It’s no secret I enjoy fishing. It’s one of my favourite hobbies. Some may even call it an obsession. Yet I’ve never tried ice fishing. No particular reason. I’ve just never felt the need.
The province announced just the other day the the winter sport fishing season was now open. I did take note of the fact that they did not refer to it as ice fishing season. So far this year, you wouldn’t get far ice fishing. And you’d be hard pressed to find any ice.
I do have some of the required gear for ice fishing. A couple small rods I was given one time when I expressed interest in giving it a try. I suspect these rods were adapted from larger rods and made into smaller versions, but they would certainly serve the purpose. I was also given a small wooden box to carry them in, which can also double as a seat, so you can sit on the ice without actually sitting on the ice.
But that’s as far as I go. I don’t have an auger to drill nice little round holes in the ice. I don’t have a tent, or a little fishing shack to put on the ice to keep the cold winds at bay while you sit there waiting for fish to bite.
The lack of hard water, or, ice, is becoming more of an issue. Each year things seemed to freeze up later and later and thaw earlier and earlier. It is getting to a point where it is hard to find a time when the ice is thick enough.
A few of us were talking not long ago how we used to start playing pond hockey every year in November and be out there until about April. That doesn’t seem to be a good option anymore. While this year is certainly a bit more open than usual, at least so far, we really don’t seem to get the types of winters we used to have.
At first I was thinking that maybe our memories were a little off. Maybe those pond hockey games were more concentrated into a shorter time frame and it just seemed like we were playing hockey for months. It certainly isn’t unusual for memories to be a bit distorted. But barring the occasional “polar vortex” we just don’t seem to get cold weather we once had.
Maybe it’s just me. But it is making it tougher to try ice fishing.
