North West Ontario Ice Pickeral

[tbayboy]

Spending the holidays back home with family is all well and good but after several straight turkey dinners and a few too many screaming babies me and some friends decided we needed a break and with the weather up here being unseasonably warm what better way to slip away for a few hours than heading out onto the ice!

 

Got to the point at about 10ish in the morning and certainly weren't alone:

 

 

My buddy pulled out his trusty 300 year old auger which promptly died after doing 3 holes:

 

 

Luckily the guys near us lent us their manual one, even more luckily the ice was only 14 inches thick and the holes popped pretty easily (still gonna feel it in my arms tommorow I'm sure)

 

After a little while we managed to pull in a few for the skillet, here's yours truly with my lucky hat (aint that the ugliest hat ever!)

 

 

As the afternoon wore on the early wake up call combined with all the holiday feasting proved too much for some of us:

 

 

 

In fact at some point I think one of the guys fell in, damned if we knew where he was:

 

 

Around 3pm we decided to call it a day, everyone had caught at least a couple except for one of the guys who had lost at least a half dozen (but he insists it had nothing to do with his hook sets) when suddenly his line nearly tore his arm out of his socket, a mighty struggle followed and this resulted:

 

 

Yep, it was time to go home

 

I love coming home and visiting family but boy does spending time with your buds on the ice making complete fools of yourselves ever make for real holiday spirit.

 

Best of the season to all the OFNers, hopefully I can hit some ice back home (markham) in the new year. Have fun at the swill tonight

 

PS: all photos at Flickr

Edited December 30, 2006 by TbayBoy

[urbanangler1990]

u just had to tease us now, didnt u nice report!

Edited December 30, 2006 by urbanangler1990

[tjsa]

LOL, I know that spot. Are you sure about that 14 inches though??? Wouldn't figger that much with this weather. Where I was last weekend was only 9 inches of ice, in much shallower water.

[Smokey]

Great pics and report. Thanks and I'm jealous. Enjoy the meal.

 

Mike

[tbayboy]

Hey Tjsa, figured you might know that spot , not exactly a secret spot up here but hey, plenty to go around today it seemed (nothing terribly huge, just some decent eaters). In shallow the ice was was pretty deep, even at our last holes in 35 feet of water it was a good 8 or 9 inches but I'm an ice newbie (hang my head in shame being from Thunder Bay and only have ice fished a handful of times) so maybe I just didn't read the depth well looking down the holes. There were several guys dragging gear out to the islands in pickups so I guess they figured it was safe (no way I'd have gone that far out in a truck but they made it back).

[duber]

Now you done it!I'm going to have to drive up there to get this lack of ice depression off my back!I'll tell the wife and kids that it is all Tbay Boys fault!

 

All kidding aside , nice report.You are lucky to be on the ice.

[tjsa]

Hey Tjsa, figured you might know that spot , not exactly a secret spot up here but hey, plenty to go around today it seemed (nothing terribly huge, just some decent eaters). In shallow the ice was was pretty deep, even at our last holes in 35 feet of water it was a good 8 or 9 inches but I'm an ice newbie (hang my head in shame being from Thunder Bay and only have ice fished a handful of times) so maybe I just didn't read the depth well looking down the holes. There were several guys dragging gear out to the islands in pickups so I guess they figured it was safe (no way I'd have gone that far out in a truck but they made it back).

 

Yeah, I know guys are driving their trucks out on some lakes, but not me, no way. I went really, really slow last weekend on my quad, looking for soft areas(in the dark ) but no way am I gonna chance it in a truck. Probably will not take the chance at all this year.

Snowmobiles are so much easier, and safer, but without the creature comforts.

 

Gonna walk up a big hill into a speck lake tomorrow, hope to have a report late tomorrow or early sunday morning.

 

p.s............why are some of those guys lying down on the ice???? did they slip or something???? If they did, I would think it is rather cruel of you to take pictures of them in their time of need

[tbayboy]

Nah, no falling involved, we hit a dead spell for a couple hours without even a nibble and a couple of the guys decided to take advantage of the slow time

[Rich Clemens]

Very nice of you indeed to share some hard-water action. From the sounds of it, it may just be a bit more crowded this week-end. Patience may be wearing a bit thin around here.

Edited December 30, 2006 by Rich Clemens

[Greencoachdog]

Oooooooooooooo WOW!!! A frozen wasteland!!! I love that ice fishin' stuff!... and I was s'posed to be in Canada all this week and there was s'posed to be safe ice for me to fish on... but struck out on both accounts (hanging head and weeping in self pity). Oh well, there's always the Nip trip to look forward to.... and it'll prolly be colder'n a Witches boobie this comin' June (with my luck)... maybe even still some safe ice around.

[tjsa]

Nah, no falling involved, we hit a dead spell for a couple hours without even a nibble and a couple of the guys decided to take advantage of the slow time

 

Ummm..............yeah, I can believe that,

[Spiel]

.....Nice stuff TbayBoy but it sure hurts when I'm still waiting for hard water down here in the balmy south.