A Visit to Winter

Just a week ago I was eyeing the thermometer with my hands itching to cast a Texas rig at some shy Georgia bass. This has been a wonderful winter in the Peach State with such climatically comfortable adventure only a short drive from my front door. But the life of a nomad means that a change of scenery is always in the offing. Soon we were on the road again with two days on freeways wedged between countless semi tractor-trailers. Where is that supply chain crisis when you need it? Arriving safely in Sioux Falls, we were a little oxygen-starved from my wife’s frequent intakes of breath in the dreadful traffic.

Before leaving Georgia, we had carefully laid out our snow boots and heavy coats in preparation for our return to the frozen north. We were surprised to find that winter had receded to the Klondike leaving Sioux Falls with the same pleasant shirt-sleeve weather that we thought abandoned in Georgia. The snow we associate with life in the Midwest this time of year was gone. All our Sioux Falls friends delighted in regaling us with reports of this year’s lovely open winter, taking our snowbird smugness down a peg or two.

After a lovely visit with Sioux Falls friends, doctors, optometrists, hairstylists, and dentists, we headed for our son’s place in Sheridan, Wyoming. Surely, we thought, we would need our coats and boots there. But no, still completely comfortable in a long sleeve shirt. The weather was very lamb-like as March slipped off the calendar.

Now if I seem like I’m complaining, well, I actually am. Not that complaining about the weather, good or bad, ever did a whit’s worth of good. On several occasions amidst the winterless weather of Georgia, I found myself having stray thoughts about pleasant adventures of fishing through the ice. I realize this is a troubling perversity, but I can’t help it. I only note it because it explains my slightly negative attitude about the return to an unseasonably warm northern clime. I’d come hoping to get an ice fishing outing before the spring melt.

Just as I was sullenly accepting my iceless fate, my son mentioned that there was still good ice on Sibley Lake high in the Big Horn mountains above Sheridan.  Evidently, winter hangs out up there for a long time after it gets chased out of the lower altitudes. What a delight! I immediately paid a visit to Sportsman’s Warehouse and purchased, on sale, one of the last ice augers along with ice fishing bait and tackle. My son came up with a pair of bib overalls that I could shoe-horn into. And, as you know, my boots and Carhartt knock-off were ready to go.

I was up early for my visit to winter high in the Wyoming Big Horns. As I turned off I-90 at Ranchester, the heights to the west were starting to fade behind a veil of white. All the lovely images of little Ice fishing villages on frozen lakes in the upper Midwest were flitting through my head as I started the steep switchbacking ascent of the mountain face on Wyoming State Highway number 14. At the beginning of the climb, my car thermometer was registering 46 degrees with everything bare and dry. By the second switchback, it was snowing in earnest. I was delighted! I love the feeling of melancholy that comes with a darkening snowstorm. At last, I had found winter, and soon I’d be hauling trout through the ice. What could be better than that?

So I sailed along at 25 miles an hour, pussyfooting my way over the unfamiliar snowpack. Before long I met a snowplow resolutely clearing the onslaught of snow, and my friendly wave was lost in a spray of slush. Soon I came to Sibley Lake, or should I say, I came to the place where Sibley Lake had been last summer. Now it was just a broad field of whiteness nestled between ranks of snow flocked evergreens. Here I encountered my first surprise in a day that was to be filled with the unexpected.

My cherished memories of ice fishing usually involved driving out on the ice and parking beside the place where I could quickly sink a hole through eight to twelve inches of Ice. Not so in the Big Horns. The lengthy access road into the lake was buried under three and a half feet of snow. Plows had thoughtfully carved out a parking area along the highway but the fish-ladened ice was the better part of a mile away. It was clear that local fishermen came equipped with snowshoes or cross-country skis for the trip into the lake. Lucky them! It was a long way back to Sportsman’s Warehouse. My midwestern images of taking fish through the ice did not include such mountain man approaches.

However, I was here on the mountain. I could see the lake. I would get there somehow. After scouting around I found another place to park where I could walk down the nicely plowed highway about a quarter of a mile and make my way out onto the dam forming the lake. After negotiating my way over the guardrail which amounted to pole vaulting with the ice auger, I worked my way out onto the dam.  Frequent travel on this route by other hapless and ill-prepared fishermen had created a hard-packed path that greatly facilitated this part of the journey. However, straying slightly from this well-camouflaged track meant a plunge into hip-deep snow and another pole vault back onto the path.

Finally, I reached a point where I planned to descend the side of the dam and go out onto the ice. I was soon porpoising down the embankment through waist-deep snow but when I reached the ice it was thankfully packed from previous traffic. I had the lake to myself. I was on the ice. Even though I was huffing like a steam engine from my exertion, I unsheathed my trusty auger and plunged it into the heart of Sibley. Well, at least I started to crank away inch by inch toward the water below. Fourteen inches down I broke through, rejoicing until I felt another layer of ice a couple of inches below the first.  

“You’re kidding!” I shouted to nobody in particular. And I’m sure Sibley was having a very satisfying laugh at my expense. I know that fluctuations in water level during the winter can produce these double layers of ice, but this situation felt like malice aforethought. Since I was getting a little dizzy from the physical effort, I sat down to contemplate the incredible serenity of my setting. I even thought for a moment that such incredible beauty was enough to fill my creel for this outing.

When I could breathe normally again, I resolutely went back to cranking the auger deeper and deeper into the ice. To risk abusing a metaphor, I was all the way to the hilt before my hole opened into the dark water below. Success! A mealworm sacrificed its life as I plumbed the depths in search of trout. Now, I know this is where a story like this should accelerate into a frenzy of fish catching. Sorry! I did have to content myself with a creel full of serenity. But I declare the trip a total success. I went. I endured. I fished. That was enough.

The trip back to the car was a bit of a blur as I pushed my ancient body beyond its flabby capabilities. New resolutions about diet and exercise flitted through my mind. I sat in my car for a moment just soaking in the satisfaction of surviving another adventure. As I made the steep winding descent from my visit to winter back into Wyoming springtime, I made the momentous decision to return to Georgia next winter.