Annual Burbot Trip

Every March, an overnight burbot fishing trip is mandatory. The Harris household hosts a block fish fry and potluck in the spring, and we supply the fried fish. Last year we had to modify our plans a little bit. Ashton was newly born and it was the first time Danielle was unable to make the trip. My friend Kevin took her place. This year, Danielle once again was unable to go due to having to work and Ashton being too little to make the trip. Kevin again was my partner in crime. We decided to fish the first week of March in an attempt to catch the burbot immediately prior to spawning.

In addition to fishing, I had two caribou tags for that area that were still open until the end of March. I didn’t really need meat, but we decided to take the hunting gear with to keep in the car in case we came across an easy freezer filling situation. We also decided to try something new this year. Typically, we go for a three day and two night weekend, leaving early on the first day. This year we wanted to try to stay three nights. I had to work a half day on Thursday, and we were going to head in for the weekend after I got off, likely setting up late.

I got out of work at my predicted time. Kevin met me at my house and we loaded everything up into the Grey Whale (his massive enclosed trailer). It took about three hours to get to the parking lot and we quickly unloaded everything and took off toward the lake. The ride to our fishing hole is about 20 some miles of semi rough terrain. The whole way in we are looking for grouse that we could possibly stop and shoot; unfortunately riding in late afternoon means people likely already scared the grouse off.

Once we got to the lake, the first thing we saw were three large objects out toward the middle of the lake. We have never seen caribou there before, but low and behold, that is exactly what we saw. We didn’t bring our large rifle and hunting gear with us (even though they were in my legal hunting area). Our priority while on the lake was burbot and we didn’t want to risk a distraction from that. Good thing too because we would have been tempted to spend time harvesting these caribou.

We soon arrived at our fishing hole. Surprisingly, we made it well before dark. We took Kevin’s Arctic Oven this year so we were planning to camp right on the lake. Our first task was to get the tent setup. Before we did that, we had to remove all of the snow from a 16’ by 16’ square area… there was a little less than three feet of snow! This took us quite a while but it helped to keep us warm.

In no time, we had the snow cleared and tent setup. We then shifted our attention to fishing. Burbot bite best shortly after dusk and into the night, so this worked out perfectly for timing. We had to drill many test holes to make sure we were within a couple feet of the bottom without hitting it. I worked on getting the tip-up holes drilled and setup while Kevin worked on the ice shanty.

As I was drilling the sixth hole, I accidentally lost my grip on the auger and dropped it after I drilled completely through the ice. This resulted in the motor part dropping to the top of the hole while at the same time, water coming up and into the motor. The auger immediately died. My heart sank because I’m not the best at mechanical repairs. Luckily, I’m always prepared with a toolbox in case something like this happens though. We knew water got in the motor and immediately froze since it was well below zero. The only problem was, we didn’t know where the water got in and how we would remove the ice and get the auger started again. After many failed attempts to start the auger, we decided to try and warm it up with the Buddy heater. Unfortunately, it was too cold to even have the heater directly blowing on the motor and melt the ice. Our only option was to start taking the auger apart. I think I got pretty lucky, because the first couple parts I removed from the auger as well as the hidden ice under them (the air intake and throttle) was exactly what was needed to get the auger started again. HIGH FIVES!

We finished drilling the holes and got everything setup for the night. At this point it was fairly dark outside. We were then treated with the Northern Lights making an appearance. Kevin was anxious to fish so he retreated to the shanty while I attempted to take pictures of the auroras. While I was trying to keep my fingers from freezing, Kevin was hooking up with fish left and right. The bite was on! After a handful of pictures, I joined Kevin in the shanty for some night time jigging.

We ended up catching a bunch of hogs before calling it a night close to 1AM. We got back to our tent excited to warm up by the stove, but unforuantely, the propane was not cooperating. Propane doesn’t do the best in cold weather (gelling at -40), and at -35, the stove wasn’t getting a steady stream of propane. We were able to light the stove, but we couldn’t turn it up high enough to really heat the tent up. The slow burning stove brought the temp in the tent above freezing, but not by much. (I still had ice on my gear the next morning). We put on all of our warm clothes and cozied up in our sleeping bags for the night.

…One problem we quickly realized was that it was going to be difficult to keep our water thawed!

We slept in the next day. The rising sun warmed the tent and actually allowed the propane tank to warm up as well. I got out of the tent to pee and check on the tip-ups. To my surprise, not a single flag was tripped. After I got done peeing, a flag was now raised, signaling a fish on the line. I quickly got dressed and rushed out the tip up only to find about four inches of ice covering the ice fishing hole. I had to chip all the ice away before pulling out the tip up and reeling in the fish. We then proceeded to free all the tip ups from the ice check the lines. Many of the lines were missing bait, and for some reason (still unknown to me) the tip-ups didn’t trip. We were lucky though and one tip up that wasn’t tripped had a burbot on the line waiting for us.

We decided that we were going to be lazy for most of the day and then focus hard on burbot again that night. We could have fished for lake trout, but last time we went hard core for lake trout during the day, we were fairly tired when it mattered to concentrate on burbot (we ended up barely catching enough fish for the fish fry because of it). Burbot was our priority so we just tended to the tip-ups, relaxed, drank what was thawed J, and goofed off.

The highlight of calm day was when Kevin went into the woods to poop. I was in tent when I heard him yell, BRING THE 22! This meant he saw a grouse and he needed the rifle to shoot it. Apparently, he picked out his squatting place and before he could get to it, the bird shot out from behind a tree, nearly scaring the poop out of him anyway. Well, I hurriedly got him the rifle he successfully harvested the bird. Probably the funniest part about this story is that this exact scenario has happened three years in a row now… someone has wondered off into the woods to poop, and they end up scaring a grouse which then ultimately becomes a meal.

As dusk was setting in, we prepared for a long night fishing and fun. It turned out to be another great night of fishing. Seriously, if you have never ice fished at night in an ice shanty, with a heater going, music playing, drinks flowing, grill cooking, while hooking up on large fish, all under the dancing northern lights with good company… you do not know what you are missing! By the end of the night, we had both caught our limit for the trip (and a proxy's). We had another day and night of fishing planned, but we decided that we would just pack up early and head home after waking up the next day.

We pulled the tip-ups so they wouldn’t sit out overnight and headed in to the tent. It felt colder this night and we didn’t want to experience another night of cold sleeping. We made the decision to bring the propane tank into the tent with us knowing the pressure regulator wasn’t a big concern for indoor use in this cold weather. This was a great decision because we stayed plenty toasty that night.

We woke up the next day and took our time getting packed up. When we started to head out, we noticed something large by the tree line in the distance. It wasn’t a caribou this time, but a moose (not a legal animal this time of year). Oh well, we didn’t have our high powered rifle with us anyway.

It took us a little longer to get back to the truck then it did to get in to our fishing hole. It was a really bumpy ride for me and I had a horrible dehydration headache that the rough ride made exponentially worse (it’s tough camping when you can’t really keep your water thawed and the alcohol doesn’t freeze). The unfortunate thing that we discovered when we returned to the truck is that we forgot to plug the block heater in. Kevin’s new diesel truck was not happy with us. It would not start after sitting in the -35 cold for a couple nights. We tinkered with the truck for a while and finally decided to plug it in and wait about an hour for it to heat up the antifreeze and block. That is exactly what it needed because it started right up!

We headed home, but not before stopping at Eureka for a well needed warm meal. Supposedly their pies are really good, but I wouldn’t know because I’m not a fan of any fruity deserts! Anyway, we made it home safely, a day early, and with plenty of burbot. We will have plenty of fish for this year’s fish fry!

Our friendly mountain neighbors.

The clearing we had to shovel!

Neighbor 1

Neighbor 2

My camera is a small, point and shoot Sony that I take with me hunting due to its compact size and relatively light weight. It isn't really meant to capture good Northern Lights pictures, but it does a descent job. I also didn't have a tripod so these pictures are with my holding the camera as still as possible while the shutter is open!