Tragedy

If you are like me and my family, you are mesmerized by the Olympics.  Yep, we are at home watching the winter Olympics on TV pretty much every evening.  Sure, once every two years we take interest in sporting events that we know nothing about, nor care about, but the whole Olympic competition, whether it is summer or winter, is just riveting.  I love it.  When the winter Olympics roll around I am all for an event that celebrates snow and cold and ice!  I get real tired of hearing folks complain about the cold and wish for open water!  Embrace the winter!  I also am very much in favor of sporting events that celebrate the shooting sports, like the biathlon in the winter and all the other firearm and archery sports in the summer Olympics.

You may think it is boring, but honestly curling fascinates me.  I could watch it all the time (when is ESPN going to start a curling channel?).  I am sure part of that is because it reminds me of some game a bunch of ice-anglers might invent, much like Ice Auger Rodeo, when the bite slows.  I very much could see a bunch of guys standing around on the ice drinking some beverages, telling stories and sliding stones while waiting for a tip-up flag to go up–if that game was NOT invented by ice anglers I would be shocked.  Seriously, the stategery of curling fascinates me and the sport is culturally enriching–I can say “yep”, “whoa”, and “sweep” in six different languages!

I must admit that I am not much of a fan of the figure skating events; there is way too much subjectivity involved in deciding winners and losers.  Still, it saddened me this morning to learn of tragedy during one of the figure skating events. . . .

Emergency Crews Attempt To Rescue Olympic Figure Skater Who Fell Through Ice

Tragic as that may have been, it is a good reminder that you have to make sure the ice is safe every time you walk on it.  We certainly are coming close to the end of our ice-fishing season here in Nebraska, some waters may not be safe now.  But, I am not going to sit here in my office and tell you that’s it, it’s over, it ain’t safe anywhere to be on the ice right now.  That is not true, there are places in the state where anglers will be on the ice for several days, maybe even weeks yet, and I fully anticipate the late ice bite to be very good, it always is.  If you are still going to venture out, and I anticipate that I have not made my last ice fishing trip of the season yet, just be very careful, make sure it is safe and remember that late ice is not the same quality as first ice, it may take more than 4 inches of ice to be safe right now.  If you need some safety reminders. . . The Ice Man Cometh.

Speaking of ice conditions in Russia. . . . Some of you know I have been out of the office quite a bit lately.  I had heard there was a good zander bite over in Sochi, the intel I had said they were slamming Zippers (zander on Zippers, love the alliteration), so I wandered over to take in some of the winter Olympics and dry off some big zander.  I found a nice piece of virgin ice inside this big barn, fired up my Jiffy on an odd blue dot in the ice and suddenly had a bunch of guys carrying AK-47’s yelling at me and chasing me.

And you thought I was protective of my best fishing spots!

Today is the much awaited men’s hockey game between the United States and Canada.  The stakes are high!

“USA! USA! USA!”