I only went ice fishing once.

A church group included me and a few friends and two school buses of their kids for some winter fun.

We went to a city lake and they had a lodge ( food didn't show up, toilets overflowed ) a pond for skating ( melted to slush ) and a huge hill for sledding - glare ice. And we could fish.

We wondered onto the lake. I had a metal rod to chop a hole. I made a good hole and dropped the metal rod, I didn't know the leather strap was supposed to go around your wrist. We were wet, cold, and miserable.

Up on a cliff above the lake an old lady called to us, " boys, boys". We thought she needed help so we went up there. She was fine, she just offered to dry our clothes and make us hot chocolate when we were done fishing. We were done right then.

So sitting around in her deceased husbands bath robes, drinking hot chocolate and eating cookies. We were quite happy. Then we saw the people in charge loading the buses. So we sneaked down there and got on board. They noticed we were dry, well fed, and smiling. Unlike everybody else.

Sadly, that was the last time me and my two friends got invited to go with that group. I didn't care. It was still a great ice fishing trip !

LTG : )