My son, myself and a buddy headed up to Rat Lake this morning for our first time on the ice this year. We pulled into the parking lot right at 9:30 this morning and what did we see, The Game Warden's truck. After checking to make sure that we all were within the regs we headed out onto the ice. I drilled three perfect 8" holes with my new to me power auger and before we could power bait our hooks the Warden was upon us. He checked licenses, and we had a nice chat about everything to do with Rat Lake, the regulations and the fishing in our area and he even gave us some recommendations of other lakes to hit in the future. All three of us were in regulation compliance and so the day started off on a real good note. The Warden even mentioned that we were able to use two poles on the lake if we had the endorsement. The Warden headed off of the lake and up into the parking area. Not ten minutes later I see the Warden walking back onto the lake, moving towards us. In my mind I thought someone forgot to hang the mirror hanger up when we left the truck. (Me) Turns out the Warden’s battery had died and he needed a jump start. I threw my son the keys and mentioned to the Warden that the couple of times that I’ve given State Patrolmen jump starts it cost them a case of beer. I no longer drink but it was a good chance to rub it in a little bit. Now as far as the fishing goes. It was worse than bad. In four hours of fishing double lines for each of us, my buddy managed to pull in one small Rainbow less than ten inches long. We moved a lot and by the end of the day, we counted up that we probably drilled somewhere between 25 and 30 holes. I could have never drilled that many holes with the old manual auger so I’ll never be without the power auger again. The ice was about 8” thick with lots of booming and cracking but it was plenty safe.
There were a lot more folks out on the ice today than I’ve ever seen before but it was OK because they were mostly families with bunches of little ones. The weather was absolutely beautiful, very sunny with no wind until the sun dropped down behind the hill side and then it cooled right down and made us want to head for the pickup.