ice fishing report!

[pike slayer]

hey everyone, i was up at my buddys camp for a few days up by aubery falls up the chapleau highway and let me tell you its still winter up there! there 2 feet of ice and 3 feet of snow and the rain we got the other night was a blizzard up there. we went out going for pike in the morning and sat around for about an hour not getting anything so i went down the lake to some old holes in a shallow mud bay and broke open the holes and i started jigging a 3 inch williams wabbler and about 15 min of jigging i hooked into a fish and i reel it up and its a 2lb whitefish!!! i zip back to my buddy and show him and hes like must have been a flook but keep trying, so i go back to the bay and start jigging tiny williams and i hook into 2 more and my buddy chris shows up. and we are jigging in 2-5feet of water and we can see the whitefish! we ended up getting 10whitefish and 3 pike. we ended up getting 10whitefish all around 2lbs, 6pike in the 3-6lbs and 4specks all weekend and his uncle got 7-8pike and one was around 10-12lbs. im sorry no pics yet, im still waiting for chris to send me the pics. now what i cant figure out is what are the whitefish doing so shallow? arent they more of a deep water fish?

[xeon]

They usually go shallow to feed on eggs of walleye, pike, and suckers in the spring. Really the only time they are guarenteed to be deep (for the most part) is during the summer.

 

Their ways are really still a mystery for me, I don't understand them at all, and they can be quite a challange to catch sometimes.

[Beans]

Back in my younger days (forty years ago) we used to jig for whitefish with a williams wabler tipped with a minnow on a drop line in about 5 feet of water below the ice...

 

We would lie face down with a jacket or tarp over our heads and peer down at the bottom...the trick was, when the fish appeared, you watched your minnow not the fish...when your minnow disappeared, you lifted up...Fun Times !!!

[Dara]

Beats me about the depth, but I can't wait till breakup to go get the 5 pounders at Big Basswood

[pike slayer]

ya thats what we were doing! we were on the ice watching them, we didnt bait the hooks though! and we caught a few pike this way to. and dara you dont have to go alllll the way to basswood to lay into some 5lbers! theres places in your backyard where you can get them!

[trapshooter]

We got one out of 10' yesterday. Same thing happens in the spring up here while jigging walleye in late May / early June. Has to do with water temperature too.

[xeon]

Beats me about the depth, but I can't wait till breakup to go get the 5 pounders at Big Basswood

 

Marks or Leighs bay... well, ice is a bit sketchy on that part of superior right now, the picture is from 2 weekends ago, and that orange thing is a tip up. The pressure crack ran all the way from the steel plant to Marks Bay (across from airport).