Fishing with Eric has been epic three times I fished with him. Last June he took me on his boat and we caught sea bass and blackfish. I got my first black sea bass ever and Eric and his son put on a blackfish clinic.
A month earlier, I took Eric carp fishing where we had an amazing evening catching many carp up to 26 pounds. It was the best day of the best spring I have ever seen.
However, the day I will most remember with Eric happened two decades ago (F, I'm getting old). When we were in high school, he took me ice fishing. I was woefully unprepaired. I wore sneakers. My winter coat wasn't thick. The ice was slushy. Basically I froze and had probably my most awful fishing experience of my life. It was so miserable, I gave up ice fishing after that first time for twenty years.
Luckily, over the past few winters I learned how to keep warm ( hint: do not wear sneakers walking through slush). I learned about ice fishing and fell in love with the sport. So when Eric asked me to go fishing with him, I took a deep breathe, repressed those memories and said yes.
We fished a big pond off of I-495 with tilts. I brought my jigging rod but left the waxworms at home (dumbass!). We took a while to set up, but before we had all the shiners in the water, I got my first flag. It was a 13" larry. It would turn out to be the only bass of the day. We used large shiners. Although we had tons of flags for the most part we were teased by pickerel too small to take the bait.
We fished for about five hours in a light snow. Total we got about four or five fish. We had a fun time because of all the flags. Even though most of our flags ended up having nothing but a chewed up shiner on the other end, it kept us busy and excited that each one could be "Walter". It was a good time. And, any time I go ice fishing with Eric and I don't want to give up the sport for the next quarter century, it's a good trip.
p.s. yes, I know Walter was a trout.
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