Rich

Why is it funny? Very, very popular Christmas item. We sold out this Christmas.

Hot chocolate while I'm ice fishing.. alcohol and caffeine makes you colder, and I'm cold enough as it is! lol Any other part of the year if I'm out in the boat fishing seriously I usually won't even pick up a bottle of water for 8 hours. Gets kinda dangerous some days in the summer but I never want to stop casting. If I'm doing some relaxed fishing during warmer months I'll usually have a coffee or jug of water. Oh.. and off the water after a day of fishing - let the beers fly down!

Looks delicious. A lot of effort went into that meal and a lot of effort went into telling us about it. I can't speak for everybody but I know I really appreciate that and I'm sure most others here do too. Thanks!

I can't possibly choose. I love fishing anytime, anywhere!

Only time I've ever caught walleye through the ice was on straight jigging spoons so I gotta say just lures, lol

Now that's a slab. Makes my 13 inchers at first ice look tiny!

Nice to see one of your musky baits got blasted! haha Good report looks like a decent day on the Bog, weather wise and fish wise.

WOW is all I can say! I'm an idiot! And so is Ryan who decided to drag my ass out of bed at 6am to go ice fishing at his favourite (or so it was) reservoir today. Upon talking to him last night on the phone I had a long discussion with Sugarpacket about how things would go the next day. She had higher hopes than I did. Here's how the conversation went: Rich: "I don't think he's ever been ice fishing in -33 degree weather" SP: "Sure he has. He fishes with a pro the majority of the time, he has to know how to battle conditions." Rich: "I'm not too sure about that reservoir. This cold front might affect things.. maybe we should go to that quarry pit I know of, loaded with crappies" SP: "Ohh, I'm pretty sure he's got his heart set on DC. Besides, he's the one driving. Don't bother him" Therefore SP (And I can say this because she's out of town) is idiot #3 in this story. Anyway, my alarm went off for some unknown reason at 3am. In my house, no alarm or sound shall be made before 4am. I promptly smashed the alarm clock with a bat and went back to bed. The dog started barking shortly after 6 as Ryan had made his way to the door. I crawled out of bed and took probably a half hour to get ready, all the time dredding what we would be facing once we left the confines of my house. Sure enough, it was brutally cold out there. We continued on after a quick Timmies stop for 12 pounds of breakfast sandwich and our double-doubles. When we got to the reservoir, full of ambition, we made our way to the ice and found Ryan's holes from earlier in the week. We figured this was a good starting point. We wasted no time in dropping our lines and in just a couple of minutes I had hooked the day's first decent perch.. which of course we took no pictures or evidence of at the time. I said with confidence "It's not that cold out here, I'm warm!" And ripped my heavy coat off so I could fish in my sweater. Another minute of that and I was back in my coat. Okay, not that warm. But still not bad... however the wind hadn't started. Anyway I hooked into perch #2 later on a plain minnow/hook (the first one was on a gold Dollarama jigging spoon). Ryan missed a couple of fish and began his crusade of donating every minnow in the pail to the sick perch foundation. Our choices were simple as things cooled down.. Choice #1: Set the hut up, stay comfortable and wait it out for the perch to come back, since this has always been a pretty reliable spot. Choice #2: Walk all over the reservoir, drilling a ton of holes, wasting time dropping the camera and lines, wasting minnows and attempting to find a new spot in -33 weather. We opted for #2, I mean, who wouldn't? We confidently began our crusade across the nether regions of the DC reservoir. Well as luck would have it, I was next to hook into a fish. A largemouth! So after taking 12 pictures we released the fish. (jk, we only took 11) We began fishing points, weedlines, heck I even threw the tip up out in 40 feet of water.. and actually had a hit - from who knows what. After getting to the very back of the reservoir the wind was in full swing and was battering us like an unstoppable rebel force from hell. HELL!! Add to the weather the foot of slush on the ice and Ryan's wet feet, and we weren't feeling so confident anymore. Actually I felt more like setting myself on fire. We had to, at this point reluctantly revert back to choice #1. We set up where myself and my buddy Mark caught our few perch last week. After trying to tough it out more in the cold we decided we had enough and set up the hut/underwater camera. Before setting up the hut, I landed another perch.. the smallest of the day which would still be considered a LPB jumbo. Unfortunately, for some reason we yet again didn't take any pictures. Inside the hut we remained comfortable for a little while and I was pleasantly surprised that whatever problems I had with the hut's stability last week had somehow worked themselves out. It was working relatively flawlessly except for a problem with the zipper on the door - but that was my fault. I continued to jig my plain spoon with no bait and hooked into a small bass, which resulted in more PHOTOS! We stuck it out in the hut for about an hour longer and said noooooopppeeee that's enough. I think the only reason we stayed in the hut so long is that A) we kept seeing fish on the camera (bass mostly) and we dreaded leaving the hut to take it down and put it back in the carrying bag. That job was a lot simpler than it seemed but my gloves had frozen earlier on so I was exposed to the arctic temperatures with no gloves and Ryan's gloves weren't doing a great job protecting from the elements either. We threw our frozen catch into the sled in about 3 inches of water which became SOLID BLACK ICE before we got to shore! Headed back here and decided to enjoy beer and discuss how not to be so stupid in future fishing trips. There were a couple of options that came to mind. #1 - in future fishing trips, choose option #1 from above list no matter what #2 - wait until temperatures are within 5 degrees of the 0 celcius mark to go ice fishing #3 - retire from ice fishing, and use the revenue created by selling gear to buy more open water gear All viable options which we are still on the fence about. Oh yeah, Ryan didn't catch anything. Just thought I'd mention that. It was a memorable and educational day on the ice... and I caught plenty of fish - some of which were legal so it wasn't so bad. Just leave out the frostbite/trouble breathing in thin air part. Here's some pics! Sunrise across the road from the reservoir Sunrise over the reservoir.. outlooks were so positive at this point Me searching for signs of life. Should have put it in the water instead of hooking it up to my brain. BASS #1!!! BASS #5 (I omitted some of the other pictures, there were WAYYYY too many bass pics to sort through anyway) The perch frozen into their container of doom Now for the second part of the report.. Ryan and I hit another small pond up later on and he finally got into a perch! You can see the fresh, life force eminating from his catch. Look at the colors of a fish straight from the hole. Like it jumped right out into his hand! Here's after he just pulled it from the hole. This thing was flopping around like CRAZY! You can see it just flopping away in the pic. Oh yeah, and if you take any of the OOS bass pics, fresh perch pics or pretty much the majority of this report seriously, you would be idiot #4. Thanks Rich

Dude they are cheap and with proper care will last you forever. After the initial 40 - 50 - 60 bucks you just gotta buy new blades once in a while for $20. The blades last me a season and I drill quite a few holes.

My tree is still up. If it were up to me, we'd pick either throw it away and never use it, or just keep it up all year. I hate lugging the thing out and putting it away. Bah-Humbug!

You saw a deer and none of the yocals shot it? That's a rare day in LPB history. LOL

May or may not be there, I'll look for ya if I am!

lol yeah the majority is usually smelt if I turn the sensitivity to - 5 though a lot of bigguns still roam the bottom. Are they 'eyes or big old cats who knows.. but there are definitely fish in that river.. LOTS!

Where have you been fishing? Odd to not MARK any fish. My finder's usually solid fish everytime I'm there.. I just can't get them to bite.

You really can't go wrong nowadays with portable sonar units. The $100 versions of the Humminbirds or Eagles work just fine for ice fishing.

This isn't really news.. more common sense than anything

I have a camera and I say get the flasher first. Much more useful in deep water, dark water or especially muddy water. Both are great to have though! All the companies make great products. If it were me, I'd buy a Vex.. just because that's what I used (borrowed from friends) and it worked great.

It's been known to happen from time to time.. I had set lines out for them everytime I fished Dunnville last winter in hopes would come along.. never happened for me but it does happen. Not the bigger Erie run fish but resident fish of the river.

lol there's been a few times when that's the only meal I've brought home is the fish others left

Buddy at work told me today that Granges (?) huts are out now as of Saturday

My best bud went to Sault College for Fish/Wildlife, along with a couple other friends. He loved it. #1 It was a fun course in the northern environment because a lot of it is done outdoors #2 It was about half the price of attending SSFC #3 He had two contract MNR jobs back-to-back directly out of college, I guess there is slightly more demand in the north. Now he's not doing the MNR thing but he still lives up there and loves it to death. And only speaks good things of the course he took up there. Good luck in whatever you decide.

Oh cats.. now I can't wait for spring.. what a beast! And that fish he's holding, WOW!

Just a gold jigging spoon.. they wouldn't take the bait nearly as fast as a spoon - the perch that is lol don't want to give the impression I was bass fishing.

Perch are still on the back porch actually, I've been too lazy to fillet them.. haha

Just a quick one.. headed out to the Urban Fisherman's favourite stomping grounds for some perch action with my buddy Mark. First few drops yielded 3 decent perch.. then they moved away and the bass moved in and wouldn't go away. We moved from that spot and the bass followed us, because the largies continued hitting. Sheesh. I think I caught more yesterday than I do most days during the summer. Probably ate my perch, little Bandits. Anywho, it was good for the first 5 minutes. After about 3 bass it was more frustration than anything. All were released of course. We headed home after an hour of the seemingly unavoidable bass.