Through the Ice

Entirely different deal here.  No walking, no hunting, no sight-fishing.  Just stopping five minutes from the house and treating it like a grocery store.  The strategy is founded on timing and patience.  There is very little gear involved and very little time needed.  A creel of 5-6 rainbows is approximately $50 worth of protein, at current cost per pound.

Often prepare fish whole but lately have been filleting them.  A year into the new knife and it is appreciated.

Extra aquarium aerator hanging around so we can keep minnows going between visits.  I think we've been out approximately seven times and have captured 1-6 (limit) on each occasion.  Average is 3.x.

Pretty much zero waste deal, as are all fish takings.  Not only can one catch a fish on a fly tied at home but one can catch a fish using a fly tied with a feather that has actual cells aligned and built by way of birds eating fish caught with a fly (or minnow in this case; here referring generally to trout capture which is more often salmo trutta taken with flies) composed of feather grown at home and palmered at the desk and so on, somewhat like the infinity reflection diagrams.  And I suppose you'd also work in the transformation of fish castoffs to eggs and nitrogen fertilizer both of which are cast about the household and yard.  And then there is the really interesting geographical coincidence in that the main waste stream leaving our home works through a number of confluences and then joins the Zumbro river approximately two hundred yards from the place we stand on the ice to catch the trout.