Another great weekend in the North!

[Zubris21]

Temperatures have been pretty mild up here lately and we were lucky enough to have clear skies and temperatures ranging from about -7 degrees C to +2 for the weekend.

 

Saturday, Matt and I decided to head out for a ski. The goal was to reach the summit of Tanzilla Butte, a small mountain not to far out of town. The day was great and the skinning in was nice and relaxing. Unfortunately my legs were dead from a week full of hockey and skating so I only made it up about 300m vertical. Right to the base of the steep stuff. Matt kept going and made it to tree line but the snow was terrible so he also turned back. No picture from the ski, but it was still a great day to be out, and I even found a new lake that I want to try my luck at.

 

Sunday was another gorgeous day. Kalvin and I had been planning on getting out ice fishing again for a couple weeks but things kept messing up our plans. Today was different, we were in no real hurry and I picked him up around 11am. Made a quick stop to pick up his rod and the auger and off we went. We decided to head South to Lower Gnat Lake and try our hand at some Rainbows.

 

Got to the lake around noon and had a tough hike down to the ice through waist deep snow (I need snowshoes). We found about 18 inches of ice, which was great because last weekend there was some open water at some of the creek mouths. I made the mistake of not wearing my insulated rubber boots as there was a good 12 inches of slush to wade through.

 

Some of the scenery

 

Looking North

 

Looking East

 

Since we had never fished here we decided to begin at a couple different depths. Kalvin in about 7 fow and me in 15. Within 5 minutes Kalvin had his first, and the biggest of the day.

 

 

Minutes later I landed a little dink, which went back into the depths without a picture, moments later I landed this guy . My first ever Rainbow Trout!

 

 

and not long after that...

 

 

The bite started off great. We landed 3 fish in the first 15 minutes of being there, and 6 fish in the first hour. Most of the fish were decent sized We ended up keeping 5 out of 9 fish and will definitely return to this lake again.

 

 

-Andre

[Sinker]

Those look tasty!!!!!

 

hard to beat inland rainbows on the table!!!

 

Thanks for the report!

 

Sinker

Edited February 9, 2009 by Sinker

[Leecher]

Great report and pics Andre

 

Real nice bows you guys caught... congratulations

Sweet reward for your efforts, good job

and thanks for sharing

Leechman

[xeon]

Nice work, those look like some real healthy fish too.

[Grimace]

Nicely done. Those fish have wicked markings.

[BUSTER]

nice markings for sure!!

[Spiel]

Those are some very purdy trout!

[TroutnMuskieHunter]

Nice looking lake and even better looking Rainbows ....thanks for sharing!!

[Joeytier]

Wow. Awesome report! Rainbows through the ice would be amazing.