....I'm just kidnapped.....

200 or the snapper get's it!

Yesterday's predictions were right.
We didn't have a tropical heatwave.
The lake was frozen over this morning.
We did have to break the ice.
No one caught a big fish, I had one about half a pound and Roy had one about 12 ounces....pretty good for winter when they're not really feeding anyway.


Picked Shaun up at 8, got to the lake and it was solid ice, so we had an energetic hour hurling ice breakers to smash the ice and clear a space to fish. Shaun's breaker is a sledge hammer head , fixed to a length of chain, fixed to about 5 meteres of rope. Roy's is a plastic petrol can fixed to a rope, you can fill the can with water to make it heavier. Hurling one of them out and dragging it back soon gets rid of the early morning chilly feeling.

We started fishing at about 9.30, and I caught the first fish about 10 minutes later, so Shaun pushed some of the broken ice from his swim into mine, which messed up my fishing for about 20 minutes while I cleared it. Then Shaun caught a fish.....so Roy pushed some of his floating ice into Shaun's swim. I caught a second fish so Shaun pushed more floating ice to me....and so it went on.

Honestly, they're like a pair of kids! You wouldn't catch me doing childish tricks like that!

I had to get them back under control so I fired maggots at them both until they promised to behave!

The Sun broke through the clouds and perversley it got progressively colder. We were still catching so we stuck it out but by 2.30 we'd had enough so we headed home. The thermometer in the car was reading -3!

Back home, a hot shower and a 20 minute snooze (does this mean I'm getting old, or is it because for the last two weeks I've been waking up at about 4.30 and usually not being able to get back to sleep?)and then the Son and Heir and Young Helen trurned up to visit. That's code for "to be fed".

One roast chicken dinner later (followed by profiteroles) and everyone is snuggled in front of the TV (except me) looking blissful. I need to make a call to my Dad and one to my Sis and then it's out for a couple of beers and a game of crib with D and B.

Yep, life is slowly getting back to normal.

Das vidanya, hope to see you all for the next hundred.