Ice fishing in the Outaouais region

As I’ve enjoyed some great fishing on Giles Lake over the past few summers, I finally decided to try ice fishing for Northern Pike there. I arrived early Sunday morning, my oldest son Ari and I were out on the ice and set up about 9:00 AM. I fished with frozen smelt, sardines and small mackerels, rigged on a mix or double hooks and quick strike rigs. For two days we enjoyed perfect weather, but not one fish! I had one small strike, the first morning, but that was it. I fished drop offs, shallow bays, deep point and area that contained nice weeds during the summer, and rock piles, so I basically covered all types of structure in that lake. On the second day, I was out with the owner of the outfitter as he didn’t have any other customers, he decided to jig for perch using a Rapala ice minnow. His sonar marked schools of fish suspended in about 30-40 feet of water, with a healthy amount of “big ones”. He didn’t hook any all morning, but later that afternoon he managed 2 largemouth bass in the 1.5 – 2 lb range. I normally catch about 100-150 bass to 1 pike in that lake during the summer, I figured winter would be the perfect opportunity to even out the ratio, but I was proven wrong. I did get my first experience with a snowmobile which I used to haul us and all my gear around the lake, although I couldn’t figured out how to get the machine to turn properly on the ice paths on the shore, and ended up stuck in a couple snow banks, but I did manage to move around properly on the lake. I was planning this trip since last year, finally found the perfect weather and time to go, unfortunately the pike had other ideas.