An outdoor guy is not necessarily compatible with an environmentally friendly woman. I said yes to the date before I knew I’d be going ice fishing. My first thought was ‘No! No!’ My second thought was, ‘I’ll never be warm again.’ I refused to get a fishing license because I didn't plan to do more than watch.
My date told me to wear layers because by lunchtime it would be pretty warm. He picked me up before daylight on a Sunday morning with a four-wheel-drive pickup towing a snowmobile trailer. We drove forty miles to the lake where he had his fishing shack and parked on the ice. He had to reassure me several times that it was safe.
I sat behind him on the snowmobile to reach the wood building the size of a garden shed with a metal chimney sticking out of the roof. He made four more trips for gear and food before he started a fire in the wood stove. He achieved very little heat in relation to the smoke billowing from the pipe. I refused to stay inside a building that felt more like a meat locker and escaped outdoors where the temperature in the high-teens was a heatwave.
I watched him bait the hooks with smelt. Who knew smaller fish would entice bigger fish - cannibals. This date was a mistake, but he was proud to be introducing me to a great outdoor sport of watching for flags to pop up indicating a fish was on the hook. Nothing all morning. He jumped on the sled to drive a few hundred yard to visit someone at another shack. I was ready to go home and then I learned we'd be there until dark. I was imprisoned on a block of ice hoping to see a flag waving in the air to indicate a pending execution. I don't even eat fish.
Late afternoon a flag waved. He grabbed the line, reeled it in and saw the fish inside the hole. "It's a big one." The fish flicked its tail just right, dislodged the hook and dove deep beneath the ice. My date yelled and thrust his arm deep into the freezing water to try to catch it with his hand. Home please. I followed the fish's lead; off the hook and swimming away.
THE END
