View from the North 40: I don't even like goldfish in a bowl

While I was talking with an avid fisherman in late February, he confessed he was tired of ice fishing and had put all of his ice fishing gear away, even though it meant he may not get to fish for one or even two months, depending on the weather.

In a show of solidarity I also made a confession: “I don’t like fishing. At all. As in I. Do. Not. Like. Fishing,” I said to the ex-fishing guide.

Fishing is boring, I added for good measure — as one does when lacking the social skills to read the room.

I’m a charmer like that.

To all fishers who are reading this, including family and friends who are avid about fishing, my apologies for insulting your hobby, your passion, your particular brand of oddness, but I would be more interested in spending the day monitoring the growth rate of common lawn grass.

And ice fishing is the worst. I don’t think my eyes can possibly roll farther into the back of my eyeball sockets. It’s all the boring, mixed liberally with misery.

When I was forced to participate in family activities as a kid, ice fishing was a regular ordeal.

The day before, my dad, the game warden and avid outdoors lover, would load this monster of a snowmobile, like the semitractor-trailer of snowmobiles, into the pickup along with a metal sled and all this fishing and camping gear. And my mother would prepare food and make a stack of all this survival wear to be loaded up the next morning. That’s how I knew to start pre-dreading the next day.

Because ice fishing day started in the pre-dawn dark.

My brother and I would get dragged out of bed well before dawn and harassed into all our winter wear. The, somehow, a family of four dressed like Pillsbury Doughboys, and feeling just as agile, would fit into a regular-cab pickup together with our fishing gear and winter survival supplies.

So, yeah, then we’d drive off to some remote spot in the woods and the deep snow, where it was somehow even darker than when we started. The snowmobile and sled would get unloaded and hooked together, and then all our supplies would get heaped onto the sled along with my brother and me.

When everything was satisfactorily lashed into place, along with my brother and me, my parents would get on the snowmobile, and we’d all head down some overgrown, snowed-in roadway for, like, forever until we arrived at our iced-over lake destination.

I was always frozen upon arrival because, for some reason that could be that I was tougher or just more expendable, I was always seated in front of my brother like a human shield against the wind and the snow spray.

Even before sunlight hit the lake there’d be several holes augered into the ice, a fire started in the middle of the pattern, and hot chocolate and food handed around to everyone. I spent a lot of time stamping around and windmilling my arms, trying to force warm blood into my extremities. But by the time sunlight shined on our little party, we were ready to start the fishing.

Or should I say, I was ready to start the day of staring pointlessly at a red and white bobber that did exactly nothing but float motionlessly in its tiny pond of water in a word of ice and snow.

I kid you not. I would not catch a single fish. All. Day. Long. I’d just spend the whole day sighing and pulling my hook out of the water repeatedly to check that my bait was still there and to go ice skating or stand by the fire or fetch wood, and then dropping the line back into the water again to stare at the bobber. Again.

Until late afternoon.

I’d finally lay my frozen little-kid body belly down on the ice, stare intently down into the black water and tell the fish: “I’m glad I didn’t catch any of you stupid fish. I don’t even like fish. I actually hate fish. And if I caught one of you, I’d just leave you flopping in the snow to die slowly, I wouldn’t even take you home and eat you.”

That reverse-psychology insult was pretty sinister, but I’m sure it was the key to my success.

As everyone else was packing up to leave, I’d be hauling in supper — of course I lied about leaving the fish to suffer and rot. Who would do such a thing? Not a game warden’s daughter, for sure.

But that part about not liking fish was the truth. I mean, I’ve had some good fish since then, but mountain lake-raised trout taste like they’ve been marinated in fish slime.

It was just pure pride that drove me to catch them. I was not going to be the only person skunked on the trip.

A few fish of my own was a grim satisfaction lacking the power to keep me warm on our trip back to the pickup, though. The misery and pain of frozen feet and hands sticks with a person.

I just know the only good part about the day fishing was that heater on full high for the drive home.

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My favorite fishing season was right now, with the rivers and streams too muddy and the lake ice too slushy to do any kind of fishing at all at http://www.facebook.com/viewfromthenorth40 .