Down the hole

[nofishfisherman]

Well this isn't a story of dropping something down a hole but it does involve something of value taking a swim.

My friend and I were down by the lift bridge in Duluth walking toward the light house at the end of the pier.

After talking for awhile we remembered hearing someone say that it is possible to throw a rock from one side of the break wall and clear the other side. So like the men we are we decided to give it a shot. We threw a few rocks and made it not even half way. But the story of someone throwing a rock across said that you need to pick a flat rock and throw it so that it catches the air and actaully flies over. Kinda like skipping a rock but only threw the air.

So we got some flat rocks and tried again with no luck. However my friend had one last rock to try so he wound up and threw it as ahrd as he could. But out of the corner of his eye he see his rock fly and another mysterious brown object. Both landed in the water, the rock about half way across but the mysterious brown object made it about 10 yards. we looked down and his wallet had flown out of his coat pocket and landed in the canal. It was floating into the harbor and I thought about climpbing down the ladders to try to pick it up but decided against it becuase it was cold and the rungs were pretty slick. It wasn't worth dieing over. But I almost died laughing. Must of had 10 people around laughing about as hard as me. However my friend wasn't in such a good mood.

Funniest part was that about 2 hours earlier his wife was ragging on him to get a new coat becuase his was old and the pockets weren't very deep.

Not sure where the wallet ever ended up but if you see a brown wallet float up along shore it might be his.

[Alex Walleye Fan]

Back in the day I used to spear exclusively. My 4x8 house was used every day. In fact, my spearing hole was chisled to perfection. It was a thing of beauty.

After a very long night of enjoying adult beverages I decided to go spearing. That night there was a wind storm aka "Alberta Clipper". It was cold outside, especialy just before the sun comes up. The temp was nearly 35 below zero not incuding the wind chill.

When I got to my house it was flipped over from the wind. I flipped my house back up onto the blocks it had been setting on before the wind storm. I fired up the wood stove and when I opened the door on the floor to my 2x4 spearing hole I was shocked. Rather than seeing a thin layer of clear ice I saw snow. (since I used my house every day I was used to seeing a thin layer of clear ice but since the house flipped over my spearing hole was exposed to the cold and snow) Now rememeber those adult beverages from the night before? Well I was confused. I thought to myself, "how could it be that my hole moved?" "I flipped the house back onto its blocks." After a little more thought I decided to get on all fours on the opening in my floor and look under the house to see where this fresh clear 2x4 plate of ice was. Low and behold I was now on it and kneeling on a 1/4 inch of ice. SPLASH! In I went. I caught myself at arm pit level. Got out. Took off all my clothes and wrapped myself in a towel used to wipe the northern slime off your hands. I drove home to join my friends who were still enjoying those adult beverages.

I was stupid in more ways than one back in the day.......

[picksbigwagon]

Only a few things come to mind. A number of years ago we were fishing on Mille Lacs, I had just drilled a couple new holes and I was carrying my stuff about 30 yards. My bump bottle was on the ice so I gave it a kick and I sunk that 30 yard kick like it was my job. The whole way towards the hole it was going tink tink tink, kerplop.... two winters ago, a buddy of mine dropped a handheld radio, it bounced once on the floor, dip a 1 and 1/2 gainer straight into the hole....and last winter I was out at night, slaying the crappies on a metro lake, and I left my leatherman on my lap as I reached for the waxies.. I felt the leatherman slide and bounce right into the whole. My sister gave that to me over 10 years ago. I thought I would try the new Gerber fisherman, and I like its' functionality, but I do miss the compactness of the leatherman at my side. I will have to buy another leatherman this winter, oh well