Several years ago the entire family went for a day of show shoeing in the mountains northwest of Fort Collins. The area is called Red Feather Lakes and it’s both a town and a grouping of maybe 15 or 20 man-made and natural lakes. It’s an absolutely stunning place and is only a short 70-minute drive from our house. The lakes are situated amongst the low hills, evergreen trees, and towering granite rock formations that look like huge mushrooms. On that trip we spent the day exploring the coves around a lake called “Dowdy”, which is a fairly large body of water with lots of formations and islands that rise right out of the water.
Mountain views on the way up to Red Feather
That day the lake was solid from shore-to-shore and we commented about all of the folks who were sitting out on the ice. Some of them were in red, yellow, or green huts, and others were outside on chairs completely exposed to the cold and wind. You could see determination on their faces, their bodies hunched and energy focused over smallish holes in the ice. You could also imagine each and every one of them just hoping in vain for a lethargic fish to consider biting their small hook covered with Power Bait or stuck with a grub. I thought to myself “These people are crazy, it’s too frickin cold out here to be sitting around on the ice”, or were they?
The more we watched the more fish we saw coming out of that lake. In fact there were more fish being taken than I think I’d ever seen come out of a lake at one time. It was then that I realized what they had come for, invisible fish, those fish that without a boat and a good anchor would have been inaccessible by any other tactic. Who hasn’t thought to themselves while fishing “If I could only cast right over there…I’m sure that’s where they are.” But instead the cast comes up 10-yards short because of a breeze or that your boat continually drifts away from the spot you’re trying to hit. These “invisible fish” are the same creatures that you can sometimes even catch a hint of while carefully considering the surface of the water but that are inevitably congregated around large clumps of shoreline bushes. Evil bushes made up of thorns with cosmically charged attracting powers not unlike the Death Star. Their branches act as tractor beams and their natural force is laser focused on your fly, pulling your three dollar feather lined hook into an inescapable bramble.
Dad, I think this is a good spot.
Well, that’s the brilliance of ice fishing, you can stick a hole in the ice anywhere you want, the weeds are all dormant in the winter and their powers are at bay. And if you don’t find invisible fish where you thought they’d be, just slide your sled full of gear over to the next hole - and your luck just might change. Well that trip up to Red Feather was probably 4-years ago, and the amazing thing was that Lucas still remembers it as if it were yesterday. In fact, he has always wanted to go back there to try ice fishing ever since. This weekend we decided to give it a whirl, both as first timers.
What do you need to ice fish? Luck helps but good friends are better.
As we figured it, you really didn’t need too much in the way of gear, and in all honestly, you don’t. We already had fishing poles, some small jigs, and plenty of layers to keep us warm. We added a couple lawn chairs, my camp stove to heat water for Ramen noodle and hot coco, and some chips and pop to quench our thirst for when we got tired from catching all those fish. Most of all you need some way to get through the ice and that’s where the friends came in for us.
We needed an auger, and for us any auger would do, but I had no idea where to get one. I didn’t really want to buy one because this might be our only ice fishing trip ever – you never know with kids. I looked online and found three main kinds; a hand held version, a version that fits to your electric drill, and then the awesomeness that was a 3-horsepower gas driven ice screw. The ice would melt in the presence of one of those for sure. To buy them outright the cost started at $50 and ran into the hundreds, yikes. We really needed a better plan than to spend that much cash for 4-hours on the ice. I called around town trying to find one to rent but had no luck. Without an auger we could have all the grubs in the world but we weren’t going to get any fish, so I had to “cast a wider net.”
I put the word out on Facebook that I was looking to rent or barrow an auger and the magic of social media delivered, again. Thankfully a friend stepped in and let us barrow not only their sweet gas auger but also their sled, cool little ice-specific fishing poles, straps for your feet to keep from losing your step on the ice, and most importantly, as it turned out, they had fresh left over mealworms. We were completely set.
As we figured it, you really didn’t need too much in the way of gear, and in all honestly, you don’t. We already had fishing poles, some small jigs, and plenty of layers to keep us warm. We added a couple lawn chairs, my camp stove to heat water for Ramen noodle and hot coco, and some chips and pop to quench our thirst for when we got tired from catching all those fish. Most of all you need some way to get through the ice and that’s where the friends came in for us.
We needed an auger, and for us any auger would do, but I had no idea where to get one. I didn’t really want to buy one because this might be our only ice fishing trip ever – you never know with kids. I looked online and found three main kinds; a hand held version, a version that fits to your electric drill, and then the awesomeness that was a 3-horsepower gas driven ice screw. The ice would melt in the presence of one of those for sure. To buy them outright the cost started at $50 and ran into the hundreds, yikes. We really needed a better plan than to spend that much cash for 4-hours on the ice. I called around town trying to find one to rent but had no luck. Without an auger we could have all the grubs in the world but we weren’t going to get any fish, so I had to “cast a wider net.”
I put the word out on Facebook that I was looking to rent or barrow an auger and the magic of social media delivered, again. Thankfully a friend stepped in and let us barrow not only their sweet gas auger but also their sled, cool little ice-specific fishing poles, straps for your feet to keep from losing your step on the ice, and most importantly, as it turned out, they had fresh left over mealworms. We were completely set.
Looking out over the ice
We arrived at the lake around 9:30 AM and set out for a huge pile of rocks, out in the middle of the lake, I remembered from our last trip. It was about a 300 yard walk from the shore but everything was neatly packed into our sled, so it was sure to be a quick crossing. We got out on the ice and you could tell it was really thick, at least a foot or more near the edge. As we walked across the first bay Lucas and I followed the deep fissures and wet cracks out to where we would begin our day of fishing.
We settled on an open area, in probably 20-feet of water, which sat just off those rocks and between two other groups of guys. I pulled out the chairs and gear while Lucas explored the area a bit. With the two other groups of guys looking on, I fiddled with the motor a bit trying to look like I knew what I was doing. Brandon, the augers rightful owner, had told me something about a screw on the gas cap I had to loosen (check), then the choke, I thought I found it (check), then just pull the cord until it fires. Well (check) on the cord pulling part, (no check) on the firing up part. I asked Lucas if he thought maybe it had an on/off switch – he just stared at me. I flipped the motor over and sure enough I found a switch. One more pull on the cord and that thing fired up. As I yanked it vertical it tried to die but I pulled hard on the throttle and the screw began to spin. “Holy shit!” I thought to myself, this thing is sweet. I held on to it pretty tight, I assumed that as soon as I got digging it was going to catch the ice hard and throw me around like some kind of dangerous playground toy. I pushed the point into the ice and let that thing rip. In no time at all we had one hole and then two, and aside from wet boots, we had two perfectly fishable holes. By 10:00 we were actually fishing – this was clearly going to be a good day.
We settled on an open area, in probably 20-feet of water, which sat just off those rocks and between two other groups of guys. I pulled out the chairs and gear while Lucas explored the area a bit. With the two other groups of guys looking on, I fiddled with the motor a bit trying to look like I knew what I was doing. Brandon, the augers rightful owner, had told me something about a screw on the gas cap I had to loosen (check), then the choke, I thought I found it (check), then just pull the cord until it fires. Well (check) on the cord pulling part, (no check) on the firing up part. I asked Lucas if he thought maybe it had an on/off switch – he just stared at me. I flipped the motor over and sure enough I found a switch. One more pull on the cord and that thing fired up. As I yanked it vertical it tried to die but I pulled hard on the throttle and the screw began to spin. “Holy shit!” I thought to myself, this thing is sweet. I held on to it pretty tight, I assumed that as soon as I got digging it was going to catch the ice hard and throw me around like some kind of dangerous playground toy. I pushed the point into the ice and let that thing rip. In no time at all we had one hole and then two, and aside from wet boots, we had two perfectly fishable holes. By 10:00 we were actually fishing – this was clearly going to be a good day.
The waiting game
We got our hooks baited with fake worms and dropped our jigs down the dark holes and into the freezing water. We proceeded to chat about the auger and how cool it was. Lucas wondered when we could make some more holes and I secretly wondered how many I could drill before it ran out of gas…I said in my best dad voice ”Lucas, focus on fishing, we only need more holes if we need them.” I was really hoping we’d need them. So we sat, and sat, and fidgeted, and sat, and frequently discussing what we’d do with the fish we were sure to catch. Lucas wanted me to save them but he had no intention of eating them, he apparently doesn’t like fish. Which at this moment seemed odd to me, then I remembered fishing is less about the fish and more about not having to clean your room. We sat around lazily drinking coco and coffee in the warm sun until we both wanted a snack and to find a bathroom. So we made the 300-yard walk back to shore and grabbed the pretzel bag we had forgotten on the first trip and made a quick stop at the potty. On that third hike back out onto the ice we both decided we were going to make new holes, the old ones were boring.
We got our hooks baited with fake worms and dropped our jigs down the dark holes and into the freezing water. We proceeded to chat about the auger and how cool it was. Lucas wondered when we could make some more holes and I secretly wondered how many I could drill before it ran out of gas…I said in my best dad voice ”Lucas, focus on fishing, we only need more holes if we need them.” I was really hoping we’d need them. So we sat, and sat, and fidgeted, and sat, and frequently discussing what we’d do with the fish we were sure to catch. Lucas wanted me to save them but he had no intention of eating them, he apparently doesn’t like fish. Which at this moment seemed odd to me, then I remembered fishing is less about the fish and more about not having to clean your room. We sat around lazily drinking coco and coffee in the warm sun until we both wanted a snack and to find a bathroom. So we made the 300-yard walk back to shore and grabbed the pretzel bag we had forgotten on the first trip and made a quick stop at the potty. On that third hike back out onto the ice we both decided we were going to make new holes, the old ones were boring.
Upon our return to our temporary camp on the ice, I got the water boiling for lunch and fired up the auger again. This time we knew where the fish were, or should be. We had been watching both groups of guys on either side of us pull fish out of their holes about every 5-10 minutes; we’d not even had a bite. We had changed baits, lures, and even did a little complaining about it – nothing seemed to work. So the one thing we noticed about our neighbors was that their holes were about 20-feet closer to the rocks than we were, probably in much shallower water. I pulled the throttle on the auger even harder than I had on the first try and this time confidently put two beautifully drilled holes into the ice.
After that was done, I proceeded to move our camp, which took all of a minute to drag everything across the ice, including Lucas who was still seated in his chair – he thought that was pretty funny. Our neighbors looked on anxiously as if we were onto their secret spot. I gave them a “manly nod”, handed my son his hot noodles, and poured a fresh cup of coffee for myself. I reassured Lucas that “these” were the holes that were going to do it for us. I wasn’t so confident inside. I dug through our friend’s bucket of fishing stuff looking for some kind of answer. Hmmm, he had the same jigs, the same poppers, the same Gulp and Power Bait…what’s going to do the trick? Then I saw the little jars of mealworms and wondered if they were still alive, they were. We were on to the secret ingredient that was going to turn our day around.
I walked across the 8-feet of ice that separated me from Lucas asked him to pull up his line. I took the fattest mealworm I could find in the package out of the warm shavings and stuck him on the hook. Lucas liked that he had pink guts, I had never noticed that oddity before, and agreed it was pretty cool. He dropped him down the hole and I reiterated my lesson about the jigging motion he was to use to catch the trout. Small up and down pulls that would surely make the fish so hungry and pissed off that they’d swallow our hook for sure.
I walked across the 8-feet of ice that separated me from Lucas asked him to pull up his line. I took the fattest mealworm I could find in the package out of the warm shavings and stuck him on the hook. Lucas liked that he had pink guts, I had never noticed that oddity before, and agreed it was pretty cool. He dropped him down the hole and I reiterated my lesson about the jigging motion he was to use to catch the trout. Small up and down pulls that would surely make the fish so hungry and pissed off that they’d swallow our hook for sure.
Not 5-minutes later we had our first fish and a few minutes later we had a second. This was getting hot… we were on the fish for sure. I felt like a miner who’d just found a pay streak of gold, Lucas felt the same way and he had a grin going from ear to ear. Things slowed down a bit for a while but then we got two more within 20-minutes. We talked about how cool ice fishing was and how many more fish we might catch before heading home. The funniest thing we discovered was how confused the fish seemed to be when returning them to the water. They’d swim in circles in our little 10-inch hole for a while until, finally, they would dive deep enough to realize they weren’t in an icy fish bowl anymore. It was pretty comical; we even had to push one fish down the hole and back to the lake water because it was clear that it had no idea how to find his way back to freedom.
By the end of the day we had pulled in a total of five fish and had thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. We broke camp and headed back across the ice celebrating our prowess as experienced ice fisherman. It’s always so much fun to do something completely new with the kids. We both get to wonder what it will be like beforehand, we get to experience the frustrations together, and the joys of accomplishment. Megan and I have shared this feeling while hunting small game together; I’ll never forget the day we brought home our first rabbits. A shared adventure is definitely a bonding experience and I hope they’ll remember these times as they grow up and make new discoveries of their own.
Lucas and I walked off the ice for the last time that day talking about other trips we’d make to the mountains in the coming year. He told me he wants to come back to chase deer, and maybe even shoot a bear. I asked him if he’d ever been close enough to a bear to smell it and he just looked at me. When I explained that bears smell pretty bad he decided we’d just look at them from a distance because mom wouldn’t want my car to smell any worse than it already does. I love these kids.
Lucas and I walked off the ice for the last time that day talking about other trips we’d make to the mountains in the coming year. He told me he wants to come back to chase deer, and maybe even shoot a bear. I asked him if he’d ever been close enough to a bear to smell it and he just looked at me. When I explained that bears smell pretty bad he decided we’d just look at them from a distance because mom wouldn’t want my car to smell any worse than it already does. I love these kids.
Very thankful for friends! A special thank you goes out to Brandon and Shelby Montross who lent us the fishing gear to make the day possible. You guys are great! They are the owners of Hop Acres (http://www.facebook.com/hopacres) and Meadowlark Creative Letterpress Design and Printing (http://www.meadowlarkcreative.com/). |
Getting to Dowdy LakeTake Highway 287 north out of Fort Collins for 20-miles, turn West at Livermore on County Rd 74 E (Red Feather Lakes Road). Drive 24 miles to Dowdy Road and make a right hand turn going north. Dowdy lake is about a mile further and there is no day fee to get out on the ice during the winter. |