tjsa Posted March 29, 2009 Report Share Posted March 29, 2009 Finally got back out ice fishing after about a month. Tried a completely different area than the masses, and other than the ride out to where we fished, we did not see another angler anywhere. Started a bit slow for the first hour, but picked up for a bit. The fish were biting really softly, missed many jigging. I landed the first one on the set line, but it was under the slot(13" minimum size on this lake) so back it went. Then my bud with the Vexilar got one about 16". Other bud gets one 8" , but shortly after gets one about 21". Had to keep that one, hook was in the gills. I followed up with a 7" fish After 2 hrs., we had 2 or 3 fish kept, and quite a few either lost or missed hooksets. Checked my set line and no minnow. While rebaiting that line, along comes our friendly neighbourhood Conservation Officers. We know almost all of them, and they recognized us. Who's lines are whose, license check, what have you caught, where have you seen other anglers, and they were off to see if they could find anyone doing anything "hinky". Then the fishing really slowed down. Thought of moving, but my bud with the Vexilar was seeing fish a lot. Just none of them were really active. He did manage to get 3 keepers even with the light bite. We were jigging swimbait plastics, lead head tipped with minnows, buckshot rattle jigs, micro Chubby Darters, etc. but the fish were just barely mouthing our presentations so we missed a few more, and lost a few more minnows. When I was using the hole with the Vexilar, I could tease the fish up 3-4 feet, but they would just not commit and either go back down or disappear out of the cone angle. Along comes 2 more Conservation Officers, chat with them for a bit. One of my buds and I know these 2 guys very well, as they have checked us multiple times when out hunting. We hunt in their patrol areas. Off they go to meet up with their counterparts, and about 20 min. later, the fish suddenly turned on around 1:30 pm. It was like flipping a light switch. I had not had a keeper fish until this time, and it was now 2.5 hrs. after we first started fishing. And everything we put down got hits. I finally caught up to my buds with 3 keeper fish, my one bud got his last keeper seconds later, other bud finishes his limit, and it took me about 20 min. to complete my walleye limit, with a nice chunky 11" perch in the mix. We stayed a bit longer strictly jigging, and landed 3 or 4 more, then called it a day at 3:30 pm. Not bad for starting the day with lines down at 10:30 am. Hardly took any pictures, but here is what I did take pics of. My keepers for the day, 2 13.5" fish, 2 15.5" fish, and one 11" perch. One nice fish my bud caught, I wanted to take a better pic of it, but once unhooked back down the hole it went. Probably around 20": Didn't get a pic of my other buds fish for some reason, so I will finish off with a couple of pics I took after I finished my limit. My bud fishing the "hot hole" my other buds 95 Yamaha Enticer ET410TR is in the background, along with the Nordic sleigh he bought from Canadian Tire: Bud using Vexilar's snowmobile, 2003 340 Polaris, Nordic sleigh, and his fish are in the clear bag at the bottom left on the ice: It was a gorgeous day out there yesterday, forecast was for partly cloudy, -21 overnight, high of -4, wind east at 10 kmh. It turned out to be -13 overnight, and was sunny all day. Sunglasses went on soon as we took our helmets of. High temp was probably right, wind was not an issue, it really did not get to what was forecasted. It was a rough ride out to our fishing spot, only an inch of snow on the lake. Lots of humps and ruts from snowmobiles going through slushy areas earlier in the winter, but was a smoother ride back to where we parked in the late afternoon after it warmed up the ice surface. The 1 inch of snow we got a day ago was good for the snowmobiles. Most people were using quads and snowmobiles, but saw some trucks driving back to where we parked our vehicle. Still 30" of ice on this part of the lake(thicker on the shallower east end), so we will be fishing for another 3 weeks at least up here in the Great White North. Ran into 2 of the CO's again on the drive out, and apparently where we were fishing was better than the east end of the lake with regards to numbers of fish hooked, with a couple exceptions. Two more weekends of walleye before closing, but then we go after lakers out of our district to compensate, or walk into stocked speck lakes until we start steelhead fishing. Sorry, no increase of inches for Team 3 Slowpoke. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fishboy Posted March 29, 2009 Report Share Posted March 29, 2009 Awesome report...just how far north are you? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tjsa Posted March 29, 2009 Author Report Share Posted March 29, 2009 Really far north and west from you, Thunder Bay on the northwestern shore of Lake Superior. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sinker Posted March 29, 2009 Report Share Posted March 29, 2009 Nice report.......I could go for a feed of eyes right about now! I wish we had that many active CO's down here. I've only been checked once all season, and the guy was alone. Sinker Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
irishfield Posted March 29, 2009 Report Share Posted March 29, 2009 YUMMMMM.. Pickeral ! lol Great stuff Tom ! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joeytier Posted March 29, 2009 Report Share Posted March 29, 2009 Stop it, already! Great report. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tjsa Posted March 29, 2009 Author Report Share Posted March 29, 2009 NO, NO, NO, NO, NO Wayne...................................they're called WALLEYE!!!!!!!!!!!!! :lol: :lol: Uh, oh, ............ here we go again. At least the perch IS a perch, ummmhhh.......right??????????? Sinker, I can go an entire year, or couple of years, without running into CO's out patrolling when ice fishing. But this lake, Lac Des Mille Lac, is the Lake Simcoe of northwestern ontario in relation to Thunder Bay. It gets THE heaviest fishing pressure bar none up near here near Thunder Bay. And, believe it or not, does not require hut registration, but I think that is going to happen quite soon. Its only just a bit over an hour to hit the first parking areas, or plowed road access. Right now, fishing up here is mainly about walleye as lake trout fishing in our FMZ is closed inland, except for on Lake Superior. Some people are fishing Superior for whitefish, lakers, and ciscoes(herring), with the occasional rainbow being hooked, as fishing lake trout in Superior is only closed during spawning season in the fall(its a different FMZ all to itself). 1.5 hrs. west of me is a different FMZ, where lakers are open, so we may go there in 3 weeks, ice thickness will not be a problem even then. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joeytier Posted March 29, 2009 Report Share Posted March 29, 2009 Oh, how I envy you. Ice fishing has been finished for me for 3 weeks now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bernie Posted March 29, 2009 Report Share Posted March 29, 2009 Hiya Tom. Been a while. Nice catch there! Too bad about 3 more weeks of ice. Might be that long here too from the looks of things right now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ozaibak1 Posted March 29, 2009 Report Share Posted March 29, 2009 Nice report, I'm going nuts in this transition time no ice for hardwater, and tough to catch fish from shore! Another week or 2 and all will be fine. I got checked 2 or 3 times out of about 6 or 7 trips on Simcoe this year, I find they have quite a few resources to that lake. Other lakes I pretty much know the only times theyre likely to be on are the may long weekend, and right around season openers. Not a problem tho, those lakes don't get much traffic compared to others. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tjsa Posted March 29, 2009 Author Report Share Posted March 29, 2009 Hiya Tom. Been a while. Nice catch there! Too bad about 3 more weeks of ice. Might be that long here too from the looks of things right now. I fail to see the down side of this Bernie, :lol: :lol: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tjsa Posted March 29, 2009 Author Report Share Posted March 29, 2009 Hiya Tom. Been a while. Nice catch there! Too bad about 3 more weeks of ice. Might be that long here too from the looks of things right now. I fail to see the down side of this Bernie, :lol: :lol: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TroutnMuskieHunter Posted March 29, 2009 Report Share Posted March 29, 2009 Nice catch Tom....While I am a bit (maybe more then a bit envious, I'm really looking forward to getting out on the softwater to hunt down some back lake Quebec Reds, Ontario Browns and Rainbows.. Steve Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moosebunk Posted March 29, 2009 Report Share Posted March 29, 2009 Quality fishing in quality weather TJSA. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ehg Posted March 30, 2009 Report Share Posted March 30, 2009 Thanks for the report! The ice is pretty well gone down here. Pretty nice feed of walleye. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Leecher Posted March 30, 2009 Report Share Posted March 30, 2009 Great report and pics tjsa No more good ice in my area.... waiting for it to melt and won't be long now Nice looking eyes you guys got into!!! Congratulations and thanks for sharing Leechman Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
limeyangler Posted March 30, 2009 Report Share Posted March 30, 2009 schtooopendiferous report Tom, good to see ya back in action. ive been having similar experiences to yourself with regards to fish not commiting to bite...lots on screen, but just lickin minnows...until like you say...someone flicks a switch...time is different on different lakes. I've not had any decent walleye really this season...but we have a good 2 - 3 feet of ice still and 2 weeks to go before end of season...i'm ever hopefull...lol. Thanks for sharing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dara Posted March 30, 2009 Report Share Posted March 30, 2009 Hey Tom nice catch good to see you fishing wer'e still gonna have hard water for a while eh Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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