Grumpy Old Men

Yesterday we finally achieved one of our long-awaited goals! We went ICE FISHING!!! It took us over a month to find someone who does ice fishing commercially...apparently no one does except a handful of people in the state of Colorado! Thankfully we found a guide down in Gunnison, which is a small town right beside Crested Butte, and a 4 hour drive from Boulder.
We drove down Friday night after work, preparing ourselves for zero degree weather the next morning! Will and I had this idea that you just sit on the ice in fold out chairs with a fishing pole in the freezing cold...but our guide had other plans!

We fished at Blue Mesa Reservior outside of Gunnison...this is a view of the lake. It ended up being 16 degrees at 8am when we went out there and overcast. There was so much snow you couldn't tell where the mountains ended and the sky began.



We rode out on the ice on a 4-wheeler with all our equipment dragging behind...here is Will on the back of the 4-wheeler.



This is the first spot we fished...it was kind of slushly and made Will and I nervous at first, but we figured out it was safe. You can see our guide in the distance drilling holes.





Some other pictures...







We got to sit in a tent on the ice with a heater...which was really nice for us!





The holes we fished in...



This is a close up of the hole in our tent; you can kind of see the thickness of the ice. It was about 3 feet thick, so very safe to stand on...and the thing on the side is a fish finder. It helped us to know if there were fish swimming by and if our jig had hit the bottom. We were only fishing in water that was 8-10 feet deep.



This my first fish I caught...a rainbow trout...the guide is holding it here.



Now me holding the fish...it was trying to jump out of my hands and I was kind of grossed out...I definitly had to wear gloves to hold it!



The second rainbow trout I caught...



Will fishing in our warm tent...



The sun finally came out, and it was pretty nice outside..probably in the 20s...very bright with all the snow and ice around us...so we moved holes and fished outside the tent. Our guide was so nice, he let me drill the next hole!! It was awesome!





I think drilling my own hole brought me good luck...I caught my 3rd rainbow trout...



Poor Will didn't feel well all day (and still doesn't today) so he laid down on the ice for awhile...and didn't catch any fish :( He had one that he almost had in his hands, but jumped off the hook right as he got it to the top of the water...



After awhile, we went to try another fishing spot and didn't have much luck there either. I also got to drive the 4-wheeler across the lake, which was so much fun!!!!!
We found this buoy frozen in the lake and thought it was funny!



The scenery surrounding us fishing and on our drive home was just amazing...these pictures just don't show how beautiful it was. We've never seen that much snow...there were street signs buried all the way to the top in snow...mountains with so much untouched snow, and lots of wildlife around for us to see! We did see coyote footprints while we were fishing, kind of crazy!









We LOVED ice fishing, and are going to try and go again in April!!!