Many years ago when my son was about 6 (He turned 42 the other day!), he and I and a friend were at the Minnesota Deer Classic walking through a big crowd as was common back then. Up ahead my friend spotted Bud Grant, gave my son a pen and something to write on and told him ” See that tall guy? Go ask him for his autograph.” My son went up to Bud and said ” Have you seen Babe Winkleman, do you know where he is?” Bud gave him a confused look and we grabbed my son by the arm and snuck away. I don’t even remember if we found Babe that day but for me it has been a great and lasting memory of my encounter with Mr. Bud Grant.

As I’ve gotten older(now 66) these types of situations have become more amusing and less maddening. I used to fume and let it ruin my day, but now I’ll often point out my better holes and suggest they try them. It helps that I’m retired and fish a lot and I live in an area with lots of lakes.
A couple of my favorites. I was the only person out on the lake after a couple inches of new snow. For whatever reason, I usually start out making 3 holes in a line, each about 10 yards apart. I fish these and add holes as needed. This day I was picking up a couple in each hole and moving back and forth, so there was an obvious path between the holes. I saw a car coming and they headed toward me and it was an area that people often fished, so I wasn’t surprised. They then stopped about 50 yards away, one person got out and started walking to look for holes(new snow, no other holes). The car follows and the walker waves him over to holes 2&3. They parked and started fishing, but never looked my way or said anything. It was strange that we were all that close together and they never acknowledged my existence. They caught fish and I fished awhile and went home with a meal myself.
When in college, my buddy and I ice fished a lot. We had this one spot on a lake that dropped off from 10-30 feet that we figured out that crappies bit late afternoon suspended at 10 feet over 30 feet of water. A couple guys saw us and made holes closer and closer. This was well before flashers and reels, so we pulled fish up the old way. Somehow we decided to pretend that we were pulling up way more line than the 10 feet we were fishing. We were quite dramatic about it. They asked us how deep it was where we were and we didn’t lie, we told them 30 feet.
I’ve been on these sites for years, I consider myself an introvert you may call me a lurker. When I do post look out, I’m hard to shut up! Enjoy fishing, enjoy life, you’re old before you know it. I can’t believe that crappie encounter was 45 years ago. Seems like yesterday.

Dan

I wish we would have thought of that!

When I was young, my Dad and I tried everything we could think of to cut spear holes. We weren’t lazy, there just had to be an easier way!. One day he came home with a brand new Stihl with a 24″ bar, this is it! I was amazed at how hard the ice was, I thought it would cut like butter, but it was as much work as chopping. My Dad’s friend had an old time real ice saw, so when we went with him we used that, but on our own we took turns chopping 3 sides, score the last side and break it off. We’d break the chunk into pieces and use the tongs to pull them out. Those were good times, I miss him.