Belwood report

[Cookslav]

First off thanks to all the OFNrs who offered up advice getting me a great head start on Ice fishing, and sorry for the lack of Pictures.

It seems leaving your camera in an unheated Trailer for a week kills batteries

I managed 3 Pictures before the batteries went, and the ones I tryed to take on the Blackberry didn't turn out well at all...

 

On to the report,

It was a bit of an occasion as it was my brothers 30th birthday, and he wanted to go away for the weekend to celebrate, so I got the bro's together for a weekend at my place on Belwood Lake...

It turned out to be an eventful trip!

 

We made the trek on Friday night after work, and that was fun in its self!

They don't plough the Park, so we had to walk in a fair distance lugging our gear, food, and beer through some fairly deep snow which made for many a pit stop, AKA beer breaks.

I think some of the Boys were half cut by the time we got there

 

Any-hoo,

After a long night of Poker, Some heavy duty Nintendo 64 Hockey tournament play, and a lot of liquid courage the crew made it on the ice by 8:30am, the other half...about noon

 

I started drilling holes in a not so traditional area of the lake being I had noticed quite a few nice sized perch in this area back in the summer. My hope was what ever structure was down there would hold them despite the lowered water levels.

For anyone wanting to know The ice was great. There was an easy 18" of ice out there.

As I punched through the water came up like a fountain!!!

There was a lot of pressure out there for some reason???

It Made me a bit nervous at first as I've never seen that happen...but I got over it.

Unfortunatley that water made for some slushy conditions around the holes, but hey...thats what boots are for!

I cleared the slush as best as I could and got my Frabil thermal tip up set first with a decent sized Emerald Shiner, and raised it maybe 2 feet off bottom in about 12' of water, then set up my jigging hole about 25' away in about 10' of water and started off with a small black salted tube with a white skirt (word on the lake was they were working well).

No more then 10 minutes later one of the guys nailed a beautiful healthy and plump 12" perch on a live minnow 2 feet off bottom in 12 feet of water.

This was a good sign I thought, and more importantly I felt good that my intuition had been good about this spot we were on.

Then as he re-rigged a new minnow he nailed another clone as the bait sank...Now I was jealous, but remained patient and trusted my bait choice.

 

 

 

Of course as it normally does it got very quiet for a while. Actually I should be more specific,

The Bite got got quiet.

Just for some comic relief the other half of the crew made their way down to the lake, a little bleary eyed but mobile

They grabbed my BRAND NEW auger, and headed out about fifty yards, only to come back a few minutes later with money in hand...

They had "adjusted" the height of the handle ¾ of the way through the ice to make it easier to turn, and noticed it wasn't spinning??? So they put some weight on it and broke through.

To bad they had put the wing nut in the wrong dam hole!!!

This is why the auger wouldn't turn, and of course when they busted through, the bottom half sank like a stone...arrrrgh!

Luckily we had two augers in the group, or they would have been on the road to pick up a new one.

 

Sadly the fishing stayed deathly quiet until 4pm.

By that point the hung over crew had left for more bed rest but a few of us remained to fight out the weather.

The 4 degree temps made scooping the holes unnecessary, but the 30km damp wind just cut right through us!

I had switched up my spot a couple of times trying to locate an area I believe held a small shoal that had I noted earlier in the summer.

It was hard to tell, but I think I was able to visually navigate to the spot by land marks I had noted in the soft water season.

I started fresh with a jig tipped with an Emerald Shiner, and had a hit...finally!

But of course I missed it and had to re- rig

Luckily for me she hit again, and this time the hooks stuck.

I was super impressed with my new PB a healthy and very round 13.25" Perch!

I iced her and re-rigged hoping lightning might strike twice...and it did!

On the descent I nailed another 13" Perch while at the same time another in the group nailed a smaller 18" pike as well.

 

As night fell we decided to pack her in as we were cold, hungry, and the bite had once again slowed down.

So I packed up my gear and walked over to my Frabil tip up(the same one I set up in the morning).

And I noticed the line was completely Slack???

I Thought it was weird, and reeled in the line right to the bottom of the hole, and suddenly another 12" perch few out of the hole on my line!

I guess it had hit the minnow at some point, and instead of moving off the spot triggering the flag, she swam up towards the hole and sat under the ice

 

So all in all we walked out with 5 perch between 13.25" and 12", and one small 18" Pike for Saturdays efforts

All were caught in around 10-12' of water on jigs tipped with Emerald shiners with the exception of one that came off the tip up.

 

Heres the smallest of the bunch which came on the tip up.

 

 

 

Dam I wish I had brought back up batteries, so I could have gotten a pic of me holding the big Guy, or atleast taken pictures in order of biggest to smallest instead if vise versa before running out of juice...dang!

 

 

So of course next I got to the real work, and cleaned 'em up.

Sunday morning we headed out to the same Shoal and by noon we had iced another 2 small pike that were 20" each and another 3 perch around 12" each....I swear these Perch were clones?

 

Any way,

All in all we ended up with 8 nice perch, and 3 small pike which made a heck of a fry and a great Sunday night family dinner for my Bro's 30th!

Not bad for a first time out I suppose?

Looking forward to getting back out there!

 

Cheers, and thanks again OFC!

Edited February 9, 2009 by Cookslav

[Joeytier]

Nice looking fish. Whereabouts is Belwood Lake?

[Leecher]

Great report and pics Cookslav

 

Congratulations.... you did very good for your first time out

Looks like you guys had a blast

Thanks for sharing

Leechman

[lunkerbasshunter]

very good for the first time!

 

cheers!

[Cookslav]

Thanks guys,

It was a blast for sure, I hope to get out again sooner then later, maybe target some bigger pike this time around.

Joey Belwood lake is just outside of Fergus.

[Spiel]

I'm glad to see you were able to put it all together and make it work for you. Dang, those are some fine looking perch!

[TroutnMuskieHunter]

Great report!.....those perch sure look tasty