Some things are hard to believe, but true. This is one.

You need to understand that on a cold Minnesota winter day, when the temperature never gets above minus 20 degrees Fahrenheit, it’s a perfect day to go ice fishing. (This isn’t the unbelievable part.)

With our portable ice-fish house and all our fishing gear already packed in the back of our Chevy truck, my husband and I headed first to the bait store for a scoop of minnows and the scoop on the current fishing hot spots.

Once on the lake, driving down the plowed frozen road, we chose our spot. The spot—where we set up our ice-fish house—has to “feel” right. At least that’s my theory. My husband would probably tell you about the lake terrain, the depth of the lake, or keeping away from the crowd of permanent ice-fish houses.

Wearing large parkas with hoods, Sorrel felt-lined boots, snow pants, and woolen scarves to cover our faces (no—this still isn’t the unbelievable part), we pulled the portable fish house from the truck, unfolded its canvas sides, and marked and drilled the four fish holes.

When using a muscle-powered ice auger, I can guarantee you won’t feel the cold. An ice auger looks somewhat like a four-foot-high, hand-held eggbeater with a curved blade to cut through the ice. You put one mittened hand on the top, rest your forehead on that hand, brace your feet a couple feet apart, and then use your other hand to start turning, turning, turning . . . turning the auger through several feet of ice. And when it’s as cold as it was that day, you breathe through your mouth because the cold seals your nostrils shut. (No—not yet.)

Once in the ice-fish house with the stoked woodstove, the mittens came off. And the parkas. The snow pants. The sweatshirts. The flannel shirts. The turtlenecks. The long underwear. Down to our jeans and t-shirts. Then we waited—peanut butter sandwich in one hand, playing cards in the other, and one eye on the fish-line bobbers.

When a bite came, bobber slowly drifting down through the water, I dropped everything, picked up the two-foot pole, set the hook, and pulled in a crappie. “Open the door,” I yelled, and flung the fish outside.

Clink!

We looked at each other in amazement. The fish had frozen before it hit the ground. True.

It . . . clink . . . was a . . . clink . . . good . . . clink, clink, clink . . . day…clink . . . for fishing . . . clink, clink.