Chris comes to pick me up around midday after Finnish school with a Polish classmate and we set off to Ylihärmä along the snow-covered road.
Chris's friend is also called Chris and he has been working as a welder in Finland for the last four years. It was Polish Chris who had replaced the tip of the ice drill which had been such a disaster last time out and he was supposed to have fixed it again. We foolishly don't ask anything about the ice drill.
Funny that, isn't it? How you feel that something is just so taken for granted that you don't say anything. People say the strangest things and you don't react. You just nod politely and later think, "Why didn't I just say something?"
We get to Polish Chris's house and have a coffee before setting off with the fishing gear. It had been snowing a lot in the last week with the temperature a constant sub minus 10, usually referred to by the locals simply as 10.
"It's about 10 today. Not bad."
This results in the snow being very fine and powdery; it's light and doesn't compact. It is easier to walk on than when it has melted and frozen again like the ice we occasionally have on our English pavements.
We drive a fair way and turn off onto a forest track. Here I see big boulders, partly exposed. I hadn't seen the natural ground cover until now but apparently there are a lot of granite boulders strewn all over the place - a remnant of the last ice age, left behind by the receding glaciers.
The national flag of Finland is an off-centre blue cross on a white background. The white represents the snow that dominates the scenery for a large part of the year and the blue represents the more than 4,000 post-glacial lakes.
Finland is mostly flat and is one of the few countries organically growing in size. The land is bouncing back after the melting of the glaciers. The islands between Vaasa in Finland and Umea in Sweden will form an archipelago which will continue to rise until the Gulf of Bothnia eventually becomes an enclosed lake, an inland sea.
Polish Chris tells English Chris to, "Park here".
We are on a track with a cottage about 100 metres ahead on what would be the coast of the lake. There is another track off to the left and a bank of snow on the right in what is possibly a lay by. Except you wouldn't be able to lay by here if you weren't in a Hummer. And we are in a Volks Wagon - the type you would take to the shops or drive your kid to school in. Unless you were in London and then you probably would use a Hummer or at least a Range Rover.
Polish Chris says it's all right to leave the car where it is in the middle of the track; "Nobody is coming down here".
We get the fishing gear and follow Polish Chris who is walking towards the cottage. He is slightly ahead of us and there are no signs that anyone has been here for a while. Suddenly Chris stops. He is up to his thighs in snow. "Let's go back and find another way."
The other way is no better but we trudge on until we get to a three-walled shack with a bench along the back wall. The two Chris's seem a bit puffed out so we sit for a while. English Chris asks Polish Chris if he tested the drill. "No. But it will be all right, I fixed it properly this time." I find an axe in the shack and as the other two are setting off I ask whether I should bring it with us. "No. We'll be all right." I bring it anyway.
The snow is not as deep on the lake. It must have drifted up along the coast so it's a bit easier going as we march out across the lake. Polish Chris finds a spot near a rock sticking out of the ice. English Chris asks, "Is it deep here?" "Yes, it's deep near this rock." Fish like deeper water when the surface is frozen.
While the two Chris's are attempting to sharpen the once-again-failed ice drill, I set about chopping a hole in the ice with the axe. It's not easy, as the deeper you go, the longer you need to make the hole because of the angle of swing.
English Chris gives up on the ice drill and joins me for a while and we take it in turns with one scooping while the other one chops. We get through the ice which is probably just over 30cm thick and brown muddy water comes gushing up. We clear the chopped ice from the surface of the water while Polish Chris, who has finally given up on the ice drill, makes a start on another hole with the axe.
I thread a few maggots onto the hook on my spinner and drop it into the murky water. I let the line off and it comes to a stop. Last time out I had the same feeling that the water wasn't that deep although at the time Chris seemed to think it was. I had plunged the tree trunk into the hole and had soon hit the muddy bed of the lake. I had pushed the trunk down further and it was about as deep again in mud.
We finish the second hole and drop our lines in but English Chris has had enough already; "I'm giving up winter fishing. I don't think I'll go out again until the summer."
Polish Chris has a boat on this lake.
I look forward to that.
Whether we catch fish or not.
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