Gas for the trip:  $50

Fishing License that was only good for 2 days:  $15

ORV Sticker that was only good for 2 days (after I lost it):  $16.25

Enduring the stress of driving 3 hours on ice-covered roads:  $0

My wife’s first fish through the ice and her biggest fish ever:  Priceless

This past weekend, the wife and I, along with a few members of the rest of our family, took a trip Up North and tried our luck ice fishing on Houghton Lake.  The drive up on Friday night was insane – we witnessed many cars in the ditch, and endured some treacherous road conditions – but everything cleared up on Saturday and it made for some decent ice fishing weather.

We were a little disheartened, however, when we arrived at the DNR launch and noticed the lot was empty.  In my experience, normally a place like this is empty because of one reason:  no fish.  After going through all the work of loading quads, and enduring the nasty drive on the way up, though, there was absolutely no way we weren’t going to at least try.

With quads and snowmobiles unloaded – all 10 of them – ice shanties hooked up and attached, and gear loaded into sleds, we were off.  The trip across the ice was pretty interesting, but uneventful, and the first spot we fished was uneventful as well.  After a little over an hour of not even feeling a fish, we ate some lunch and debated what to do with the rest of the day.

Finally, we all decided that we would head to an area that produced for us last summer.  After setting up in the area, it didn’t take long until a guy in a shanty near us had his tip-up flag raised.  We felt pretty good about the spot after that, and it wasn’t too long before Justin’s tip-up caught the first fish of the trip – a respectable pike.

I decided that, even though the wife and I were originally targeting bluegills, we would switch it up, put a pike minnow on our teardrops, and see what happens.  We had a few minutes of frustration, because of the lack of fish, but we just enjoyed the time outside and eventually the fish gods smiled down on our shanty.

After hours of waiting, I look over and notice the wife start to move a little bit; and then she – in the calmest voice I’ve ever heard – says, “I think I got something”.  A quick glance at her rod and I knew she definitely had something, but then the line appeared to go slack and I figured whatever it was was gone.  Upon reeling up her slack, however, the tug on the line was proof enough for me that something was, in fact, still there.  She stands up, continues to reel, and I just instinctively grab the line by hand as well, hoping to help pull whatever was on the line through the hole.  I was glad I did, too, because as soon as we got the 21 inch pike above the hole, the line promptly snapped in two and I had to pin him to the ice so that he couldn’t wiggle his way back into the hole.

It was a very cool experience, and provided the wife with, not only her first fish through the ice, but also her biggest fish ever.  We celebrated, screamed from the blind that we were on the board, and proceeded to take pictures.  And, as you can see from her pinky position in the picture, she wasn’t very fond of how slimy pike can be (I know Jody will appreciate the picture).  It sure made for some laughs later, though, when we went through the pictures from the day.

The weekend was awesome, and we all enjoyed our 7 hours on the ice.  A few of us managed to land some fish, all of us enjoyed the time spent outdoors, and getting outside always makes for a great day……….even if I did get out-fished by everyone, including the wife.

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