Piecing Together My First Ice Fishing Trip of the Season

Fishing this fall has been tough. I've been on a quest to catch my first Great Lakes steelhead which has been unsuccessful thus far, hence the lack of recent blog posts. Around December, as the weather cooled and the chaos of the holiday season started to ramp up, my mind started drifting (no pun intended) away from trying for a tributary steelhead to ice fishing.

It's hard to catch steelhead when people can just Google fishing spots

Getting ready for a fishing trip is like a puzzle in that it's best when you have all the pieces and you take the time to put them together properly. As Christmas neared I decided it was time to start finding the pieces to the puzzle that was my first ice fishing trip of the season. The first piece, the one that I feel I have the most control over, is gear. I began my preparations by scouring the internet for a new portable shelter as I had left my old pop-up with a friend back in Calgary. After I found a used shelter I could afford, I found myself driving out to different tackle shops more often then usual to stock up on an assortment of new lures and line to ensure I wouldn't run out of anything while out fishing.

Piece number 1

As I became more and more well equipped the next puzzle piece I needed was a suitable day to go. The Christmas season in Southern Ontario was unusually warm which just made the waiting longer and more difficult. At great strain to my marriage I spent hours on various message boards looking for updates on local ice conditions.

Close to the beginning of January the forecasts called for a week-long cold snap and the message boards started to fill with news of thickening ice and questions about parking spots and places to buy minnows. Needless to say, my preparations started to become more frantic as I was finally able to put my finger on a date for my first trip onto the hardwater this winter.

The weekend neared and my anticipation grew. Now the next piece of the puzzle I began to search for is one that is nice to have but not totally necessary: a partner. I started sending messages to all my friends who I thought may be at least slightly interested in joining me and what do you know, I even found someone who was able to make the trip. All the pieces, except one, were coming together nicely.

The night before our planned trip, my friend Jared came over and we went over all of our stuff. We even found a local shop that sold live minnows. The last piece of the puzzle we needed was the weather which, as we all know, is often the hardest piece to find.

As Jared and I sat chatting over beers, I surfed over to The Weather Network's website and was absolutely mortified at what I saw. The forecast called for -13 degrees Celsius which is not a huge deal but below that was written, "wind gusts up to 50km/h making it feel more like -27". Now some hardcore ice fishermen may venture out on days like that but the prospect of walking two thirds of a kilometer out to the middle of Lake Simcoe's Cook's Bay in 50 km/h winds was a little much for us.

Frantically I searched the internet for an alternative with at least a slightly friendlier forecast. I decided to check the Grand River Conservation Authority website on a prayer to see if Belwood Lake would have safe ice and much to my surprise I found that another conservation area, that was actually closer to me, was ready for ice fishing. I checked the forecast for the area and saw that I had finally found the last piece. The weather would be perfect as long as I was willing to wait one extra day. Unfortunately, Jared had to work that day but like I said, not having a fishing partner isn't really a huge deal (with friends like me, who needs enemies, eh?).

The morning of the trip, with everything I needed in place, I woke up early and drove out to the lake. The puzzle was complete and the day went exactly as I'd hoped.

A pike I landed after a sketchy fight on 3lb. test and no leader

I remembered all my gear, the fish were biting and the weather held up. The only wildcard of the day, my dull hand-auger, even managed to get through the ice without too much trouble. I aggressively jigged a minnow-tipped Northland Buckshot spoon to draw fish toward me and then a small minnow on a drop shot rig proved to be the fish catching pattern of the day. The perch action was steady except for the few times a pike cruised by under the ice. I ended up with over a dozen perch and a little pike which, on 3 lb. test line and an inline reel with a 1:1 gear ratio, felt more like a 30 pound trophy. I don't often bring fish home but who can pass up cold water perch? Also, I really can't think of a better way to celebrate a month of puzzle building than a meal of fried, freshly caught perch.

Perch feed