Ice Fishing

"Just five more minutes," Thaddeus pleaded, his breath visible in the fading light. The tip-up flag hadn't moved in hours, but hope died slowly when you were thirteen. Especially when you'd spent the whole day watching your grandfather tell stories instead of catching fish.

Earl Murphy adjusted his wool cap and checked his watch – the same Timex he'd worn for the past thirty years. "Sun's getting low, kid. You know the rules." His voice carried the gentle authority of someone who'd learned patience from a lifetime of waiting for fish to bite.

Their ice shelter stood empty nearby, abandoned hours ago when Thaddeus had declared it too confining. Now, as the temperature dropped and wind whipped across Lake Mitchell, the shelter's promised warmth seemed less like imprisonment and more like wisdom. But Thaddeus wasn't ready to admit that yet.

"Mom says you used to stay out until way after dark," he tried, deploying the age-old tactic of using a parent's childhood against them. "She said you and Uncle Pete would fish until Grandma had to drive down and flash the headlights three times."

Earl chuckled, the sound carrying across the frozen lake. "Your mother has a selective memory. She forgets to mention the time we got caught in a snowstorm and had to be rescued by the sheriff's department." He began packing up their gear with practiced efficiency. "Besides, those were different times. Lake wasn't as warm back then."

Thaddeus frowned, looking at the thick ice beneath his boots. "Warm? It's freezing!"

Image Credit: @claybanks

"That's the surface," Earl said, checking the ice auger one last time before stowing it. "But underneath? Water's two degrees warmer than it was when I was your age. Doesn't sound like much, but fish notice. They change their patterns. Adapt." He gestured at their empty bucket. "That's why we tell stories now instead of catching fish."

"We didn't even get a bite," Thaddeus muttered, but he started helping with the gear anyway. His fingers were too cold to argue much longer.

"Didn't we?" Earl raised an eyebrow. "Seems to me you bit pretty hard on the story about how I met your grandmother at the ice fishing derby of '82."

"That's different." Thaddeus felt his cheeks warm despite the cold. "That was just talking."

"Just talking?" Earl paused in his packing, straightening up despite the protestation of his artificial hip – a souvenir from forty years of construction work. "You know what people don't understand about ice fishing, Thad? They think it's about catching fish."

The sun was a dying ember on the horizon now, painting the snow in shades of pink and gold. Around them, other fishing parties were packing up, their voices carrying across the ice in that peculiar way that sound travels in cold air. Someone's auger whirred in the distance, a last hopeful attempt at finding the day's hotspot.

"When I was your age," Earl continued, "my grandfather would bring me out here. Same lake, different world. No GPS to mark the spots. No sonar to see the fish. Just knowledge passed down, and time." He smiled at a memory. "I used to get so frustrated when we didn't catch anything. Couldn't understand why he seemed just as happy on the empty days as the full ones."

Thaddeus zipped up his jacket higher, listening despite himself. There was something about the way his grandfather told stories that made them feel like more than just words.

"One day – must've been about your age – I finally asked him. 'Grandpa,' I said, 'why do we keep coming out here when the fish aren't biting?'" Earl's voice took on a different timber, as if channeling a ghost. "You know what he told me?"

Thaddeus shook his head.

"He said, 'Earl, some days you're fishing for fish. Other days you're fishing for stories. The trick is learning to treasure both.'" Earl hefted their gear onto the sled. "Took me twenty years to understand what he meant. Another twenty to learn how to explain it to your mother. Now here I am, hoping you'll figure it out faster than I did."

They began the walk back to shore, their boots crunching on the snow. The lake was emptying now, other fishermen heading home to warm houses and waiting families. Thaddeus pulled the sled while his grandfather walked beside him, matching his pace despite the hip.

"Hey, Grandpa?" Thaddeus broke the comfortable silence. "That story about you and Grandma at the fishing derby... did that really happen? Or were you just fishing for stories?"

Earl's laugh echoed across the lake again. "Well, now, that's the real question, isn't it? Maybe next time we'll stay out long enough for you to figure it out."

"Next time?" Thaddeus tried to hide his eagerness. "Even though we didn't catch anything?"

"Especially because we didn't catch anything." Earl rested a gloved hand on his grandson's shoulder. "Some days the stories are better than the fish. Your great-grandfather taught me that. Someday, you'll teach it to your own kids."

They reached the truck just as the last light faded from the sky. As they loaded the gear, Thaddeus noticed his grandfather looking back at the lake, his expression distant but content. The day's failure suddenly felt less like failure and more like something else – something he couldn't quite name yet, but suspected he would understand better with time.

"Grandpa?" he said, climbing into the truck's warm cabin. "Maybe next time you can tell me about the sheriff's department rescue?"

Earl's eyes twinkled as he started the engine. "Now that's a story worth freezing for. But first, let's get you home before your mother sends out a search party. Some traditions are better left in the past."

As they drove away, Thaddeus watched the lake disappear in the rearview mirror. They hadn't caught any fish, but somehow, he felt like they'd caught something else – something that, like his grandfather's stories, would last much longer than any fish could.