Monday, February 7, 2011

Ice fishing...

...in true Griswald style. Hubby has an "itching" to do something with the boys that is "fun". We love fishing so why not ice fishing. He goes to Scheels get some gear-poles, bait and such. The salesman tells him "they're really biting" and "there will be holes all over the place, just find one". So we load up the car with poles, bait, and ummm ice digging tools. These include a umm crow bar, big chisel, and a plastic slotted spoon. We dress for the occasion snow pants, winter coats, hats, gloves and tennis shoes-the children anyway. We pick up some McD's and away we go.
We arrive on the ice ready to go. There they are, beautiful holes, like little white ant hill mounds. He starts chipping and banging, chipping and banging. Ice is flying we are all watching gleefully waiting for water to shoot up. Waiting. Finally he breaks through and water bubbles up. Now the deep hole is full of water and the crow bar is too short. Small fry runs back with a tree branch-from a nearby hole. I am guessing leftover from another Griswald like family. The slotted spoon is now hand to remove bark and floating ice. Big fry takes over the hole perched on a bucket. Hubby is energized, he moves on to another whole for small fry. More chipping and banging and then doh there it is a ^%%$&*(. Full swing of the hammer hits hand, but he keeps going for a second hole. We sit perched on upside down buckets over ice holes, snot running down our faces and the wind blowing. 5 minutes later Big Fry says "Can we go now?"

No fish for us, but one trip to Urgent Care to make sure the hand wasn't broken. It wasn't. The only thing that would have made the trip better was a classic picture of small fry sitting on a bucket watching his beloved dad dig him an ice hole. My battery was dead, our Griswald expedition was complete!

2 comments:

Karen said...

Tell Shane that I am sorry for laughing my butt off at him!

Next time call Mel and borrow his ice auger...

carey said...

there are guys out here on the lake with ice houses so fancy they have satellite TV.

i don't think they even fish.