Sometimes, luck is not on your side on the ice

Decoy’s E

ye

Switching gears. I’m not fond of it. It kind of impedes me from getting started sometimes.

Take this weekend for instance. The ice is thick and it might be time to start thinking about some ice fishing. I know, I know. I finally relinquished a few years ago and I confessed this sacrilege to you faithful readers a year ago.

I will say it helps to have a crew that you head to the ice with. But the crew is laid up this year and right now not able to go.

So when my better half asked me if I wanted to get a field and run the dogs I almost jumped at the chance. I could be ready to go in 15 minutes. The collars were charged, my upland clothes right where they were supposed to be, and the conditions were mild for January.

But I asked her if that was what she wanted to do. I’ll own that mistake.

I put on the winter garb and headed to the boat house to get ready for ice fishing. I pulled out the vintage 2005 UTV – it started – and pulled the duck boat forward so I could get the shelter out. I loaded the bucket of ice fishing poles, the heater, and the auger into the back of the UTV and hooked the shelter to the hitch. Once up by the garage, the heater lit up. Then the auger started on the second pull. I was starting to think luck was on my side. We loaded all this into the truck, made a couple sandwiches, checked the charge on the electronics battery, donned the bibs, and headed to the lake. Looked like the best gear change ever. We stopped at the first place and they were out of northern minnows. The second place, the northern minnows were all dead. If you’re saying to yourself that I should have just headed to the bar at this point - you are correct.

I drove to a spot I had marked on the GPS for ice fishing. We pulled the gear from the truck, I drilled the holes and set up the flip over. As I turned on the electronics, things started to unravel.

It came up in “Demo Mode.” You might be surprised that no where in the manual does it mention a demo mode, much less how to get out of it.

“Are you sure that it’s in ‘Demo Mode’?” my better half asked.

According to the screen we were in Northern Minnesota, fishing in 121 feet of water, and moving at 5.6 mph. Apparently, the alert on the screen to hit “exit” to leave demo mode didn’t work.

We dug further into the manual. I was starting to think about who I wanted to give a colonoscopy to with the transducer cable. My better half said “how about I work with this for a bit, and you just start fishing?”

About ten minutes later she turned to YouTube and I caught the first cigar perch of the day. I looked out the window to my right and saw a young guy running to a flag on a tip-up and pull a eater size northern through the ice.

I was wishing I had some northern minnows.

Forty-five minutes and five YouTube videos later, and she had the brain unit out of “demo mode.” Not with the help of highly trained customer service techs, but instead with some flunky with a GoPro and a YouTube channel. A couple years prior I called this well-known company’s customer service department and their rep told me to download the latest version of the manual from their internet page and that would solve it. It was the same version as the one clearly written for a competitor’s sonar that came with the unit. The comments on the videos all spoke of similar experiences. My wife decided to focus on YouTube.

A few more YouTube videos, a few more cigar perch, watching the young guys pull a few more northern through the ice, and suddenly the unit converted to ice fishing mode. The flasher and sonar came up.

You take your successes where you can get them some times. Those young guys pulled several more northern though the ice and I kept wishing I had northern minnows. But the electronics worked.

I could have run the dog and been cleaning several pheasants, instead the gears have been changed. Next time I’m procuring northern minnows the day before I leave town, or running dogs.