Sounds fishy to me

Just sitting here at the little house on the lake with my little dog on the lake waiting for my little woman on the lake to get home. You can tell it's the last week of summer vacation as the lake is busy today. Don't tell anyone, but fall is my favorite time here because it gets nice and quiet. The boats, for the most part get put away, the jets skis  get mothballed until next year and a certain peacefulness descends upon the lake.

Well, peaceful as it can be with the noise of the interstate wafting through the trees once the leaves fall. And of course once the ice is safe there are the snow mobiles and the ice fishermen with their power augers. Now there is something I just never could get into, ice fishing. I am not quite sure of the attraction of sitting outside in the cold, the wind howling at you as it tends to do here, staring at a hole in the ice waiting for the flag to pop up.

Normal fishing I can understand. You cast, you troll, you move around the water, whether in a boat or wading or just along the shore, trying to entice the elusive rainbow trout to snap at you line, then there comes the fight. Reel it in, give it some slack, wait until the moment you see the rainbow colors of your prey break water, then grab it up. There is some excitement and skill involved in that process, especially early in the morning with the sun slowing coming up over the horizon, a mist rising slowly from the smooth, mirror like surface of the lake. You can look into the water and see the fish, then it is up to you to catch it.

Ice fishing on the other hand involves drilling a hole, putting up a tilt, baiting a hook and dropping the line in the hole. Then you wait. And wait. And wait. You can't entice the fish, mostly they are barely awake, swimming in a kind of suspended animation, if you are lucky they will bump into your line and hook themselves. I had a friend who is a diver tell me in the winter you can literally stick your hand out and grab all the fish you want. Where is the fun in that?

Nope, I'll sit inside my house and watch those who like to sit in the cold for hours on end, thinking they are actually doing something. After all, I have football to watch.