Ice Fishing at Jewel Lake

I went ice fishing for the first time. It was...cold! No warming huts, sipping romantic cups of hot chocolate for us - oh, no. We were skating across the 14 inch thick ice, watching out for hundreds (over two hundred, to be exact) of fishing holes that the Fish and Game had drilled into Jewel Lake to give elementary and middle school kids the experience of catching the "big one," in the middle of winter. They pumped the lake full of 1800 king salmon, gave hooks and poles to every kid, plus a few instructions ("let out the line, jiggle it up and down and give a quick tug when you see or feel a fish going for the bait") and let us loose for a chilly hour. The adult chaperones threaded bits of cocktail shrimp onto the needle-sharp hooks until their fingers turned into icecubes. Bless their hearts. No one in my class caught a single thing, but our school total was four for the day. Would I go again? Well, that depends - are we talking warming huts and hot chocolate? Then, maybe...