ICE STATION ZEBRA, Lake Ouachita -- Not every fishing trip results in fish being caught. Some trips barely make it to the water.
With Central Arkansas buried under snow, Chris Larson of Maumelle sent me a text message at 3:24 p.m. Friday. It said, "Going up the river tomorrow afternoon for the first time. Have an empty seat. Interested?"
"All my tackle is in my boat buried under 18 inches of snow!" I replied. I know it was 18 inches because Miss Laura measured it with her yardstick.
"My boat is under a foot of snow," Larson replied. "Bring waders just in case we need to jump and drag."
That was good advice for an otherwise bad idea.
[Video not showing up above? Click here to watch » https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2G6XUsosz0s]
Actually, it didn't seem like such a bad idea at noon Saturday. The roads were mostly clear all the way to the Arkansas 27 Access at the far western end of Lake Ouachita.
Larson and I are disciples of the late Scott Hunter, who taught us about fishing for walleyes and stripers in the skinny water above Lake Ouachita's headwaters. We haven't fished together since 2019, but we were together on one magic day in 2018 when we caught so many many big stripers that the rod butt bruised my torso. The day's last fish fought me for 55 minutes, through three pools and through two sets of rapids. When I finally got it to the surface, Larson's big net was too small for a fish that pushed 50 pounds. I had to break the line and let it go. A line of anglers fishing from the bank gave us a hearty ovation.
On Saturday, Larson, a Wisconsin native, got out of his truck wearing the same Green Bay Packers cap he wore in 2018. It was not nearly as radiant as it was then.
"About time to replace that cap, don't you think?" I asked.
"Nah!" Larson said with a smile. "My wife keeps asking me to wash it, but I don't want to soak all the good luck out of it."
After arranging our gear, Larson unhooked the ratchet strap on the trailer from the bow of the boat. That was the first mistake. The boat ramp was still under about 4 inches of snow. To compound matters, Larson had recently installed new, uncarpeted, all-weather trailer bunks. As he backed down the ramp, he tapped his brakes. His truck and trailer stopped, but the boat kept going.
I felt like Stuttering Bob in "The Cowboys." I stood to the side, mouth moving but struggling to make a coherent sound. Larson got the message seconds later when the boat crashed onto the ground. Fortunately, nothing was damaged.
"Good thing it's a jet," Larson said. "If this had been a prop motor, that probably would have broken off the lower unit, or at least messed up the prop."
Larson's more pressing concern was the fact that all of this was being witnessed by a reporter for Arkansas' only statewide daily newspaper. He was not really shaken, but subtly perturbed. Larson gamely reattached the strap to the boat and winched it back onto the trailer while the reporter dutifully shot video.
The launch didn't go much better. With the boat securely attached to the trailer, Larson resumed his trip down the ramp and slammed the boat into a vast sheet of ice about 2 inches thick. The trailer kept going beneath the ice, but the ice stopped the boat, which demonstrated a stubborn desire to go over the front of the trailer and through the back glass of Larson's SUV. This time there was damage, but only a little in the form of an oil fitting that tore loose from the jet pump.
Clad in robust duck hunting waders, I waded into the lake and guided the boat off the trailer. Finally we were ready to fish, or at least travel to where the fish were.
Sitting in the bow seat, I peered over all the ice that mercifully yielded to open water at the Arkansas 27 Bridge. Beyond the bridge, however, was an unbroken sheet of ice that stretched as far as the eye could see, to the snow-covered hills and beyond. We cut a path about 100 yards before we could go no farther.
"The pump is sucking in ice," Larson said. "It can't pull enough water to generate any thrust."
Larson put the motor in reverse and slowly began backing out.
"I think I see open water up above us if we can just get to it," I said.
"I think that's just darker ice," Larson said, "but we can give it a try."
"Ramming speed!" I yelled as Larson revved the motor forward.
We hit the ice with a mighty crash, plowed through it for a distance and finally came to rest on top of it before the weight of the boat broke through to water. The entire ice sheet swayed and buckled.
"That's as far as we go," I said.
"It's going to take a day of hard wind to break it up," Larson said.
Back at Larson's truck, we consoled ourselves with gourmet turkey and cheese sandwiches, courtesy of Gloria Larson, but we were despondent. There were fish to be caught. It was a great day for fish to bite, and we couldn't get anywhere near them.
The wind came Sunday, and now Larson is eager to try again.