diggyj
Rice Lake Master
The last time I went ice fishing was probably close to 20 years ago with my brother and back then I remember being in University and drinking beer and not putting so much emphasis towards the fishing. Well a lot has changed in that time and I was lucky enough to go out with my buddy Shawn for some ice fishing on Scugog yesterday. He was confident leading up to our outing and said that we would be hooking into some Slabs for sure but to be patient and to tell the wife, not to wait up. He caught his limit 2 days in a row leading up to our outing so I was getting really excited.
By diggyj, shot with DSC-S730 at 2010-02-01
This is the point where he drove his truck and trailer onto the ice. One of the first things he mentioned was, "you might want to roll the window down", I thought that was pretty funny for about 1 second, then realized what its like to be an Ice Road Trucker.....lol
We got to where he had his hut and we moved it to a different location.
By diggyj, shot with DSC-S730 at 2010-02-01
This next photo shows the general area we were in, he said it was out in front of Goreskis and it was pretty quiet, but people just kept coming out by the car and truck load. By the end of the night it was pretty busy.
By diggyj, shot with DSC-S730 at 2010-02-01
After the hut was secured in the new location, he started drilling holes with his 10" auger. One think I noticed and learned yesterday was that if I am going to take up ice fishing I will certainly have a gas auger. Also Shawn does not use electronics, no fish finders or flashers. I did see guys out on the ice with flashers and it was neat to see how they worked. One guy was nice enough to show and tell me exactly what was going on.
By diggyj, shot with DSC-S730 at 2010-02-01
After getting the rods set up, I was expecting to hold them and jig up and down like the guys out on the ice were doing but he rigged them from the ceiling so we didnt even have to hold them. Said when the Crappie start to hit, that you would see the line get pulled sideways. We were using a simple setup, small jig head with minnows hooked through the tail. Each line had a lower minnow and a upper minnow, so essentially 2 hooks on the line, hope that is legal. We were in 7-8 FOW and 2-3 Feet down.
By diggyj at 2010-02-01
Let me tell you theres nothing like being in a hut with a heater, cause the wind picked up and I kind of felt bad for some of the brave souls out there.
By diggyj, shot with DSC-S730 at 2010-02-01
We started fishing around 3pm and at first we were getting tiny perch, managed to catch a few, no keepers though. I was asking where the Crappie were and he said that the will come later. So patiently we fought of the perch and tried to save our minnows.
Sure enough just like he said, a couple of hours later they started to move in and the perch were gone. Here is one of the first ones that I caught.
By diggyj, shot with DSC-S730 at 2010-02-01
Man was I happy.
By diggyj at 2010-02-01
By diggyj, shot with DSC-S730 at 2010-02-01
My pile beginning to grow.
By diggyj, shot with DSC-S730 at 2010-02-01
Just before we were going to shut it down I see my line go sideways and I managed to catch the biggest one of the night. It was my PB 14", 1 lb 12 ozs.
By diggyj, shot with DSC-S730 at 2010-02-01
By diggyj, shot with DSC-S730 at 2010-02-01
Here are a few lined up.
I had an amazing time and will definately be out again. Not sure if Shawn is a fish god or just has more luck. He was landing way more fish then me, he was able to see the subtle movement in the line. I really needed to visually see the line move a lot to catch them but he seemed to detect even the subtle movements. Have the time I wasn't paying attention and he would say fish on. By the end of the night, I was much better at it and it felt good to land a couple of big ones. I went home with 16 Crappie and one perch from Shawn and he ended up with a limit. I always remeber it being like this whenever we get out on the soft water together.
Got them all fileted and having a fish fry tonight.
Things I learned, get a hut and a gas auger, if you are going to be serious about it, other then that it was pretty simple. However if I was doing it by myself I probably would have had the hut in a completely wrong section where there were no Crappie.
Dirk
By diggyj, shot with DSC-S730 at 2010-02-01
This is the point where he drove his truck and trailer onto the ice. One of the first things he mentioned was, "you might want to roll the window down", I thought that was pretty funny for about 1 second, then realized what its like to be an Ice Road Trucker.....lol
We got to where he had his hut and we moved it to a different location.
By diggyj, shot with DSC-S730 at 2010-02-01
This next photo shows the general area we were in, he said it was out in front of Goreskis and it was pretty quiet, but people just kept coming out by the car and truck load. By the end of the night it was pretty busy.
By diggyj, shot with DSC-S730 at 2010-02-01
After the hut was secured in the new location, he started drilling holes with his 10" auger. One think I noticed and learned yesterday was that if I am going to take up ice fishing I will certainly have a gas auger. Also Shawn does not use electronics, no fish finders or flashers. I did see guys out on the ice with flashers and it was neat to see how they worked. One guy was nice enough to show and tell me exactly what was going on.
By diggyj, shot with DSC-S730 at 2010-02-01
After getting the rods set up, I was expecting to hold them and jig up and down like the guys out on the ice were doing but he rigged them from the ceiling so we didnt even have to hold them. Said when the Crappie start to hit, that you would see the line get pulled sideways. We were using a simple setup, small jig head with minnows hooked through the tail. Each line had a lower minnow and a upper minnow, so essentially 2 hooks on the line, hope that is legal. We were in 7-8 FOW and 2-3 Feet down.
By diggyj at 2010-02-01
Let me tell you theres nothing like being in a hut with a heater, cause the wind picked up and I kind of felt bad for some of the brave souls out there.
By diggyj, shot with DSC-S730 at 2010-02-01
We started fishing around 3pm and at first we were getting tiny perch, managed to catch a few, no keepers though. I was asking where the Crappie were and he said that the will come later. So patiently we fought of the perch and tried to save our minnows.
Sure enough just like he said, a couple of hours later they started to move in and the perch were gone. Here is one of the first ones that I caught.
By diggyj, shot with DSC-S730 at 2010-02-01
Man was I happy.
By diggyj at 2010-02-01
By diggyj, shot with DSC-S730 at 2010-02-01
My pile beginning to grow.
By diggyj, shot with DSC-S730 at 2010-02-01
Just before we were going to shut it down I see my line go sideways and I managed to catch the biggest one of the night. It was my PB 14", 1 lb 12 ozs.
By diggyj, shot with DSC-S730 at 2010-02-01
By diggyj, shot with DSC-S730 at 2010-02-01
Here are a few lined up.
I had an amazing time and will definately be out again. Not sure if Shawn is a fish god or just has more luck. He was landing way more fish then me, he was able to see the subtle movement in the line. I really needed to visually see the line move a lot to catch them but he seemed to detect even the subtle movements. Have the time I wasn't paying attention and he would say fish on. By the end of the night, I was much better at it and it felt good to land a couple of big ones. I went home with 16 Crappie and one perch from Shawn and he ended up with a limit. I always remeber it being like this whenever we get out on the soft water together.
Got them all fileted and having a fish fry tonight.
Things I learned, get a hut and a gas auger, if you are going to be serious about it, other then that it was pretty simple. However if I was doing it by myself I probably would have had the hut in a completely wrong section where there were no Crappie.
Dirk
