December 2021 • Nebraskaland 49
tend to do through the ice I've learned
— and I continued to catch them
that morning with little more than a
1
⁄16 -ounce jig tipped with a waxworm.
At the end, I sent my "trophy" photo to
everyone.
The unfathomable had become true.
Terrifi ed to walk on ice of any thickness
just three years before and kicking in
holes with my feet a year later, I was
catching dinner through the ice.
What is He Doing?
I have asked myself this question
numerous times during the past 25
years when hunting or fi shing with
Matthew Marx of Gretna. When in a
situation when most hunters would
say "No way," Matt shrugs and tries
anyway. I've watched him sneak
across a wide-open bean fi eld and
arrow a turkey with his bow, and the
amount of new techniques he'll try
while fi shing are innumerable. When
I fi rst balked at fi shing a soft plastic
"wacky worm" style, he thinks it's
wacky not to try.
On this day, he was wearing a
pair of ski goggles on top of a pair of
sunglasses. At the time, the goggles
seemed a little bit overkill, but the
harder the wind blew that day the more
money I would have paid for a pair.
We caught countless bluegill,
managing to carve out some hand-
sized fi sh for dinner between us, but
the goggles — and Matt's creativity —
won the day for me.
All Alone
Don Cox and I had never met in
person, but when I pulled up to Pelican
Lake at the Valentine National Wildlife
Refuge, I knew exactly who he was.
There was one person, several hundred
yards away, fi shing alone with a 25-
mph driving wind with 15-degree
temperatures.
I was there to photograph him. This
task, for many in front of the camera,
is awkward enough when there are
Matthew Marx shows a bluegill he caught while ice fi shing at Lawrence Youngman Lake.
