Ice Fishing Derby

The 16th annual perch ice fishing derby was held yesterday on Lake Irving in Bemidji. This was an awesome event. It is a free event for kids: no fishing licenses needed, just bring your own pole and they provide the hole, the minnows, a hot dog lunch, and prizes-- lots and lots of prizes! In fact they gave away 87 bikes, twice that many fishing rods and reels, tackle boxes, t-shirts, gift certificates and more. Every kid was a winner and lets just say that there were lots of kids. I think every kid in Bemidji was there hoping to be the lucky one who got to bring home a new bike. I think the kids we were with were tickled just to be getting their very own can of pop!Did I mention that is was warm? Notice that Eli was not wearing a coat. I think it was 48 degrees (Hello, spring!) with the sun beating down. I even got a little sunburn! I was a little worried about going on the ice as it was above freezing all week. But, every Minnesotan told me that it takes months to melt 2 feet of ice so I tried not to worry even as we were driving on the ice and splashing through some pretty massive puddles. Needless to say, there is still a lot of ice.
Eli did not win a bike, however, he did win an ice fishing rod and reel. He was so excited to hear his name called!Are there any fish down there? Apparently not many considering that in the 2 hours hundreds perhaps a thousand people were out fishing and only 5 perch were caught.

Sadie won this wonderful ice scoop. She was pretty tickled considering that that was all she did the whole time. She would kick snow into the hole and dig it out, kick in some more snow , then dig it out, kick in some more snow (you get the idea)! Oh and she got some new ice fishing jigs.
As a side note, Zoe fell into a hole not once, but twice. Poor thing, soaked to her thigh each time.