TRINITY'S 1st Annual 2010/2011 Icing/ Anchoring Challenge

[DetectorGuy]

I guess if I had to do it all again... I probably wouldn't. It sure was fun all along the way, but In the end there are no "winners"... just a bunch of hard feelings and confusion. To me competition is all about winning or losing, or why would someone keep score if it didn't matter. So about the lessons learned:

1. I would have changed tactics earlier, and focused on the creek and river inlets to the lakes instead of focusing on visual landmarks on shore, combined with a nice drop-off's just off shore from these landmarks. Some of these natural fishermen 'draws' worked pretty well, but the real honey holes were just offshore from creeks where the early open water every spring would attract fish, and therefore attract fishermen. The more fishermen attracted to one area - the greater congregation of anchors. The "Ace in the Hole Dive" we did that produced 20 anchors in one hole was one of these honey holes near a creek inlet. I think now that the dust has settled on that fateful dive, it is safe to say that that has to be a state record (being there is no one claiming more... I make this claim).

2. To do it again, I would have had more fun and focused less on productivity. We had fun Nate and I. I think the G-men had fun too, but we were too busy to notice. Every time I would jog to the truck to get a piece of gear, Nate would tell me: "Relax, We have all day". We had the 'early bird gets the worm' mentality, and we would usually meet at the landing at 7:00 AM. Towards the end of the season as the sun would come up earlier, we would meet at 6:00 AM. I remember being at the bar one Friday night for my wife's Christmas party. It was getting close to midnight and I was getting crabby because I knew that I had a commitment to meet Nate at the landing at 6:00, and that would mean I would need to get up in 5 hours to schlep my gear into the Jeep in 15 below weather. Or the Thin Ice Training dive we had set up with the Safety Rescue and the Lindstrom Fire Department on the 11th of December. These emergency personell all bailed at the last minute because the weather was so bad. We went diving anyway in a pretty nasty blizzard (the one that took out the roof of the Metro Dome). To make the blizzard dive worse, I set up our hole over a moonscape and we scored zero anchors that day... Commitment? we had commitment.

3. I would have tuned up my snowmobile prior to the season, instead of waiting until we needed it for light transport in early December. If it was tuned up right, it would have had enough power to muscle through the 8" of slush on Forest lake instead of slowing to the point of almost getting stuck. Then Nate would not have had to jump off a moving sled, and get all wet prior to the diving day. I would have also wore a helmet that day and not frostbitten my cheek relaying gear 3/4 mile to the dive site.

4. I learned that complacency is our own enemy sometimes. By ice diving nearly every weekend, I got good at setting my gear up the same way every time and got things down to a robotic system (OCD? maybe). The one time we were set up over a promising area and Nate had already snatched up a few nice anchors in that hole. When it was my turn, I was so excited to find my share of the anchors that I forgot to put my fins on. This sounds stupid of me but here is how it happened. I was sitting on the edge of the hole with my feet dangling. Following the OCD rituals (at least most of them) I clipped on my canister light, attached the inflator, stuffed my lift bag in the thigh pocket, stuffed the camera in the other, attached the dive rope, hood, gloves, computer, mask, snorkel... No I did not use a snorkel, I was just seeing if you are still reading this garbage. I jumped in and dumped air to get to the bottom as soon as I could. 5' from the bottom I hit the inflator to level off, and then it hit me... No traction! NO FINS! I was so embarrassed that I seriously thought of walking on the bottom 30' to the side, pull out 100' of line, and just camp out there for an hour so Nate would not know that I did something so stupid. Instead, I popped back up into the hole. Nate said: "whats wrong?" I told him that I should probably try this again with my fins. He laughed so hard and that helped my embarrassment.

5. I learned that there are not many anchors left in Green Lake. Yes we could have dove in a variety of lakes, but that was not on my agenda (or Nates either) as it was not one of the parameters of the challenge. With the right set of priorities, a person can do just about anything they set their mind to. I made winning this challenge a priority on the first day it was made public, and I was in it to win it. Who ever came up with the phrase: "Its not whether you win or lose, its how you play the game" has their priorities all messed up, and probably got pushed down a lot as a kid. Keeping score is a primal instinct. Even the cave men drew pictures of woolly mammoths they had slaughtered on the cave walls to show future generations that he was the Baddest Mamma Jamma in the land.

So next year I will not be in the challenge (if there is one) so I can go dive areas that interest me, and not keep scores, or spend countless hours researching maps and such. I kinda thought this challenge would inspire more people to take up ice diving, or get back into ice diving, or do more ice diving, but it seems like it alienated a lot of people to think that we are on the lunatic fringe and that we have a one track mind. Sure was fun though! ;D

John