New Plan

Around Christmas by brother-in-law Courtney and I made some plans to get on the ice together before his second child was born. His family lives all the way up in the Northern part of the state so us getting together takes a little more planning than is convenient, but it's always a great time. We had some great fishing two years ago when we headed down South so we planned on a repeat performance (read about our last trip here). Unfortunately, at least in terms of fishing, baby boy's getting impatient and Courtney had to stay close to home. With plans to visit as soon as the bundle arrives it didn't make sense for us to head up and instead we canceled the trip.

A couple of days worth of indecision were weighing on me when Luc dropped by to pay for a fly rod that I'm going to build him (more to come on that). Turns out he wasn't doing much Saturday and so we made plans to head out. There was little discussion on where since he hasn't done much ice fishing and I still had that return trip on my mind. With very little persuasion Luc's brother Ross decided to join us and then we knew it was gonna be party. 

The snow was deep around the lake, but not impassable, and soon we were cutting our first holes to check water depth and if there were any fish around. Too bad I forgot to check the batteries on the finder. Oh well, we cut a few holes in a direct line away from shore and had some fish come to hand pretty quickly. Both Luc and Ross had their first splake to hand before the cold had really set in.

A nice way to start the day

Several of the splake were looking healthy like this one

After a few minutes we could tell that setting up the shack was going to be needed if we were going to be able to stay out there. We decided on which hole had the most action and tried to set it up so we could all fish comfortably. Once the shack was up the boys found their first ever perch and we had a blast sight fishing in the crystal clear water. Inside the shack was warm enough for us to lose the heavy coats and pull in lots of fish. It was a mixed bag of splake (how do you tell if it's not a lake trout?) rainbows and perch. The fishing would go in spurts with schools of the different species coming through which made for some really fast fishing at times. 

The boys were happy to have a chance at so many different species

Some of the prettiest rainbows around

Fishing stayed pretty consistent until mid-afternoon when Ross and I couldn't seem to buy a fish. Once things slowed down we looked outside and realized that a storm had moved in. Despite Luc still seeing and catching a few fish it was time to go. Ice fishing can be a lot of fun, especially when you can see the fish come in and take your jig, but I'm definitely feeling the itch to get back out fly fishing. In doing some research to write this post we found a website that has been copy and pasting all of my posts. Not cool. Please make sure you visit kidderfishing.blogspot.com to read. Hope you can get out, be safe, and enjoy nature.

- Kidder

I managed to catch my personal best splake!