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"So Augie, what's the most important thing to remember when you're out ice fishing?" I ask my youngest son this question every single time we prepare to venture out onto the ice. He's now six years old. I began asking him this question when he was two. Last Saturday, I sprung the familiar pop quiz on him while my wife was jamming an eternally damp pair of mittens on his hands out on the back porch. Augie's eyes suddenly dart around the room, frantically searching for a clue in a jumble of Legos lying on the floor. He closes his eyes to concentrate. He knows the answer - the answer never changes - but for some inexplicable reason his brain has yet to make his mouth form the correct words. Augie tentatively opens one eye and gives it his best shot: "Stay awake?" The rising inflection in his voice signifies serious uncertainty.

The correct answer to the quiz is stay dry. I'll even accept slight variations, such as keep dry, remain dry or be dry. As long as the word dry is somewhere in the answer, I'll accept it. This may sound far-fetched, but in the past four years, Augie has never, ever stayed dry on an ice fishing trip. Never. Not one single time. Honest to God, you could turn this kid loose in the middle of the Sahara with nothing more than a couple of bent willow sticks for dousing rods and he'd find water. He'd find a way to get completely wet in the middle of a desert.

So we set out to go ice fishing anyway, knowing full well that, for the umpteenth time, Augie would soon become very wet and very cold. You'd think by now I'd be smart enough to take two of everything along for him - two pairs of boots, two pairs of long johns, two pairs of socks. I guess I have two pretty good reasons why I don't: I'm a guy and that would make too much sense. Besides, even if I had them along, I'd probably forget I had them. Usually, Augie getting wet simply marks the end of the trip. I guess it's easier to plop the little urchin into a warm vehicle and drive home than it is to strip down a sopping wet kid and redress him out in the middle of a frozen lake. Obviously that makes no sense at all, but that's the way my mind works.

Last Saturday we fished in one of Frankie's rental houses on Chisago Lake. We heard that a guy caught about 200 crappies out of that house the night before. Naturally, we had to give it a try. My brother, Jim, drove out from Zimmerman to join Augie and me, along with Augie's older brother, Anders. We weren't there more than twenty minutes before Augie decided he should step out of the house and jump up and down with both feet on a hole that had a skim of ice over it. The ice gave way and suddenly Augie was two and a half feet tall. And very wet. The crying started before the sun dipped below the treetops and well before the first crappie was caught.

Thankfully, we did have one dry pair of insulated bib overalls to work with. Inside the icehouse, all eyes were on Augie. Would he continue to trip-out and force a call to Mom on the cell to arrange for a pick-up? He sat in a folding chair in the bib overalls, his bare feet propped up next to the propane stove. He dried his eyes and proudly announced that he could fish like that. No problem. He was good. He didn't whine. He didn't complain. He sat there and quite happily caught crappie after crappie in his bare feet. When he got tired of catching fish he laid down on the lower bunk bed and took a snooze under a pile of jackets. We woke him up at 8 o'clock after the bite slowed. We had caught around 80 fish, keeping two good limits of crappies and one bonus walleye.

This particular ice fishing trip with Augie ended as many of them do. I parked the truck in the back of the house and walked around the vehicle where I slung a limp Augie over my shoulder, his feet leading the way to the back door and a warm bed.

Dan Brown's weekly outdoor column is brought to you by Frankie's Bait and Marine, in Chisago City, and St. Croix Outdoors, in St. Croix Falls, Wis.

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