Happy New Year from Washington County NY
Ephraim Watson caught the first fish of the New Year at McDougal Lake, and it was a beauty! The fish was a thirty-two inch Northern Pike that Ephraim said he caught after only sitting there from six until maybe eight-thirty that morning. "That morning" was, of course, the first morning of the New Year, and Ephraim who traditionally does not stay out late on New Year's Eve, was pleased to be up and catching the first fish.
"Northern Pike aren't your great eating fish," he confided, "even one this big. But what they do is they eat up all the game fish in the lake until there's no good eating fish to be found anywhere at all." Ephraim also confided he would probably wind up eating this one nonetheless, as long as he could get his wife, Molly, to clean it.
Ephraim normally drills between seven and twelve holes in the ice "depending on how tricky the fish are that particular day. Some days you'll put a hole ten feet away from where you're catching nothing, and that'll be where all the fish are hanging out." He feels patience is a true virtue of ice-fishing, almost as much as sheer skill. " Of course, patience can be a skill all by itself."
It was not cold enough to warrant taking a shelter out on the Lake New Year's Day, and Ephriam was able to fit most everything he needed on a small sled. The ice wasn't quite thick enough, he said, to risk driving his truck out onto the lake, especially with his new Christmas plow. Several inches of new snow were predicted later in the day, and Ephraim did not want to miss out on that.
He packed up his sled and left the lake at noon, declaring it "a good day". After a quick stop at the general store in Cossayuna for a quart of beer, he went home to get his Northern Pike cleaned. It was time for an early supper.
