Ice drift in Siberia

Today, on May 1, an ice drift began on the river. Usually the last few years have already passed the river, the water has risen strongly, flooding the entire flood plain.

But this year there was a cold winter and a very cold spring, so the ice drift was delayed for ten days. But there were colder times.

Twenty years ago a professor, doctor of historical sciences Sergey Krasinsky, came to visit me on a fishing trip. It was May 19, there was a cold and an ice drift on the river had not yet begun, but in the channel a little water rose and the ice was not visible until the forest itself.

We decided to go to the fishing hut around the channel with just one tram. It was enough to drive through the meadows and get into the forest, as the holiday ended. There was not only ice here, but some huge ice floes turned around and it was impossible to pass.

Where we could have dug ice, where we hauled the boat. On the ice floes, fishermen sat and fished the fish with winter fishing rods chuckling at us, they took fish one by one. With great difficulty, we got to the drag line, unloaded the boat and dragged the things, then came the turn of the boat.

To our happiness, it began to snow with large flakes and created a skating rink for the boat, so the fiber was quick and not tedious. We put things on the hut, went to put the network. The first network was specialized for catching sterlet, but other fishermen were already in the coveted place, then we put the tackle in a huge and deep whirlpool a little farther away from them at the dace.

Several nets were placed on the ducts along which the fish moves for spawning in the spring. At night, frost hit minus 10 degrees Celsius. The hut was a boardwalk - a summer variant, it was necessary to heat it all night, the surrounding fishermen gathered to warm up with us.

Izbush peretopili and it caught fire, quickly extinguished. In the morning we went to choose fish from the nets, on the pool, and it covered with shallow icing, two bags of large and fat dairies were let out from the seventy meter network. The professor was in shock, he was such a large fish, and even in one place did not see.

The problem arose on the channels, there was no current and formed overnight ice five centimeters thick, the size of a matchbox. To walk on it was impossible, too thin, but for the boat it was too thick and it was impossible to pass. I had to pound the road to the nets. They were full of huge pikes and yazy, they were seen through clear ice.

After spending a long time, we still blew the fish out and went to cook the soup, salt the caviar for a snack. After a very hearty meal, I went with a small boat, which local call the clouds, to put another network on a large pike in the next channel. it was narrow with a strong current and high banks.

The land around the edges was completely frozen and there was nowhere to stick a stick with an attached net. Here I noticed a snowdrift of snow behind a bend and decided to use it to fix the network. But the snow was thick and I had to make an effort. I did not calculate it, the clouds turned over and I found myself on the chest in icy water, holding with one hand the stuck stick, the other for the inverted clouds.

I dragged a small boat ashore so that it did not float away and tried to crawl up. But the slope was steep and covered with snow, I immediately slid back into the water. He reached for the knife and stuck it in the snow and pulled himself up. Gradually got out, my head was spinning with cold water, I was all wet. On the floodplain was a strong cold wind, which, through wet clothes, burned the body.

In order not to catch a cold and not get sick, I covered my chest with my hands and ran into the hut, to which there were two kilometers. Warmed up, I put on my dry clothes and continued to put the nets. On this place, just a few huge pike with caviar.

Two days later the fish was already so much that the boat should be overloaded and we got ready to go home. In the evening a warm wind blew and the fish had to be buried in the snow, in the morning it was more than twenty degrees Celsius. I had to put the fish in bags with cold snow. The water rose so much that we drove through the fiber without turning off the motor. Fishing was a success!