The Phrase "That's why they call it fishing" Makes Us Angry!

We ventured out last night onto the windswept ice in Alton Bay, and brought enough gear with us to live on the ice for several weeks, our gear included ingredients to cook our cusk, wine, Gary our trusted cook stove, a heater, portable shanty and lots of fishing gear. It took us nearly an hour to move all the gear to the spot and begin checking our set lines for cusk..

We were so hopeful, but after all the careful planning and organizing, the fish simply weren't there, we pulled all six lines out of the water and felt the cold sting of failure, or frostbite, I think they're the same thing...

This is Dave, he's smiling because he thinks we're going to catch fish!

As darkness set in and the temperature fell to 12 degrees and the wind picked up we set up our portable shanty and decided to stay on the ice and try to catch these elusive fish... As you can tell from the title of this post we failed in our first excursion. We jigged with wax worms, smelt, suckers (we were the suckers) minnows and jigs, but nothing. Our fishfinder was showing fish under the ice, but they were there simply to laugh at us for being out in the cold.

After four hours of fishing and not getting a single hit, we decided to call it quits and get off the ice before hypothermia set in. I suspect we got off the ice just in time, I still feel a deep chill.

This is the Cusk set line; we made this out of a paint mixer from Home Depot.

The first thing my wife said to me when I walked in the door was "I told you you never catch anything" her heart is as cold as the ice we just came off of... Oh no she might read this, ignore that last sentence baby it was a joke!

Tomorrow I will put cusk lines out in a spot that produced for me last year and we will eat these fish yet! Wish us luck!