Ice Fishing Wrap Up

Well it seems like the last ice fishing trip I will be able to make this year was a blow out success, Andrea and I actually hit the road at 06:15 and were on the ice at Pelican Lake by 08:30. Setup and fishing by 09:00 and were landing perch immediately. We were fishing a flat in eight FOW and the bite was on, poor Andrea had only been out a few times this season so it took her a few minutes to get set-up and fishing. I landed four perch before she had a line in the water but she did not take long to get going.

My flip shelter once again proved it worth, with wind chills in the -33 Degree range we ran our little buddy heater and were quite comfortable fishing with out our coats on. Although it is tight in the little flip with two people it is so much easier to setup and be fishing in minutes rather than trying to setup a tent in 30 MPH wind.

The day was wonderful, the fishing was fantastic, the sun shining bright and my wife to keep me company, hard to beat that any time of year.

Pelican Lake seems to be an interesting lake we will get to know well in the future, only a 30 minute drive from our camp, we look forward to making the place capable of being warm and comfortable in the winter so we can go spend weekends there and fish both Rock and Pelican Lakes year around. Both lakes have a plentiful supply of Perch, Walleye and Northern Pike so they will supply our reasons for "getting away" to camp when there is no hunting season to draw us up there. Our idea to purchase this property is looking better and better...

Back to the fish story, we caught fish steadily until about 12:30 when the bite changed like someone threw a blanket over the fish, I then began just opening tackle bins and proceeding to try random jigs, hard baits, tails colours etc until I found what they wanted...they wanted a tiny bright pink fish fry bodies on small bright pink jig heads...the bite was on, over the next hour I caught another 17 perch...this was quite a switch from the morning bite, I was most successful with buckshot lures in a rainbow pattern as well as a Lindy Rattlin' Flyer Spoon in the same while Andrea was using a Rattling Flyer Spoon Perch that I had done so well with last Monday and a variety of other larger jigs, lots of stuff worked well in the morning as long as it was tipped with perch eyes, after the bite switched I think we may have caught two on setups tipped with eyes, everything else was on plastics in the afternoon. Knowing we were getting ready to head home I decided to call Dad and Mom for a quick chat before we packed up, we were all chatting on speakerphone on our end and I missed a couple of bites while talking to Dad, Mom got on the phone and bang a heavy hit, Andrea took the phone while I landed the largest perch of the day. It had tangled my two lines so bad I just cut the lines, a nice fat prize to end the year. Overall we must of landed 100 + perch for the day....

We filled a large grocery bag with perch for a couple of meals, about 20 - we were actually allowed 25 each under the limit but that just seemed excessive to me. 20 perch the size we kept will actually feed the three of us two fish dinners and make a few fish patties for Andrea's lunches.

Noah had a friend over last night and I dragged the two of them out this morning to help me unload the truck...the truck has been full of ice fishing gear all winter, but it is now all in the house, garage or storage as it is done...

Off to Winnipeg in the morning, when I get home my arm will be immobilized for the next six weeks (so the Dr says LOL) but in six weeks it will be time to be getting ready for GOLF, open water fishing and working on the camp...yeah SPRING!!!

Time is Flying

When I looked and seen that I had not posted anything in over a week I was shocked, I guess I have been busier than I realized. Mostly fishing except the weekends, we were planning to go to Pelican Lake last weekend but that never worked out.

Backing up a little in time: I mentioned in my last post I had gotten a Frabil ultra light combo in exchange for the Abu Garcia that broke. One fish, a 10" crappie told me that combo was junk, I took it back that afternoon. The young lady working the customer service desk at Canadian Tire said wow they should not do that,should they when I showed her how the drag jumped 1/2  a turn a pop..I ended up giving up on that and taking a Fenwick Elite Tech Ultralight rod and mounting an Ugly Ice reel I had and going with that. Over 20 fish later and I am thoroughly impressed with the Fenwick...

I have been fishing a few times now in the last week, a couple of days I went out for the afternoon and managed to get one or two crappie. Thursday was a harsh day weather wise so I skipped fishing and played around the house.

Friday I hooked up with Josh and we fished Minnie again, I got one 11" crappie and he got two real little ones, he really wanted to get a third, as he said another one the size of the first two and he would catch up to me..(they really were not that bad.)

Noah had no school Monday so I dragged him to Pelican Lake for the day. We were actually set up and fishing by 10 AM (much later than I wanted but such is life) By 1030 I had iced four Perch and then the bite slowed down, it took a good part of that time to figure out what they were going to bite, none of my traditional perch stuff worked but I got them biting on this http://www.lindyfishingtackle.com/productdetail.aspx?id=rattlnflyerspoon.

Once the bite slowed down I figured it was time to pull out one of my friend Doug's tricks and popped out a fresh perch eye and hooked that up to a jig from my multi pack that is similar to this
http://www.lindyfishingtackle.com/productdetail.aspx?id=techniglogenzworm

I ended the day with about 20 perch, Noah grudgingly actually caught two, the first came after I slipped a perch eye on his jig he was dead sticking and got nailed...the second came after I went to remove the ice from the hole he was fishing and made the jig move, the flaskher showed fish immediately so I told him to grab the rod and he lifted a bit and hammered another one about 11". That was the extent of his interest, unfortunate as he has the potential to be a great fisherman. I caught a few more over the afternoon and we brought home a nice feed.

Perhaps though the most satisfying part of the day was meeting a retired farmer who was very new to ice fishing, he had an auger with no extension so he drilled as deep as he could then I finished his holes with mine. He had a hummingbird flasher that he had no idea how to setup so I showed him how to set that up. He was not catching anything so I gave him a couple of perch eyes and he had a jig similar to the one I was using, by the time I left he had caught three and was planning on more...kind of neat.

broken rod and more

As I mentioned before, Andrea and I gave each other new Abu Garcia ultra light combos for Christmas. We had very little chance to use them (Andrea less so than me) but we both caught perch on them last weekend and were very happy with how they preformed. I continued to use mine this week catching two more crappie on it but missing the hook set on several others. I blamed this on my own over reaction rather than the rod, however I did not like the size of the guides when fishing cold weather. The guides are very small and ice up very bad.

I fished again Wednesday early through the afternoon and caught one crappie, the same Thursday, I was on the ice early and caught one crappie and then my flasher died. I had been questioning how good the charger was and now I found out, I also found out it dies at about 11.6V. So my trip Thursday was over by 1030, no point in trying to catch crappie that are disinterested with no flasher to even indicate where they or your jig is in the water column. I had a spare battery maintainer / trickle charger so I hooked that up and left it sit. Surprisingly it took almost 12 hours to indicate fully charged, but at least everything seemed to be working well.

Friday seen another bitterly cold day so I decided to go out later, the wind had been blowing about 40 MPH overnight but was supposed to die down midday. I hit the ice about 1230 and fished a couple of different areas I wanted to check out...more of the same I could get on fish but not coax a bite, these new areas were also showing less fish than what I had found in other areas.

Once the wind died and the sun was beating on my black shelter it was quite pleasant, I was able to fish in my fleece until the sun went behind the trees. Once the sun was not providing the same level of heat my rod started to ice up quite badly and while trying to clean some of the ice out of the tip guide I snapped it off. I was very disappointed that it was that fragile..

Saturday seen me off to Canadian Tire where I had bought the rods, they were supposed to be warranted for one year. No problem, they told me to go get a new one, however they had no more so I ended up with a frabill ultralight combo, it was the same price but I am hesitant to think I will like it as much...

http://www.canadiantire.ca/en/pdp/frabil-ice-fishing-rod-reel-combo-0785516p.html#.UvfXivldW9Q

I already had this combo in medium for walleye and it is acceptable but not top notch, I already find the reel is not as nice as the Abu Garcia. However if it works as intended I will be ok with it. I do think I will start buying more stuff from the US and have it shipped to the parcel depot right across the border, $2.00 a parcel is all she charges and the price difference can be 1/3 of the cost of buying here...the down side is lack of warranty like Canadian Tire honours.

We have had wind chill warnings all weekend and looks like more of the same Monday so I will be buried in my shelter with the heater going trying this new rod...

Tuesday will see me doing something different, I have been asked to attend a testing phase for a job as an administrative assistant at the Morden Agriculture Research facility...God only knows how that will turn out, I expect that some of the others attending will be very experienced as well.

Fish, for real FISH

Noah had no school Friday so we packed up for a day on the lake...it was cold and windy but we set up the large tent with the double sunflower heater and was very comfortable. We fished all morning until 2 pm and although there were lots of fish on the flasher nothing was biting (again). I stopped to talk to a couple of other fishermen on the way off the lake, a real nice gentleman named Gary also pulled me out of a snowbank that I tried to smash through when I high centred the truck.

Can you imagine staring at a flasher that look like this all day and not being able to coax a bite?





















































It can make a fisherman go crazy, however I am not the only one. I have talked to a dozen fishermen that knows the lake and they are all having the same issue, very poor fishing. I am wondering if it has something to do with the serious floods we had here last spring. roads were (and some still are) washed out and the lake overflowed the damn and left many thousands of crappie laying everywhere. The fairways of the golf course were literally covered in fish...that is not to say there are no fish left in the lake, there are, however the quantity of fish to forage is dramatically changed and I am thinking they are having a very good winter and just not hungry.

On our way out Friday we stopped at the COOP gas bar where we buy the bulk of our fuel, one of the guys there mentioned that the perch had been biting really good on Pelican Lake which is very close to our hunt camp. Andrea and I decided a drive to Pelican would be in order Saturday morning. We were in Baldar where we would turn North to the camp when I realized I had likely forgot the battery pack for the auger. Now you can improvise a lot of things ice fishing but without holes in three feet of ice you are out of luck. We decided that if we could we would beg someone to drill us a couple of holes. We pulled onto the lake and could see a bright green auger close to an area where lots of people were fishing. A nice military gentleman from Shilo was kind enough to lend me his battery and I drilled out holes for us. Popping up the flip shelter we set up and I immediately missed a bite but caught a perch shortly after. Andrea proceeded to catch three in short order and I caught another. I then had a huge hit that cut me off immediately then minutes later the same thing happened to the gentleman that lent me his battery. His father in law switched to pike gear and caught one close to 30 inches. Andrea then hooked up into a nice pike and actually played it for three good runs on 3lb test tied to a 2lb mono leader, quite impressive I think before it cut her off. Shortly after that the wind changed, the clouds blew in and the bite died!!! You could just tell all the locals knew it was over as within minutes everyone packed up and left, we tried for another 30 minutes but no more bites. The end result was 5 perch landed, 4 hours of driving and three hours of fishing. BUT we caught fish and both broke the skunk on our new Abu Garcia ultralight rods (they work quite well when there are fish biting).

Highly excited I dropped Andrea off at work Monday morning, the weather forecast was for -18 with only 15 Kmh winds, should be a great day to catch fish right? Not so much, it started really well as I was on the ice just at daylight and the air was barely moving. I had to move around a bit to get on fish but I did (the flasher picture above is what it looked like when I found them) but they were not biting. I decided to drop a piece of minnow tail on a jog head on a dead stick (a rod sitting in a holder not being jigged) while I jigged a wide selection of different colours, tails and even hard baits trying to entice a strike. The wind kept blowing harder and harder until it was actually trying to blow my sled across the lake...great fun but I eventually seen the tip of my deadstick dip and quickly set the hook...

I landed my first crappie of the season  - a very nice 11" fish that fought more like a pike than a crappie, very fun. I fished through until 2 pm but that was the only bite I had. I stopped and talked to another local named Darryl  who is thought to be the most knowledgeable fisherman on the lake. He reported no fish either although he had only been there about 2 hours when I left. 

Anyway I have chores to do Wednesday and the weather is looking harsh until Saturday so I may not get out again but I only have seventeen days of fishing left before I become a one armed winter bound old man so I am pushing on the ice fishing...the surgeon mentioned the torn rotator cuff is only part of the problem, one of my bicep tendons is really messed up - he is going to try and fix it but odds are it will have to be cut...I am not growing old gracefully...