View From The Frozen North-Stan Hitchcock-February 4, 2013

Brrrrrrrr...chatter, chatter, chatter. That pretty well describes it, friends. Colder than a well digger in February digging a well thru a foot of snow. Beautiful, tho, and exciting to a Southern good ole boy, married to a Northern good ole girl. Eagles are gathering along the river everywhere....15 to 20 in a flock in the trees along the water, because most of the river is frozen over, and only a few places have some open water and that is where they gather to fish.


Neighbor just brought home a 20 pound Northern Pike that he caught thru a hole that was about 18 inches across in the thick river ice. How in the world do you fight a monster fish like that and get him through a hole that is not much bigger than he is around? And the fish has teeth the size of a bulldogs teeth...and he's snapping and fighting, trying to take your arm off at the elbow....friends, that is not a sport....that is pulling a camel thru the eye of a needle. Much as I love fishing....I will wait til the river gets liquid again before I go in hot pursuit of "Northern Pike The Terrible". I still have scars on my thumb from the first time I caught a Northern Pike up here about 25 years ago. Beiing an old Southern Bass fisherman, when I had this fish on my line, fought him and got him up to the boat, reached down and grabbed him by the lower lip, like you do bass, y'know? And the Northern Pike on the end of my line started eating his way up my hand and arm. Uh huh, another liesson learned the hard way. They have razor sharp teeth, and a lot of them, and they are very aggressive, kinda like Wisconsin Sharks! Boy, they are fun to catch tho, and mighty fine eating.

While Denise was tending to her Family Trust business, I took the old SUV and just drove around and enjoyed the beauty of this country. Wisconsin, at least this part of it, is just beautiful and I never tire of exploring it.  Stan