Size Doesn't Matter

This weekend I had the opportunity to go out ice fishing.  This trip was not going to be a serious endeavor to try and land a trophy trout, instead it was a adventure with my priorities placed in order!  I asked my daughter if she wanted to go ice fishing with me and her response was, "Can we catch baby fish..."  Her response set the tone for our outing as her and I put on all of our snow clothes, got our gear ready, picked up snacks at the gas station, and headed out on the ice at a local pond.  My daughter's only requests for this trip was that she wanted to catch "baby fish" and she needed her sled.

We drilled holes and placed our JawJackers out... This process usually takes about 10 minutes for me to get all 5 of my holes drilled and rods set up, but this time it took us about 30 minutes.  As soon as one hole was drilled, my daughter saw me start scooping the ice chunks out of the hole... from her prespective I was scooping the ice out of the hole and putting in on my boots... My daughter wanted to be like her Daddy so she asked me to put the ice and water on her boots too :/ She then proceeded to lay down on the ice and move the slushy ice around with her hands... Well needless to say I was very glad I knew my daughter well enough to pack some extra clothes in case she got wet.

Once our rods were all set up, we started catching fish.  Here is a video of our first fish...

After our first attempt failed, we played around on the sled for a bit until another JawJacker went off.  This time we were a little more successful!

We caught a few more "baby fish" while we played around on the ice with her sled. 

My daughter loved spending time on the ice with her Dad sledding, fishing, and running around.  We were there for just over an hour but we laughed more in that one hour than most people do in a while month! My daughter loved to sit in her Dad's new ice fishing chair and tell me how big she was.  Total, we caught 4 perch and 6 small trout which were slightly larger than the minnows I typically use for bait :) but on this trip, size didn't matter... what mattered was that my daughter had fun and memories were made!