Newton with "Rosco"

Through the whole winter, I have been taking foster kids ice fishing and trying to get them a fish through the ice.  I haven't been able to succeed and was stumped as to why.  I finally figured it out the other day; it's because I have been taking them to Hyrum!  I have tried and tried to like Hyrum.  I just don't seem to catch many fish there no matter who I'm with or what I do.  So I decided to take a little bit longer of a drive today and took Rosco out to Newton.  Rosco is the only foster kid I take out now and it had been a long time since we visited Newton.  He was excited and so was I.  I could sense that he was finally going to be able to catch a fish.

We got to Newton and walked to the place where Ben and I had been fishing before, hoping to reopen the holes we made with a machete I have.  We got to the location we were at on Saturday and the snow had covered everything up.  I started to brush snow away with my foot and told Rosco "I know the holes are right here somewhere".  All of a sudden I hear a CRACK! and Rosco's foot had stepped onto a hole and he fell through to his leg.  (I know I know, it seems a little rude to laugh but it was kind of hilarious watching him  flail his arms unable to move anywhere til I could help him.)  My safety instincts kicked in and I immediately ordered him out of his boot and sock and had him wrap my coat around his foot to dry and keep warm.  We got him settled and he replies "at least we know where the holes are now!"

With that comment I figured we might as well fish for a bit and try and dry out his sock.  So after wringing the sock as best I could, I set it on the back of his chair and got our poles rigged and ready.  We dropped our lines down to the bottom and then reeled up about two turns.  We waited for a while and just when I was thinking we should move to a different spot, I saw a little tug on my pole.  Rosco soon after yelled about getting a bite and soon was able to pull this nice perch up...

I pulled one up soon after and we were excited.  We had a few more tugs, but missed them all and it died back down.  We finally decided to pack up and get back in the car to warm his foot up better.  We got into the car and started driving and passed a town called Benson.  I remembered a spot where Ben showed me once where it was good fishing for blue gil so I asked Rosco if he wanted to try it.  He said he did and felt his sock and boot were dry enough to walk in.  We walked out and noticed an old man coming off of the ice there.  We decided to fish where he had dug holes.  We started getting little taps and I kept pulling the hook out of the fishes mouths.  Rosco all of a sudden gets a tug on his pull and ended up catching a nice little Large mouth.  Unfortunately by this time my phone was dead so I didn't get a picture but Rosco sure was happy about it.  We had to leave soon after but I'm glad I was able to get Rosco some fish.  Seeing him that happy really made my day.