Lacey's Travels: Ice Fishing

Saturday marked a new Utah adventure as Andrew and I went ice fishing together for the first time. Andrew has been many times and loves it...but I have always passed. Fishing is boring enough, but the thought of doing it in 20 degree weather while sitting in the middle of a lake sounded even less appealing.

But I reminded myself that this is likely my last winter in Utah, and the conditions were really perfect. Weather was in the 40's, there was no snow in the forecast, and we wouldn't go until around 9am (usually Andrew leaves around 6am). It should be fine, plus we were meeting up with friends. It would be great company at least!

Getting Ready:

Friday night we ran over to Sportsman's Warehouse to get our fishing licenses, and few other essentials for our trip. I got the day pass, and Andrew went ahead and got a year. So we were well prepared with fishing gear, but obviously the gear you wear is just as important while sitting out in the middle of a frozen lake. So I made sure that I was prepared in layers.

1. Base Layer: Nike shirt and winter tights.

2. Thermal shirt, fleece lined jeans, wool socks.

3. North Face puffer vest, winter boots, and headband for the ears.

4. Coat, thin gloves, and my Zugspitze hat.

Lots of Layers!

The most important layer of the day was definitely my sunscreen. I remember my dad telling me stories of growing up in Minnesota where he would get the worst sun burns off of the ice. He now goes and gets cancer spots removed regularly. I don't mess around with sunscreen. It's SPF 30 and reapplied regularly!

Ice Fishing:

When we got there we met up with our friends and their kids. For Christmas Andrew's friend got a fishing tent. Oh man was that ever nice. They set it up so that if the kids got cold they could go inside, but when the winter storm started blowing in...it became a great refuge from the icy wind while the men packed up!

All in all in was a fun experience, more for the social aspect than the fishing. (We only caught one rainbow trout all day.) Andrew tells me that when it comes to ice fishing when it's good it's good. He's caught as much as 45 fish on one trip. But other times you're not so lucky. I was hopeful to catch something this time, because I'll let you in on a little secret dear reader: I've never caught a fish. I guess that's why I dislike it so much.

The set up. You have to watch the tip of the pole very carefully to see if you have a bite.

Some of the funny highlights of the trip include:

I got the first nibble, but I was so busy eating a Slim Jim I lost the fish :/
Andrew found a hot spring, with his foot! He was walking to his hole and his foot broke through the ice! We spent most of the trip trying to keep the kids away from that area.
Catching the trout was exciting, but we realized we didn't quite make a deep enough live well for the big guy. He spent the rest of the trip waving his tail fin at us from the well.
The guys were getting restless and wanted to cut out our poor trout friend's eyeball to fish with. Thankfully they decided not to...but I was a bit concerned at what I was going to witness.

So while I didn't catch a fish, I still had a really good time. It wasn't as awful as I imagined, and I think if the conditions were favorable I would definitely go again. It was fun to be huddled outside talking with friends. Here are the very few pictures I took from the trip. I hope you enjoy!