Jr. North: Dad, can I be an outdoors man?
Mr. North: You bet bud.
Lucky for the both of us, Grandpa is always scheming out-of-doors trips. Friday night, he asked if I wanted to bring Jr. North on an ice fishing trip up to Lake Mille Lacs. I asked Jr. what he thought and he responded with, "can we fish until the sun goes down?"
The next morning we were in the car on our way up to the big lake. Snacks were packed, plenty of dry clothes, lunches, tackle, ice house, auger, and minnows. We were and hour and a half from home with a little kid on the the ice all day, it's best to be over prepared in these situations. Mom threw in the tablet (with cartoons downloaded on it) which turned out to be clutch.
Jr. is not much for fishing, what kid is, but he loves drilling holes in the ice and scooping the slush out, throwing snow balls, playing with the minnows, eating junk food, and everything else that goes along with being an outdoors man. We couldn't get him to come into the fish house because, in his words, you couldn't be outdoors if you're in a house. It was 20 degrees F and sunny out with no wind, perfect ice fishing weather. It was cold but we were dressed for it and Jr. didn't complain once.
It was the Perch Extravaganza so we stopped at Johnson's Portside for buttons and Girl Scout cookies before heading out in the ice. The buttons got us into a raffle for fishing gear, a side-by-side quad, or one of three Ice Castles (Google it.) Jr was the only one to win, a bucket full of goodies. Beginners luck.
Over two feet of ice on the lake, any more and we would have needed a longer auger. Most of my day was spent watching Jr. clear ice out of the holes. (and bobbers that never really did much)
Sun shine is good for you!
Our little bay out of Isle, MN. As we were packing up, the puddle in my arms was genuinely disappointed that we were leaving before the sun went down.
Mrs. North had some out-of-doors plans of her own. On Sunday we drove over to the local nature center and did some hiking. I think we were all really into being outside in the sunshine this weekend. We poked some holes in the ice with our walking sticks (to help spring get here), tackled the summit of mud mountain (a hill in the woods), found a turtle shell, followed deer tracks, and talked about the different plants in the slough (reed canary grass, bulrush, and cattails).
Worthy of note: he wanted to sit on all the benches. All of them.
Hot chocolate mustache in the ice house. It's good to be an outdoors man.
Thank you ToadMama.com for all the excellent prompts all month!
Sweet post. Life with young kids is challenging, but fun. I miss those days. I can't imagine ice fishing, but then I'm not much of a fisherman in any weather. I like the act of fishing, and the being outdoors, but I don't like touching fish. I'll just buy my fish already cleaned.
ReplyDeleteYou've got to be prepared to go with the flow and have a backup plan or two. I love showing him new things, makes up for all those sleepless nights! I keep inviting Mrs. North ice fishing but she always has something to do. She does know her way around a boat though. (I process all the fish, which are usually 70% hers)
DeleteSo cool seeing spring through the eyes of a child! I'm so glad Jr is an outdoors man! ;-)
ReplyDeleteMe too, I don't think a room could contain all that energy! He's at a really fun age where everything is interesting and he just wants to play.
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