In the early 1960s when I was five or six years old, my grandfather would take me out icefishing on Wayzata Bay on Lake Minnetonka. He had a wooden shack that he and his neighbor made that was four foot by six foot, and held together with lag bolts. As soon as there was four or five inches of ice on the lake, we would take the house down from the rafters of the garage. We would lay the floor, roof, and walls on a homemade sled, along with the wood stove and pipe, a metal bait bucket, poles, ice chisel, and firewood and drag the whole works down the street a half block to the lake.

Going out ice fishing with Grandpa meant putting on wool long underwear (itchy!), two pair of wool socks, pulling rubber boots over my shoes, putting on a wool sweater that Mom knitted me, wrapping a scarf around my face, and using a wool hat and mittens that Mom also knitted. Even in all that handmade warmth, you’d still get cold if you didn’t keep moving.

When we arrived at the lake, we would trudge all over the bay pounding out holes with the chisel and dropping a chunk of lead clipped to our braided line on our homemade poles with a nail in the end (to stick it in the ice when fishing). Grandpa would drop the weight down until it hit the bottom, then pull it up, stretching the line between his widespread arms, crudely measuring the depth. We would never set up the fish house until we actually caught a few fish. Grandpa didn’t want to set up on a “dead spot.” Once a few panfish were caught, we would assemble the fish house. We would chisel out four holes in twenty minutes or so (much longer as the ice got thicker). We would slide the house over the holes, bank it with snow all around the base to keep out drafts and prevent the holes from freezing up. We would then set up the stove and pipe, clumsily make a fire with our cold fingers, and fish in the house until we had enough “keepers” for supper that night.

I still fish Wayzata Bay as a middle-aged man. Except now I put on my synthetic-blend long underwear (no-itch). I wear Gore-Tex socks under my foam-lined pack boots. I don an “interchange system” layered jacket, thinsulate-lined gloves, and top off with a fleece hat/face mask. I gather up my power ice auger, sonar fish locator, propane heater tank, collapsible portable fish house, and all of my sophisticated tackle and rods with reels spooled with the finest superpolymer lines. I load all of this gear into a streamlined polypropylene sled, enter the coordinates of grandpa’s fishing spots into my portable global positioning system, and push the “go-to” button, taking me to within 10 feet of the spot. I pop my holes in less than a minute, set up the house in less than a minute, and fire up the stove with one match. I release all of the fish I catch.

It seems too easy, I miss the smell of a wood stove, and the layers of wool.

I really miss Grandpa.