My wife wakes me, and I hear my cell phone downstairs, tell her, "Who would call me at 6:21 a.m.?" Next moment, I realize my alarm never went off at 5:04. (I had set it for 5:04 p.m.) Couldn't account for why I felt like sleeping more. Had gone to sleep at 8:30. But I figured maybe I wouldn't get tired.
Phoned Brian and told him it's my turn to be late. I'd call back when I hit the road. Finding my wool pants wasn't going to work out, though. My wife was up with me looking for them. I put jeans over a merino wool base layer, as if that would work.
Beginning at one degree F, at Dow's to buy bait. From there, everything went well getting to the lake. Brian gave me a "bib," really heavy-duty woolens to put over my jeans. Privately, I felt as if I had passed one more of life's tests. The kind you do not want to fail. Just loading the Jet Sled, I felt the cold on my thighs, penetrating straight through that thin layer of wool.
The lake's ice checked out at six inches. I had loaded the power auger in the sled. We got out there, talking animatedly the whole quarter mile. It seemed all was well, as invariably, ice fishing proves to be a good time. I slammed open a hole with my splitting bar. I began to cut a second, when I felt my right arm begin to get sore. "We'll need the power auger, unless you can cut holes," I said. "I left the nut that connects the auger to the power head in my car."
"Let me try this."
A minute later, "You have to get that nut. This isn't going to happen."
When I was 18, it was easy to cut 15 holes through 18 inches of ice with a splitting bar. I didn't bench press much. 280. But that's a lot more than either of us would bench today.
Now the walk felt a little stressful, since it was just to get something I should have remembered, but I got back to Brian in less than 20 minutes. put the auger on the head. Then I tried to pull start the engine. That took us a lot of pulls, before we got it primed right. First time I've had a problem with it in 10 years of use. It seemed almost hopeless, when Brian just pumped that primer bulb, and gas dripped out onto ice. I pulled--come fire or hell water.
All told--four yellow perch as large as 13 1/2 inches, two little pickerel, and Brian's 21-inch largemouth. We've wanted a big bass through the ice ever since we began fishing here three years ago. We got that fish today and what a highlight it was!
My memory gets worse and worse, but it's progressive. It's not happening quickly. Whatever is the Ultimate internal logic to life, it lets me in on changes to how I orient myself as I age, rather than pulling the rug out from under me. I hope I'll get out and ice fish at 75. My Dad has Alzheimer's and it's not too hard on him, but he wouldn't be able to ice fish. He is 87 years old, though.
As we collected the tip-ups to pack them, we found empty hooks with shiners missing, and two or three of the tip-up flags hadn't flown when fish took line. One of them had just a few yards of line left on the spool. I've never before failed to check on tip ups. I never thought of doing it today. Never remembered.
"It's a good thing we didn't stay until dark," I said. "I probably never would have remembered to check the tip ups. Would've been wasted time."
Our day wasn't that.
When I was younger, I'd feel apprehensive at the thought of losing memory. At my age now, I'm more inclined to laugh it off.
Nice Pickerel
