fishing spot. I have a strong dislike for cold weather, not sure why I've stayed in Nebraska all my life. Must be that Husker Fever. The last 25 years have been absent of extreme cold but I still have nightmares from the 80's when my dream was to build a cattle empire. Pulling calves in an April blizzard with the cow tied to the tractor too many times, started me thinking I wasn't getting paid enough to that. Then there's the Dec of 83 polar vortex that lasted over a month where the overnight lows were 30 below and the highs never got above 0. I couldn't feed cows enough to create enough body heat for the thinner ones-----some of them just laid down and died because the wind chill was unbelievable. I wouldn't wish that year on my worst enemy.

Actually that year was the beginning of the end for my cowboy days. Each year just got harder and harder to Cowboy Up but I managed to torture myself another 5 years before I started my search for a new passion. I gave up on a dream but I didn't give up dreaming. I learned some valuable lessons in the 80's, they were hard painful lessons but they were the foundation to who I am today and I wouldn't trade those lessons learned for no price. I like the fishing environment I have but I do have a friend that has a passion for that ice fishing thing and I just can't relate to what he sees in it.