I clearly remember the day when the editor - Maxi Maxon - called me into his office and said he and the publisher thought it would be a dandy idea if I'd become the Freeman-Journal's first-ever outdoor writer.

Nothing to it, they said. Just try it one time and we'll see how the idea will fly. What an amazing opportunity, they said. I turned it down. They persisted. I ended up saying yes, vowing to do this one-time-only, just to get them off my back.

OK, I said, just this once. One time. That was 40 years ago. It's a plum job, they told me.

Well, the had the "job" part right. They conveniently forgot to mention that one day I'd find myself knee-deep in the silt of Briggs Woods Lake, wading out on the mud flats to see what was out there after they'd drained the lake. They forgot to mention I might have to walk the banks of the Des Moines River in -10 weather at Lehigh trying to locate bald eagles. They failed to mention I'd find myself parked along a gravel road watching half-starved pheasants trying to scratch their way down through 40 inches of snow and ice during Iowa's snowiest season on record.

There was the year I helped the county guys clean up all the dead fish around the shore of Briggs Woods Lake. Heavy ice and a late spring caused a fish kill. Remember, this is a plum job with lots of perks.

Sometimes, though, it's not so bad - kind of interesting. Earlier this week, I spent the better part of a day walking up and down the Boone River wearing a life vest and insulated chest-high waders. We drilled holes in the river ice with an ice auger and took readings of dissolved oxygen levels. We came to a hole, we stuck a fish locator down below the surface to see how many - if any - fish were stacked up down there. Shallow lakes, ponds and rivers (many rivers are near frozen solid from top to bottom - no current moving) in the state, especially in the north, already have low oxygen levels, according to Iowa Department of Natural Resources fisheries biologists. That could set up a worse-than-usual winter kill, but it's not a cut-and-dried thing. Fish are less active in cold water and can live for some time in low oxygen.

As spring gets closer, ground water can start replenishing oxygen supplies in stream and lakes, saving the fish. The old story that fish will find the deep holes and survive is mostly a myth. A deep hole - no matter how deep or how big - can only handle so many fish. And they don't "stack up" in deep holes. If they did, they'd use up all the oxygen very quickly.

Dead fish don't always float to the surface. Only a few do this. Most of them sink to the bottom, and we saw dead fish in some of those holes. None of the holes we checked were "stacked up" with fish. Only a few fish actually end up in those deep river holes. Right now, fish are fighting to stay alive in many of Iowa's lakes. Some winters are worse than others. This one is a bad one. Lots and lots of deep record-breaking snow cover is preventing sunlight from getting through the ice. The oxygen-making process gets put on hold.

On the other hand, lakes often lose many fish during the winter every three to five years. But that keeps the nuisance species from getting out of hand and improves fishing over the next few years. While many local lakes and farm ponds may be headed for trouble with problems involving oxygen depletion, the Boone River doesn't appear to be in that much trouble. While we did not find oxygen levels in the Boone to be high, by the same token, they were not dangerously low, either. Most readings were on the plus-side of what I would call the "break-even point."

For some strange reason, there were frequent patches of open water all up and down the Boone River all winter. That's a blessing. Open water means oxygen, and oxygen means fish.

As I put this column together Tuesday and as you read it on Friday, the Boone River appears to be holding its own. Remember, we went into the winter with our rivers extremely low, but then consider too, the fish population has been low for several years. Spring rains and melting snows should really clean out our rivers and make fishing good again.

And now ... have a good weekend.