Cold and Slow at "Da Field"

Fishing Time:  5:30 AM to 11:00 AM

Weather:  Clear skies, calm, T-1 degree

Moon Phase:  10% Moon

Location:  Scofield

Bait:  Tube jigs tipped with minnow

Who Went:  John, Alonzo, Rick and 3 buddies, Mike, Me

The annual after Christmas ice fishing party didn’t last long this year.  Someone had the bright idea to leave at 4 AM (Rick and John) and get set up in the dark to be ready to fish the primetime (morning).  If setting up our gear underneath the moonlight and twiddling our thumbs for another 1 hour in complete darkness freezing our butts off was their plan… then we succeeded.  I can honestly say that my feet have never been as cold as they were today.  The temps were around 1 degree, which is actually much warmer than a lot of ice fishing trips I’ve been on, but I think it was just the constant 1 degree in the dark doing nothing for 2 hours that froze them solid and they just never recovered.

 

To add insult to injury, we were bombarded with people at sunlight crowding in on us from each side.  The fishing was very slow and I’m sure the fact we literally had a power auger buzzing within 50 yards of us all morning didn’t help.  Bobber John took honors today with the only decent fish.  

The camera didn’t get much use since I spent most of the morning walking around trying to get blood flow back into my feet.  We caught a few small cutthroats and John’s tiger trout, but that was it.  We weaved our sleds through the crowds and back to our truck at 11:00 AM and called it quits.  By noon we were eating wings and watching football at the sports bar.  Should have saved the gas money and just went straight to the bar to watch football and stay warm.