castgame

nice little lures you made there. bet they'll ice a few lakers before the winter's through. i've a mind to tie a few maribou jigs myself for this spring trout opener

haha i figured a couple clever folks might put it together yeah it sure looks good considering stocking numbers, the size of the lake, and the relatively low fishing pressure. i bet you couldn't get a sled in there most years unless there's some access i don't know

i'm thinking in retrospect i should have drilled a lot of holes in different locations right off the bat, and then let them sit a while before fishing them. in less than 10' of water, an auger grinding and piercing the ice has got to spook any fish nearby. i probably should have been coming back to pre-drilled holes after letting them sit an hour or so. it was tough, though, because with the low temps and blowing snow, holes were disappearing fast. oh well, i'll test this tactic next time in hopefully better conditions.

maybe next time i'll bring some minnows in out of desperation. i prefer to fish artificias only, but these splake are beginning to frustrate me! you seem to know exactly where i ended up! how'd you manage that piece of deduction?

love herzog. this looks great. thanks for sharing

approximate locations of holes we fished. would any of you guys done anything differently? that stream on the left of this picture is an inflow -- i wanted to put a couple holes down near the mouth but it was fairly shallow (3'-6') and i wasn't too confident in the quality of the ice around current.

the trip was beautiful and remote and should have ended with many pictures of trophy splake, but as you can see, there aren't any because we got 100% skunked. we must have put down 30 holes all over that lake off every kind of point, island, stream, downed tree, cliff, and otherwise. fished 3" white grubs, 3" white tube jigs, and small spoons (blue and silver cleos and wobblers) in every part of the water column. we mostly stuck to 5-20 fow so maybe we should have gone deeper, but the conditions were brutal and our window of time was relatively short. i don't know if the fish were just shut right down or if we were doing something wrong, but we couldn't buy a hit. oh well. the journey was incredible and i'd do it all over again! maybe next time for ice-out...

sunday was a clear, cold, windy day. constant 60kph gusts coming straight across the lake. made for beautiful but difficult conditions the walk out after the snowfall the long trudge back over a windy lake

getting the first holes drilled for the last of the evening's light our site's on the island tent pre-storm tent in the morning

back from the trip in. we had a total blast despite the plummeting temps, and an overnight storm that brought high winds, tons of snow, and even thunder and lightning! that was a first for me to camp through. here are some pics from the weekend: loaded up and 'shoeing in to the first lake to cross there was a surprising amount of open water. we watched two sleds scoot over this thin bit here. the water was only waist deep so i wasn't worried, but still walked carefully and quickly. a river we needed to cross. this took a little bushwhacking

gotcha. we'll pick one up.

so here's a question i can't seem to find a definitive answer to in the regs... i'm taking a buddy ice fishing this weekend on a lake that allows two rods down per (licensed) fisherman. now, he almost never fishes and probably won't make use of a license a second time if he buys one for this year. i've got my license -- so can he fish my second rod? we for sure won't have more than a total of 2 rods down at any given time (i won't be using tip-ups or even taking a third rod) anybody have a for sure answer to this question?

double checked the regs -- no mention of the lake should mean it's open for splake year round. not private land, so not trespassing. that's as much as i'm gonna say it's just a matter of gear. plus, how could you get an earlier start than waking up 20m from your holes??

good thought on the snow! though i still don't think i want to carry in two dozen shiners plus the gallon of water on the 10km snowshoe in provided my camera doesn't freeze shut, i'll definitely post some pictures. won't be my first time tenting and ice fishing, but i hope it's the most productive on the fish front

how does fluoro fare on the ice? i remember having some trouble with breakage on a cold day steelheading

thanks but because i'm tenting it they'd freeze overnight for sure how aggressively do i jig? when would i expect the hit?

where in the water column were you? just off bottom? what i really want to know is how do i work a jig or spoon through the ice?

buddy and i will be snowshoeing/camping on a back lake this weekend just south of algonquin on a splake lake. i was hoping to get some OFC community tips on: a] ice quality up there right now -- the temps look perfect but you can't be too careful! think i can expect safe ice this saturday? b] fishing splakes with artificials. my plan was to start close in to shoreline that looks structured, and progressively move from 5' of water to probably 40' of water until we find the fish. will be jigging small spoons (krocs, cleos, wobblers) and white plastic grubs and spoons. my question is this: where in the water column do you jig? and when do you get the hit -- on the fall, when the lure's suspended, on the rise? how aggressively should i be jigging? thanks in advance. i'll have pictures and a report when i'm thawed and back to civilization next week!

with these low temps, think haliburton back lakes will be gtg this weekend? i mean it's -22 tonight!

the bass pro cheap-o is a terrible machine... everything's falling apart after a dozen or so uses. plastic wing nut snapped in the cold (seriously guys? couldn't use a less temperature sensitive material?), the blade guard cracked immediately, and the blades themselves are a very cheap steel. you get what you pay for i know, but this is still a very disappointing piece of gear. good luck getting bps to take it back though!

ha 'the moose whisperer'. what a calm and collected guy! i'd like to say i'd have done the same but no way am i getting that close to 400kg of panicked antler and muscle. very cool to see, thanks for sharing!

great video, great production. the gentility/brutality split reminds me of a great canadian poem: home-made beer by al purdy I was justly annoyed 10 years ago in Vancouver: making beer in a crock under the kitchen table when this next-door youngster playing with my own kid managed to sit down in it and emerged with one end malted— With excessive moderating I yodelled at him ”Keep your ass out of my beer!” and the little monster fled— Whereupon my wife appeared from the bathroom where she’d been brooding for days over the injustice of being a woman and attacked me with a broom— With commendable savoir faire I broke the broom across my knee (it hurt too) and then she grabbed the breadknife and made for me with fairly obvious intentions— I tore open my shirt and told her calmly with bared breast and a minimum of boredom ”Go ahead! Strike! Go ahead!” Icicles dropped from her fiery eyes as she snarled ”I wouldn’t want to go to jail for killing a thing like you!” I could see at once that she loved me tho it was cleverly concealed— For the next few weeks I had to distribute the meals she prepared among neighbouring dogs because of the rat poison and addressed her as Missus Borgia— That was a long time ago and while at the time I deplored her lack of self-control I find myself sentimental about it now for it can never happen again— quite a moment captured there

beautiful! perfectly captures the magic of brook trout. this is exactly what makes these my favourite fish -- out of this world colours and cold, clear, clean water. thanks for sharing

salmon in georgian bay around river mouths?! who knew??? been fishing the spectacular here in owen sound and it's been real quiet in our boat. had lymans and spoons at every depth between 60' and 125', over anywhere from 85' to 180', and only managed to get into one fish (probably on the slider, as it was gone before we could get a hook set.) seen some fish caught around sundown, but other than that, things seem slow yet. i guess the lack of rain means the fish are mostly still out in the deep water? unfortunately, i'm not going to have time to fish them later

i'd trade all the sails for a couple cabelas and more mountain equipment co-ops...