Meeting new friends in your adult years means they have no
idea who you were in a past life. They
take what they know of you at first meeting and go with it. For quite a while I was known as the “artsy
city girl” and many of my new friends had no idea that I ride horses and love
fishing and camping. Funny how that is… I
do admit that I’m secretly layered and private.
I’m hard to get to know. I could
not be more grateful for the friends who have pushed through to find out what
I’m really about. I unintentionally make
them work hard to find out, so I’m grateful for the ones who believe I’m more
than that quiet girl who seems a little weird.
You find out that I’m not that quiet, and more than just a little
weird. And they still like me.
The two friends who took me ice fishing have been troopers
in this quest to break down my walls and make me feel loved. They let me be me. There’s nobody else I would’ve enjoyed this trip with more than
them.
I spent the night at Maddy’s Friday night (and the whole
weekend, if you must know, because my car was in the shop). Maddy, Katie and I went grocery shopping,
picked up ingredients for fajitas and had our night of feasting and drinking
whiskey before our big day. I woke up
the next morning not feeling so great.
Not because of the whiskey but because my throat was so sore I couldn’t
talk. But I’ve done harder things being
far sicker than this, so I wasn’t going to back out.
Maddy pulled out the first camo outfit I’ve ever slid into
(if you don’t count that punky camo skirt I used to own): a fabulous winter
jumper to keep me nice and toasty. We
packed up snacks, booze, poles and ourselves into the car and we were off.
We headed up north to Rush Lake where the thickness of the
ice was reported at seventeen inches.
This is the recommended thickness for driving on the ice, so that was
the plan. We were going to drive out on the
ice and pitch a tent. And they were
going to let me do the driving.
Fighting the sludge of the oncoming virus I was about to suffer
greatly from, we picked up our bait and my day fishing license and headed for
the lake. Maddy drove out onto the ice
at first and instantly I could feel the difference beneath me, the difference
of driving on solid ground to solid water.
I watched as she took off her seatbelt and then told me to do the
same. It took me a minute to realize
why: oh right! If the ice breaks and the
car goes down, we can’t be strapped in… She also cracked the windows for
safety. I told myself, “These are
just precautions…better to be safe than sorry…it doesn’t mean there’s a big
chance you’ll actually end up in the bottom of a lake, Jess…” I’m grateful that I was with wise people who
take the risks seriously, and aren’t idiots about the forces of nature. There’s always a chance nature can swallow
you up. Respect it, and be as safe as
possible.
After a little ways out they asked if I’d like to
drive. Yes! I had to get the whole experience. So we switched seats and I drove across the
frozen lake, something I never in a million years thought I would be doing when
I first moved out here at the age of fifteen.
It was a strange feeling. Being
behind the wheel I could feel the ice beneath me even more intense than I could
in the passenger seat. Katie then says
to me, “So Jess. Do you realize that
there’s thirty feet of water beneath you?”
I sort of squealed at that (for a lack of a better description of my
reaction) and we all laughed about it. I’m
not going to lie: it was a little terrifying.
But it was also exhilarating and fantastic.
We decided on a good spot.
I parked the car. Katie pulled
out the auger (the ice drill) and began making holes out on the ice.
Maddy pulled out the Vexlar (the nifty device
that detects fish activity) and began testing the holes.
There’s no way in hell I would’ve known to do
this had I ever attempted to do this solo.
I was grateful to be with experts.
They found our magic spot and continued to make camp. Katie pulled out the pop-up fish tent and I
felt sort of helpless at first not knowing how to contribute. I eventually had a job to do and helped
anchor it down.
I was unbelievably
impressed with the design of the tent, how it unfolds quite gracefully and pops
up into this magnificent little house.
Fighting the wind is truly the largest challenge. We were about to be blown clean off the
lake.
After the tent was secure, Katie let me drill two holes in
the tent. I was a bit of a weakling with
it (the auger is pretty much as tall as I am), but I managed to drill two holes
without breaking anything or completely flooding the tent. I only flooded it a little… No super embarrassments, which is usually a
root cause of my anxiety: oh my god, I’m going to make a fool of myself. But I think I did okay. I looked real sporting in my daisy hat, and my sunglasses at my chin.
We were each set up with two holes, a pole in each. We were using minnows and just fishing for
pan fish. I was told I had to bait my
hook. Not a problem. I’ve been putting worms on hooks since I was
six. I’m good. So, I reached into the ice cold water of our
minnow pond and pulled out a slippery, nearly brainless fish and hooked it onto
my hook. It was a weird feeling at
first because I felt cruel sticking a hook into a living thing. I was so sensitive as a child, I thought to
myself, “You had no problem doing this to worms as a kid, Jess, get over it…” The truth of it is, minnows don’t really seem
to die. These little shits stay alive
with a giant metal hook through their body, forever. I got over it.
The Vexlar was next to one of my holes and it took a little
bit to understand the readings on it, but I learned soon enough. Once I realized which color coded bar on the
monitor was my bait, I understood that the other color bars coming near my
colored bar were fish. It was pretty
radical.
Once settled on our bucket seats, lines in the water,
portable heater going, we waited. As
anyone knows, fishing is a sport of patience. It is why when people do it
together they are "forced" to socialize and bond. AKA drink and eat snacks and talk about
life. So that is what we did. We poured ourselves cocktails, ate chips and
talked about things too personal to put here in public. I was feeling a low grade fever coming on
and my throat still ached painfully, so I wasn’t as lively as I usually am
after a bit of whiskey. I remember being quite self-conscious about
that. I think I was more terrified of
being boring than falling through the ice, which by the way moans ominously as it pops and moves whilst releasing air.
It didn’t take too long before the first fish and I was
(thrilled to say) the lucky pole. I
caught a decent size crappy. It was weird though… Fish swimming in icy
waters are a lot slower than what I’m used to.
At first I didn’t think I even had a fish on my line because it was so
easy to reel it in, so I stopped reeling for a minute as my brain was like, “No,
you lost it.” But cold fish don’t move
so much, so I was wrong. I definitely
had a fish on my line.
The rest of the day was quite successful. Katie often kindly let me pull in some of her
fish. Maddy caught the largest crappy
out of all of us. Katie caught the
most. And we stayed in our cozy, wind resistant,
warm tent until sundown. One of the
things I have to point out about staying on a frozen lake in a tent for hours
on end, there’s only two ways for women to empty their bladders. Either you step outside into the frigid,
biting wind and drop your drawers in front of other fisher people, or you pee
in a bucket in your tent and then dump it outside. We opted for the pee bucket. Between all the times I’ve gone camping and
to outdoor concerts, I’ve done my share of peeing outside. But I can’t remember ever peeing in a bucket
in front of friends and dumping it outside.
So, now I have. I have gone ice
fishing and peed in a bucket.
We packed up and headed out at sundown. On the drive home is when the virus in my
body started to hit hard. My temperature
was going up, my legs felt like jelly and the coughing was getting worse. By the time we got back to Maddy’s I
declined quickly. Her and her friends
were going out to the bar later, but I crawled into bed feeling like
death. I was so grateful that I was at
least functioning enough earlier in the day to enjoy my trip. But by the time I was in bed I was having
fever dreams, I couldn’t breathe and I wanted nothing more than a sedative to
put me under. So I popped some melatonin
and waited for the magic.
That being said, I was sick for about a week and it threw
off my ability to get this entry down right after the adventure. And then more time passed…and then more time
passed… So to wrap this up:
I accomplished a few simple things I never would’ve
accomplished if I hadn’t had good friends who care about me. I drove on a frozen lake. I drilled holes without embarrassing
myself. I ice fished. I peed in a bucket. All things I never thought I’d do. Never take the love in friendships for
granted. They make your life. As simple as the adventures may seem to some,
doing anything in life means you are living it.
