Winter Fishing... and Byers Lake

We have a new fishing nut in the family. This kid is addicted to fishing!! It’s a lot of pressure on a guy when a toddler doesn’t understand the difference between fishing and catching. Ashton thinks catching is the norm and when I can’t find the fish or they aren’t biting good… he is not happy!

Mommy and Ashton getting the ice hole ready.

Ashton reeling them in with his buddy Tundra keeping a close watch.

Ashton and Tundra at it again.

Dinner anyone? Such a provider.

Here's our home away from home... Tundra is keeping close watch of everything outside the hut.

It's as tall as Ashton!! Not really, its a good angle.

It wasn't small though :)

We decided to book a cabin at Byers lake this January for a long weekend of ice fishing and remote cabin life. We were hoping there was enough snow to snowmachine into the lake and we didn’t have a repeat of the snow conditions four years earlier (the trails were closed to machines and we had to pull our stuff in = COMPLETE NIGHTMARE). We invited our friends Brittany and Kevin, and their pups.

Cabin 2 was ours for the weekend. I highly recommend this cabin for families with kids because it has a loft where they can sleep and do their own kiddo things. The loft also has a window that faces north with a spectacular view of Denali when she is out in full force. The loft isn’t really realistic with a one year old tho… but that didn’t keep Ashton from trying to climb the ladder and play up there.

I have been fairly forgetful lately, and of course, the one thing I forgot, it impacted Danielle and not me. Danielle was looking forward to a weekend of cross-country skiing, but that’s a little difficult to do without the poles. Oops L She improvised with Brittany and they each shared one ski pole when they went together. Meanwhile, I felt really bad but I blame my dad, AKA Forgetful Fred, for the short term lapses.

Fishing was the goal for the weekend, but unfortunately, the fish (at least big fish) didn’t cooperate. I know there are large rainbow trout on the lake, but I can’t seem to dial them in. The other frustrating thing is that the burbot and lake trout there are super easy to catch, but it seems like adult fish don’t exist for some reason. And that pretty much was the story of the weekend… catching tiny fish. Putting tip-ups out is difficult as well, because these darn baby burbot somehow find a way to swallow the bait and hook that are two times bigger than their mouth. Regardless, Kevin found a way to catch older, baby fish and kept a bunch to take home. Turns out there was enough meat on five small ones to make a couple meals worth.

The wind was probably the biggest issue while on Byers this trip… but that also explains the warm weather. It was difficult fishing in the wind, but to get out of it meant putting up the ice hut without it turning into a kite. This wasn’t too easy doing it solo… and not knowing where the fish are. The second biggest issue was Ashton’s sleep schedule. Both of us were just getting over a nasty cough and cold so his sleep patterns were already off. That combined with him not being in his normal crib meant he wouldn’t sleep the best. When he doesn’t sleep, dad doesn’t sleep, but who needs sleep anyway?

The last morning of weekend we woke up and saw 5 grouse hanging out outside the cabin. It’s illegal to shoot a gun within a mile of the lake, but it isn’t illegal to hunt. That means hunting with rocks! We were able to drop one grouse, but almost threw our arms out trying to get the others. It’s always fun trying to bring home meat with a rock as the weapon!

Overall it was a good weekend. We got away from Anchorage, enjoyed the hard water, relaxed in the cabin, and didn’t have much we needed to do. We will likely do this trip every so often as the kid(s) get older.