Canadian Ice Fishing Weekend

Dave and Gary's Excellent Adventure #42

A wise old fisherman once said that the fishing was best when you could hang your hat on the moon. Such a moon occurred this past weekend, so Dave and I took advantage of it and went fishing.

We packed up and loaded the sleds late Thursday night, got up at 4 a.m. on Friday, and drove for an hour and a half to Kynoch (Keren will remember it as the place we ended the Burns Lake bike trip). Sleds were unloaded and we rode for another hour and a half (28 miles) to Bayview Lake. Did not see another soul until the end of the day.

This looks like a good spot. So we unpacked our gear and began to set tip-ups, which contain line on a spool, with a hook and sinkers on the end of the line. The hook, which has a live 5" sucker minnow on it, is placed near the bottom of the lake.

So, we set our tip-ups in 8" holes that we drilled in the ice. The orange flag will fly when a fish takes the minnow and swims off.

Until then, we just sit and wait, and listen to Dave's stories. It was a beautiful day, with intermittent sun, clouds, softly falling snow, no wind, and temperatures ranging from 5 degrees F in the morning, to 25 degrees F in the afternoon.

FISH ON!!!!

Dave springs into action, pulls the tip-up from the hole, grabs the line and begins pulling the fish in carefully.......so the line doesn't break.

Once the fish is in the hole and its head is at the top, he reaches down past the dorsal fin, grabs the fish and lifts it from the water. Fishing makes your hands cold.

Click twice on the arrow on the bottom left to see Dave in action!

Ah, success! A beautiful 21", 5 lb. Brook Trout. Enlarge the picture to see all the colors on its side. Note the fisherman is happy, because he caught a big fish, and because his hands are warm.

All the fishing made us hungry, so we built a fire on shore and cooked lunch.

After lunch, Dave had a nap, while I heated water for tea.

While Dave slept, I got to catch fish!

I think it goes without saying that, my fish were bigger.

Enough for a good fish fry!

We left the lake at dark, and rode back to Mud Lake Saloon (remember Keren?), which is a trapper's cabin, and had a beer or two with a couple of trappers. After giving them a fish for their supper, we headed out for the long trip back.

We got back to Kynoch at 11:30 p.m., loaded the sleds on the trailer, drove back to the cabin where we arrived at 1 a.m., and were ready for a long sleep.

On Saturday we slept late, and Dave & Brenda came over about noon, with a map in hand. We charted a course from the cabin to Rodge lake, which is 28 miles from the cabin, by sled.

We arrived at Rodge at about 2 p.m. and went right to fishing. Each person fishing is allowed to have two lines in the water, so we figured we would double the number of fish we caught the day before.

We still found plenty to keep us busy. Cooked a shore lunch and had a good time. Sadly, we caught no fish. When Sandy told Dave that he wasn't a very good guide, he said she was bad luck, and that it was the journey, not the destination that was important.

So we rode back to camp and had a good fish fry with the Daubs.

On Sunday the weather turned bad. Minus 5 degrees F with 40 mph winds and blowing snow creating near white out conditions. We decided it was too cold to spend the whole day fishing, so Dave & I decided we'd just take a ride and see if we could get back to Peak Lake. Odi, Omer, and Ron might remember the place where we tried to drown the ATV's last year! Well, we made it out onto Peak, checked to see that the trail to Emerald Lake was broken, and decided that, as long as we were here we might as well fish.

We chose a sheltered bay and set our tip-ups. Could only handle a couple of hours of that kind of cold, so we started to pull our lines to head back. Just as Dave was about to pick up one of his tip-ups, the flag went up. He grabbed the line and hollered at me to bring the scoop to clean the ice and snow that covered the hole away. We huddled together, trying to block the wind from his wet, freezing hands. It was a big fish, and it made several runs, so that it took 5-10 minutes to get it to the hole. I stuck my arm into the hole, past my elbow, and scooped the 29", 10 lb. Lake Trout onto the ice. What a monster! This time we put our mits back on before we high fived, and then went to the sled to start our cook stove to warm our hands and my arm (my coat sleeve was frozen as solid as a rock). Then we packed up, and once we got on the snowmobiles and started moving we warmed up.

Time for pictures and retelling.

And that's how the weekend ended. As we ate supper with the Daubs, we planned the next adventure........the tent event, where we'll stay out on the lake for several days and fish until we get tired of it. I can't wait.