Part Two

For the crazy ice fishing story

(I loved this story so much that I wanted to capture it in two paintings, because the finale to the tale is equally deserving of an illustration in my humble opinion. For this one I also recorded the fisherman’s story and transcribed it into text. He preferred to remain anonymous, so that’s why his name isn’t included. READ PART ONE FIRST.)

Part Two:

I guess the part two to that story is - it’s pretty funny, but it’s sad. As you can see, I have deep freezers. I’m pretty notorious - this all happened when I lived at my mother’s house. I’m pretty notorious for getting a lot of wild game and leaving it in my freezer for a bit longer than I should. And back then, this freezer was at my mother’s house, in her garage. And when I caught that fish, I cleaned her, and she had eggs, and I saved the eggs. I don’t know why, because I don’t even eat caviar, but I saved the eggs in case somebody wanted to try it. And then I cleaned her, and I wrapped her up in a double or triple plastic bag, and I put it in the freezer, and my mom was so excited with such a big fish. And then I forgot about it for a couple months, which was horrible. You should eat it right away, but I’m notorious for this - that freezer is full of fish right now. So yeah, so I had that in there. And I thought to myself one day, “Oh, my God, that fish has been in there for two months. I gotta… I gotta do something.”

So I talked to my grandma up north, and I said, “Hey, you know, can you give me some pickling recipes?” Because she pickles stuff, so she goes, “Yeah.” So I get these recipes, and I go out to my freezer because she mailed them to me. Hand written recipes for pickling fish. She’s so nice. She mailed me these recipes. Best grandma ever. So I get these recipes, I go out to my deep freezer and I go, “I’m gonna pickle that fish now.” Because, you know, if you leave a fish too long, it’s not really good to eat it on the stove or anything, but you can pickle it and it’s gonna turn out pretty good. It’s not gonna turn out the best as if it was fresh. But that vinegar - really, I don’t know if you know about Northern but they’re really bony, so when you pickle them, those bones actually dissolve. So you get all meat and you don’t get any bone. But you can take out the y-bone from a Northern pike too. When you fillet it, there’s a way to do it. You just got to practice. But a lot of people, I’d say, like 90% are pickling Northern because they get all the bones out so you yield the most and you don’t have to deal with anything.

So anyways, I got this recipe and go up to the freezer in my mom’s garage, and I’m digging through it. There’s a lot of animal pelts to dig through. I tan pelts and make clothing out of them. Like hats and coats. And so my freezer was filled with beaver hides that my uncle caught. And so I’m digging all this shit out, throwing it all over the garage, looking for my fish - that big, eight pound, seven pound fish, whatever it was. I’m just throwing everything. I’m like, “Ma! Where’s… you see my Northern?” She goes, “What Northern?” I say, “My big one.” She goes, “Oh, that big Northern?” I go, “Yeah.” She says, “Oh, I gave it to the crows.”

So my mom - my mom is… we’re very different. So my mom’s part native, and so she doesn’t like throwing away food. So she gives everything that we don’t eat - our scraps - everything that we’re gonna throw away goes to the animals. Under a pine tree in our yard. So she gave it to the crows, thinking… She goes, “Well, that’s been in there for years, hasn’t it?” I’m like, “Mom, I caught it two months ago!” and I was so pissed. I was like, “I was gonna pickle that!” And I was like, “Don’t you ever throw away my Northern pike again!” And I was so mad I never even got to eat that fish… But they’re my favorite birds, crows. So I’m like, “At least it went to my favorite bird.”

But it’s such a crazy end to that story. It still went to something good. I actually had seen the crows in our yard, and some Northern pike scales and pieces scattered out there a couple days before that, and I go, “Oh no.” It’s so normal that my mom’s throwing stuff out to the animals, that I didn’t even ask her. I didn’t even go, like, “Oh, that’s my fish.” It could have been any Northern pike. I didn’t even know it was mine getting ate for days, like, three days of me seeing it. So that’s, that’s my story, I guess. For ice fishing.