A fishing trip for crappies and camaraderie

ALEXANDRIA, Minn. — It's 2 p.m., and there's not much happening on the ice.

The morning bite is history, the sunset bite is a couple of hours away, and there are long periods of time when the only mark on the flasher is your jig or your minnow.

Nobody else is on the lake. Mike Wirth of Waukee, Ward Stubbs of Cedar Falls and I figure they just don't know what they're missing. We'd rather be tucked inside our one-man, flipover ice fishing tents than stretched out in an easy chair watching Sports Center.

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So there we were a couple of weeks ago. Just before the really heavy snow and polar vortex wrapped up the Midwest like an ice cream taco. Wirth, Stubbs and I returned to the Alexandria, Minn., area for a few more days on our favorite lakes. While four inches of fresh snow made dragging our gear across the ice a chore, the low-light crappie bite still was as good as it was a week earlier with a bonus walleye, largemouth bass and northern pike here and there.

This afternoon began with one of our typical senior moments. When we pulled into the parking lot at the lake, Stubbs discovered he'd left his hat, coat and gloves back at the motel some 20 miles away. Wirth and I headed onto the ice while Stubbs took the truck and returned to town.

Our destination was an irregularity along a snaky break-like that dropped into the lake's basin where we'd done well that morning. Wirth and I trudged about a half-mile in that general direction when he suddenly stopped.

"How's your dead-reckoning?" he asked.

"Uh-oh," I answered. "What's wrong with your GPS?"

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"Nothing," he replied. "Except it's in the truck with Ward on the way back to Alexandria."

For the next 20 minutes, we wandered around looking for signs of our previous location. Eventually, Wirth found it — about 200 yards from where we'd left our tents to begin the search. By the time we retrieved our gear and got set up, Stubbs was back. Wirth was waiting for him back on shore to help him with the drag.

"What'd I miss?" Stubbs asked when they arrived at our fishing spot.

"Not a thing," I responded.

Before long, everyone was settled in for what we hoped would be another action-packed evening of crappie chaos. We were close enough together that we could carry on a conversation.

These are the times when what happens on top of the ice is even more important than what's going on below it.

"What a gorgeous afternoon," Wirth chimed in. "I wish I was driving home from work."

"What time do the crappies start biting?" I asked.

"Crappie!" Stubbs declared as he lifted a 10-incher onto the ice.

"Now I suppose I have to start paying attention," Wirth said.

Not so much. Another 20 minutes went by with no sign of another crappie.

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"I caught a crappie once," Wirth said.

"My bottom is crawling with fish, but they're baby perch," I said. "There goes my neighborhood."

Around 4 p.m., more crappies began to show up for Stubbs and Wirth, but I was still being pestered by small bluegills and perch.

"I feel like the Iowa football offense," I noted. "I can't get on the board."

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"We're a bitch on defense, though," Wirth noted.

Eventually, the smaller fish vanished from my location.

"The bluegills and perch are gone over here," I announced.

"OK, I'm putting my seat belt on," Wirth responded.

Before long, the crappie invasion was on. We'd hook one on the jig and look over to see the float going under in the other hole. They came in waves, and when they showed up you could catch them as fast as you could get your jig back down to them.

Some of them were as large as 12 inches. Many were in the 10- to 11-inch range. Some were in the 8- to 10-inch range. We headed for the trucks about 7 p.m. It was a tough drag, and we were huffing, puffing and sweating by the time we made it to land.

About 20 minutes later, we were back at the motel where a warm shower and a soft bed were in order. Or were they?

"What time are we going out clubbing?" Stubbs asked.