Hardwater Fishing

The ice has been weird this year. It was a very nice and warm fall, which made for some late and fragile ice forming on the water. Combine that with a massive earthquake and you get an equation for unstable ice during early winter. Unfortunately, as a result, there were higher than normal reports of people falling through the ice and even perishing ☹ I was able to get out a couple times in December before heading back to Iowa for the holidays.

Our first trip of the season was to a new lake, Big Lake. This place is an amazing fishing Lake with pretty much every freshwater species fish has to offer… it’s also a terminal spawning ground for migrating salmon. I have never fished the Lake because it was about an hour away and I always had other plans. A buddy at work, Brad Furillo, is a guide for Got ‘Em Fishing Adventures and he asked Ashton and I to tag along for a partial day on the lake. Ashton and I were planning to fish in that area anyway that day, so we took him up on the offer!

The weather was perfect. We were in the initial stages of vampirism (the slow transformation to a vampire after not receiving direct sunlight for more than 30 days) due to our house location in the mountains, so the cloudless sky was a welcomed sight. It was cool fishing with Brad because I got to see how he sets up his ice hut and approaches catching fish. This is one reason I look forward to going with new people, because each person often learns something new of the other.

We were targeting numerous species at once, pike, arctic char, rainbow trout, and burbot. Although we didn’t catch a ton of fish, the action was fairly consistent and we landed some dandies!

The first fish of the day went to Ashton... jigging the bottom. We marked many of these on the sonar and thought we would catch bigger ones, so we threw him back thinking we would catch more and bigger ones. Of course, that didn't happen so our dinner was ruined!

The first tip up flag resulted in our first pike of the day.

Ashton wanted to give it a kiss... this is right after he hugged it and gave it a big smucker-roo. Mom loves how fishing makes his clothes smell :)

Here is my first char of the day... with Tundra trying to sneak in the tent while we were preoccupied.

Of course, Ashton wanted to cuddle with it.

And here is the MONSTER! This Char was 28" long and 17" around. He was a completely beast... and he bit on the least expecting setup.

Of course, we released him to be caught another day.

Ashton wanted to show off another pike. That sun was marvelous!

Looks like a good deal... free ride off the ice after a long day of ice fishing.

A couple weekends later, Kevin and I decided to load up the snowmachines and head out to figure Eight Lake to target pike. It was going to be pretty cold and we weren’t too sure about the trail conditions, so Ashton stayed at home and Tundra came with.

We got started before dark. The trail was pretty good with about a foot of new snow a couple days prior. There were very few tracks on the trail, so it didn’t appear many people fished the lake yet. Luck would happen, the lack of tracks also resulted in us getting lost for a little bit. Luckily I had my GPS and were able to find the correct route to the lake. Even though we retraced our steps and took the correct path toward the lake, there was a ton of overflow, bare ground, and flowing swamp streams (this later led us to contemplate if the trail was actually open yet). Regardless, we got to the lake safely.

Knowing the ice may be thin in the middle, we rode our machines on the lake close to the shore until we got the area we wanted to fish. We were the only ones on the lake, and there didn’t appear to be any holes drilled in the common area (more evidence that the trail may not have been open ye). We were wanting to try a new spot that a buddy suggested to us, however, we were unable to find the landmarks that were described to us, so we ended picking a random spot to setup shop.

We put out all our tip-ups, setup the shanty, and relaxed while jigging our spoons. The relaxation didn’t last long… It’s difficult to relax in one spot long when you have tip ups outside. It’s impossible to keep your eyes on each of them at all times, so our routine was to sit back and jig for 5 minutes, get up and look out the windows at each tip-up, and repeat (unless a flag was up). Kevin and I would take turns retrieving a flag. Often times, we were both out of the tent pulling flags at the same time. If there was ever a dead period (about 30 minutes of no flags), one of us would go outside and jig each flag. Most often, this resulted in a fish striking a few minutes later if any were in the area.

Pulling in pike from tip-ups isn’t an easy task. I often tell people the hook up/ landing rate is about 50%. Well we did worse than 50% that day… more like 30-40%. We ended up landing about 15 pike and bringing 8 home. It was a blast. In fact, we were so busy that we didn’t have time to take pictures… total rookie move and I should have known better!

I can’t wait to take the entire family to this lake when Ashton and Josie are older. I’ll sit in the tent, point out a flag, the kids will run to retrieve it, and I can stay comfortable in the hut! 😊 Just kidding… but seriously, the kids would love seeing the many flags pop up and getting excited by the possibility of a fish being pulled in from the outgoing line.

Funny story… I have never lost a fishing pole from a biting fish… yet. My unblemished record was almost erased that weekend. I set my pole down with my spoon in the water while I went to tend an active flag. Kevin stayed in the tent and he said that while I was gone, he saw my pole bending over and bouncing hard without any drag being pulled. Luckily the fish spit the spoon or I would have been fed my first fishing pole to an Alaska Lake.

More ice fishing adventures to come in 2019!