i and a friend would ride our bikes many miles for these smelly critters My fishing even progressed, due to withdrawal, to "ice fishing"! The domain of a hardy breed of desperate fools, who, bereft of all the modern conveniences such as warm clothing, "ice augers" and "ice tents", would spend hours with an axe chopping holes through up to 3 feet of ice ( the hole started 3 feet wide, narrowed to 8 inches and you got real wet finishing it!) to have fun, while our Sainted mothers would attempt to cook the, often scrawny and boney, frozen stiff "trophies" we proudly brought home.
One day the inevitable finally happened, you can only tempt fate with stupidity for so long then.....
I was 25 years old, recently married to a female critter who fished....(only while we were dating
) I had a day off, it was winters tail end, late March, but still lots of ice on the lakes and i had a hankering to get some Lake Whitefish, one of the better eating critters the prairies had. I rounded up my gear, consisting of my ice auger, short rod and lures, a plastic covered pad to lie on, an old tarp which i would throw over my head to block out the light, making it easy to see my quarry, and a toboggan to haul it on, in the trunk of the car. Then i was off on a 40 mile drive to the lake, most of it on a main hiway.It was a nice sunny day, temp about 50 when i arrived at Lake Wabamum. This lake is quite large, nearly 10 miles long by 3-4 wide. It has a coal fired electrical generating plant on one end which has a warm water discharge. We liked that end of the lake as the ice was not near as thick, often only 8-10 inches thick and that made cutting holes much easier. One had to beware and not go too near the area near the plant, there was open water no matter how cold it got, plus a huge cloud of ice fog you could get lost in!
This day i was a mile away from the open water, but the bay i was in had only 8 inches of ice due to the warmer weather and effect of the power plant. The water was clear, maybe 20 ft deep, and you could see every weed on the bottom with the tarp over your head. There was still several inches of slushy snow on the ice so i followed a hardpacked snowmobile track out a few hundred feet, cut a hole, and immediatly caught a fat 5 lb Whitefish. Whoo hoo! Life was good
Now you all know darn well that i am gonna fall through the ice, and that is sorta but not really what this story is about
which i will continue........
I got to hear some tales in Canada from Royal about ice fishing when he was young. Seems to me it would be kind of spooky, but I bet it is fun! That's something I will probably never get to do, but any kind of fishing is fun to me! 
Back i go, now this ain't fun at all anymore cause i get part way across the snow covered lawn and a big ol' Chrysler New Yorker comes slowly down the road with several old "whitehairs" gawking at me hopping through the snow mostly naked