Well, it's about that time of the year when winter flows into spring, and ice fishing seasons near there inevitable end. For most of the regions I fish in Quebec, the season closes on April 1st (for now), which means late March is my last chance of getting out to fish on ice.
After getting out on my float tube for a late winter outing earlier in the month, I was hoping to have the time, opportunity and cooperating weather for 2 ice fishing days in March. Sure enough, everything came together as planned.
For the first outing, I headed North, back for another attempt at some good ice fishing for bass. After staying away from the region for a couple months due manly to excessive snow cover, I made the trip with only a couple days left to winter's calendar date.
Morning started off quite cold, I trekked onto the lake in -17C temperature. Recent rain followed by a deep freeze had frozen the surface solid, and with very little snowfall in between, it was a breeze making it out to my first fishing spot.
Action was unfortunately much slower than normal, and the bass weren't active at their usual depths. After catching a smaller perch in deeper water, I eventually connected with a few largemouth bass where I would have expected to find them, jigging a variety of lures.
After the action slowed down despite my relentless drilling all around normally good spots on the lake, I eventually connected with the only smallmouth bass of the day in deeper water.
Nothing big, but welcome catch as usual. With only 6 bass and 1 perch to show for at the end of the day, I was ready to tackle my next spot the following week.
Now into early spring, and with a busy schedule, I set aside 1 last day for ice fishing to end my season, choosing to target a lake I had never fished on ice. This lake had been on my radar for a while, and is one of very few lakes in Quebec to offer winter / ice fishing for pike, muskies, and tiger muskies. Despite these species being recorded in the lake, their numbers are not strong, and populations likely dwindling.
I got started mid morning, by setting up a spread of flag lines, baited with a mix of mackerels, herrings and a hot dogs. Once set up, I jigged smaller lures with the help of my flasher. Fishing was very slow, and after a good 5 hours or so, I had only landed 5 tiny perch. I called my season to an end, broke down and stowed away most of my jigging gear, and proceeded to start pulling up my flag lines for the last time this season.
Getting to my first line, I felt some weight on it, despite the flag not being tripped. Sure enough, I came to realize that it had somehow failed, and I actually had a fish at the end of my line. A few minute later, I was holding my first ice musky of the season, and only second ever iced musky. Crazy enough, my first musky on ice came exactly 7 years to the day of this one.
Needless to say, my 2026 ice fishing season ended on a high note. Looking forward to some open water fishing once the ice is all gone.
Quebec's wildlife ministry recently released the rules for the 2026-2027 fishing season. While some of the rules they have updated make sense, the zone has been chopped up into various segments in the zone exceptions, making them more complex than they should be. Personally, I think it would have been simpler to simply include the entire zone into the new system, being that much of the most fished waterways are now under the exceptions category. Leave it to the ministry to complicate things more than need be...
In a nutshell, much of the St Lawrence river and it's tributaries will be completely shut down to fishing during the last 2 weeks in March, starting in 2027. As well, most of these waterways will now have a slot size for keeping pike (56 to 70 cm), and walleye bag limit reduced to 2 fish. Walleyes and saugers will be under a mix of separate and combined rules, i.e. sauger opening 2 weeks later later than walleye, but combined total bags with a majority of saugers only. Walleye and Saugers will also be closed in these exception zones for most of fall (November 1 to December 19), and re-open for the now shortened ice / winter season. Segments of the Outaouais River, Mille Isles river, and even the Lachine canal fall into some of these new rules as well.
The exceptions are listed below the general rules for the zone.
The icon indicates a change from the previous season.
Looks like the conservation agents are going to have their work cut out, and no doubt many people are likely to run into some expensive "surprises" due to the confusion.
Lastly, don't forget to renew your fishing licenses that expire in 2 weeks. You can do so online, or at stores like Canadian Tire, Sail, etc.
Every March when the outer temps warm up above freezing, I try to plan my first float tube outing of the season. Most of the fishable areas around Montreal are still covered in ice, but the spot I go to has open water, due to the warm outflow of a nearby factory. The actual fishable area varies based on the level of warm water flowing in from the plant, and this year, due to reduced production, I eventually figured out that my target warmer water area, would be significantly smaller than usual.
Being that we are still in winter and that most of the area I fish is surrounded by ice, I wear thermal socks and long johns under my neoprene waders. Still, once I get into near freezing water, I'll feel the temperature drop quickly enough. In water that cold, fish get lethargic, and lures are far less productive, but being that I'm fishing from a constantly moving float tube in very shallow water, I don't have too much choice.
After spending the first couple hours casting spinners and jerkbaits at my normally productive areas, I worked my way back closer to where the warm water inflow is. Average depth there was about 2-3 feet, and with decayed weeds still present, I was left with little choice other than casting a topwater lure.
During my trip to Miami, I found an old Top Dog topwater lure while shore fishing the canal on foot. I owned one many years ago, and after my son Levi used it to catch a monster pike at Le Domaine Shannon a few years ago, I let him keep the lure. It's a walk the dog style topwater lure, about 4 inches long, with a wider mid section and loud rattle. I cleaned up the lure, and put some brand new, sticky sharp Gamakatsu hooks on it. No better time to field test it for the first time than mid winter...
Sure enough, within 10-12 casts, I saw a big wake follow the lure before hitting it. I was sure it was a pike, but to my surprise, it was a very nice sized largemouth bass. Landed the big bass, grabbed a couple quick pics, measured just over 19 inches and a couple ounces shy of 4 lbs.
Way to start off my 2026 float tubing season!
With more cold weather on the way, I'm hoping to squeeze in another ice outing or two before the season closes on April 1st.
Back from another trip to Miami, visiting my daughter and family. This time, I took along my youngest daughter and son as well, as it was his first time visiting Florida. We had many family events and trips planned all week, which provided for less fishing time than usual for me. No big deal, I've fished Miami and Florida plenty enough in the past, and no plans of stopping either. For the purposes of this blog, I'll stick to our fishing related adventures...
Before the trip, I had set 3 separate fishing goals:
1) Fish Key Biscayne for a day with a guide. I chose Captain Carl Ball who runs Awol fishing guide service. I've fished with him multiple times in the past, and have always been happy with his effort and quality of service. Being that Zev has never caught a shark, we figured we'd make it "easy" and focus our efforts on catching blacktip sharks.
2) Fish one of the piers with my grandchildren. Choice of Sunny Isles beach, Dania beach, or Pompano beach. I've fished all three piers in the past, with varying degrees of success. We'd make it a short outing, and combine with some beach time. Fishing with them has been on my bucket list ever since becoming a grandfather in 2020.
3) Spend the latter part of my trip fishing the Royal Glades / Snake Creek canal in North Miami beach, a short distance on foot from where we were staying. I've had better results on every trip since starting to fish there a few years ago, and it's mix of peacock bass, largemouth bass, jack crevalles, and possible snook, make for some tough but very rewarding fishing.
Goal 1:
We set out to meet up with Captain Carl at Crandon Park Marina, South of downtown Miami. We were on the water shortly after 6:30 AM. First order of the day was to check Carl's first spot for tarpons before sunrise.
Unfortunately, we couldn't find any tarpons, which we normally target by sight fishing. We headed off to make a run for the first shark spot of the day. Plan was to catch some ladyfish to use for cutbait. Ladyfish are very easy to catch, and make for good fun on light tackle, much like mini tarpons.
Sure enough, Carl hooked one on his first cast, and immediately had a shark come after it. Zev and I followed up, and hooked one each on our first casts. While I reeled mine in at high speed, Zev tarried long enough to get hit by a blacktip shark. Shot some footage of Zev getting sharked by "the taxman".
Next two casts with cutbait, landed back to back blacktip sharks. Quite small, but enough to get him some much needed practice.
3 sharks within the first 20-30 minutes was great. I thought we had it made, to where Zev would have sore arms well before the end of the outing. Unfortunately, the sharks and ladyfish both disappeared from the spot, and nothing else bit for a while.
We moved to another spot, and despite seeing some sharks, none were interested in our bait. Eventually, I started sight casting for barracuda, using a walk the dog style topwater lure. Using long distance casting and high speed retrieves, Carl and I kept drawing in schools of high speed chasing fish, but just about none were committing to biting. I eventually hooked a nice barracuda that gave me a couple blistering runs before spitting the hook.
We moved to another spot, where the cut ladyfish managed to draw in two decent size nurse sharks, as well as a bigger blacktip shark. They all came within inches of out bait in the shallow water, but none took the bait. I managed to hook a small barracuda while casting, but it quickly jumped twice and spit the hook before I even had a chance to reel down and set the hook.
Eventually, we hit another spot that was crawling with ladyfish. Zev and I hooked and landed a good 7 or 8 of them, and lost a few more.
Eventually, we called it a day without hooking any more sharks, but not by lack of trying hard. As I often say, "it's part of the game"...
Goal 2:
I've been waiting for a while to finally get my grandchildren fishing. At ages 3 and 5, they are both ready to get started on good numbers of small fish. While I can guarantee that sort of action back home around Montreal, it's quite another feat to achieve in Miami, being that most of the spots I fish there are rather tough. With a short fishing window of about 1 hour or less, I figured my best bet would be to take them pier fishing for bait using a Sabiki rig. Being that I had two rods, my plan was to hook one up for bait for a potential bigger catch, while hooking good numbers of a mix a pilchards, croakers, or other smaller fish near the pier's pilings.
For those of you unfamiliar with the Sabiki rig, it's widely used in pier fishing, at least in South Florida. A nice stretch of 4-5 feet of mono or fluorcarbon line, with 5-6 razor sharp small dropper hooks, tipped with a tiny piece of plastic that imitates fish skin. Clip a sinker to the bottom of rig, drop down, and slowly jig. When the bite is on, the bait fish swarm the rig, and it's common to pull up 2-4 fish with every drop of the Sabiki rig.
We decided to hit Sunny Isles beach before sunrise. After spending a good 90 minutes or so of beach time, we got on the pier. Within a few drops, I landed a small bait fish, possibly a pilchard. I hooked it up to a bigger hook. and got some pics with my grandchildren before casting it out as bait on my second rod.
I then proceeded to show both of them how to drop and retrieve line using my spinning reel. Frustratingly enough, the pier was surrounded by thousands of schooling bait fish, but none were remotely interested in my rig, nor any of the other offerings anyone else the was using to try to catch them. A throw net would have been the best best, but not what I was there for. We ran out of time, and headed off to next event of the day with my grandkids. At least I finally got my first outing with them done, next time we'll have to plan on more pier time with them.
Goal 3:
Last but not least, was fishing the freshwater canal near my daughter's home in North Miami beach. For those of you that follow my blog since a while, you probably have read my succession of figuring out how to successfully fish this tough waterbody. After many long days of trial and error using various fishing lures and tactics, my best bet is to put in many hours casting jerkbaits. As such, I brought along some extra Rapala Husky Jerks for Zev to fishing along with me, hoping to put him onto some more fish.
One of the major factors in finding success fishing the Royal Glades / Snake creek canal, is putting in time. When I'm alone, I'll often fish a good 8+ hours on foot, casting relentlessly, while covering a good 10-15 km per day. With 2 kids on the trip, and other responsibilities during my trip, I only managed to get about 8 hours over the first 3 days of fishing there, and only 1 small largemouth bass came to play.
I was sort of perplexed by the poor quality of fishing we experienced in the canal. Weather was seemingly perfect, ranging from 26C to 30C on the days with fished, along with sunny skies and moderate winds. What I did notice, was slightly lower water level than usual, as well as tons of dead iguanas and many peacock bass, due to a major cold front that hit the region a couple weeks before my trip. While I don't like seeing dead fish or wildlife, and of the dead peacock bass was by far the biggest I've ever seen in person, somewhere in the 22-24 inch range. At least I know there should be others in that size range or possibly even bigger in the canal, for me to try to catch in future outings.
For the last couple days of my trip, a cold front blew in, dropping night time temperature to 7-8C, with daytime highs around 15C. My guess was that fishing would probably shut down ever worse for peacock bass and jacks, but I had a small glimmer of hope that largemouth bass may get active, as they are more resistant to colder conditions.
By now, Zev had given up on the fruitless canal fishing, so I got out solo early morning with my kids sleeping in. 35 km/h wind gust had the wind chill down to around 5C, and I fished in a hoodie for probably my first time ever in Miami.
Casting into the gusting wind, I started getting follows from largemouth bass, and managed to land 2 of them in the first hour of fishing.
Eventually, working my way back to where I started, I was surprised to hook and land a feisty and colorful peacock bass, my first of the trip, decent size too at 15 inches.
Sure enough, my son in law was working a plumbing job working nearby and saw me land it. Small world.
Headed home for lunch around noon, and hoped to convince Zev to come back with me. He declined my offer. Too bad, as the bite continued, and I landed another peacock bass, and 2 more largemouth.
Headed home early again, but 6 fish landed in 5 hours was far better than what I was able to catch so far on my trip.
Next morning was our last day in Miami. I woke up early, and again, Zev chose to sleep in, with outer temperature just as cold as the previous day. I was hoping to put in around 3 hours for fishing, before getting home to get all my chores done before flying home.
Took me about half hour of fishing to hook and land another peacock bass.
This peacock bass had completely inhaled my lure, and had one treble hook in the gullet, with a second treble hook in it's gills. Those of you that have fished with me know how finicky I get about using sticky sharp hooks, and by the time I was able dislodge these, there was no chance this peacock bass was going to survive being released. Being that I was close enough to home in cold weather and having some frigid drinks and my backpack, I decided to harvest the peacock bass, being that I had never eaten one before.
Working my way down the bank, I landed my first jack crevalle of the trip about 20 minutes later.
Now, being that I was already going to be cleaning fish for lunch, I harvested the jack as well, being that I had never eaten one up until this point as well.
Feeling real happy about myself, things got even better within minutes. My lure chased by a couple tiny jacks, and both got hooked at the same time. While this happened to me with bass once before, I've come close to replicating it with bigger jacks and even peacock bass in this canal, but this was the first time I've landed 2 jacks at once, even if they were quite small.
To top things off, I found a frigid iguana, quite sure it was still alive and waiting to heat up in the sun before being able to move again. I got a quick pic and put it back when I found it,
Despite the fishing getting better, I was forced to make the difficult decision of leaving for home, with a very busy afternoon planned.
First in order was to prepare my fresh caught lunch. Fish were bled and spines snapped as soon as I kept them.
Next, I filleted and deboned both fish, making sure to trim off all the darker flesh and entire bloodline from the jack, in order to provide a cleaner / less fishy taste. I set them in the fridge to rest to a couple hours.
I seasoned some flour with a variety of spices, coated the fish in beaten egg, and dipped into flour mix. Didn't have any butter on hand, so I used a mix of canola and olive oil to pan fry them. Drizzled with some fresh squeezed lemon juice.
Plated the fish for Zev and I, along with arm pita bread and a well chilled, oversized beer. Found the peacock bass to be very tender and mild, while the jack was firmer and more flavorful. Perfect way to end out trip to Miami.
All in all, another fun and memorable trip, which won't soon forget. We got to spend a lot of quality time with my grandkids, daughter, son in law and his family. Some other fun outings included a trip to Basspro shops / Outdoor world, an airboat ride in the Everglades National park, trying my hand at golfing with the kids for the first time (at Top Golf), hitting the beach and some restaurants, and joining a group of about 40 family members for Monster Jam (monster truck competition) at Loan Depot Park, home of the Miami Marlins.
Would like to thank my daughter and especially in laws (Meir and Aliza) for hosting us yet again, their hospitality is legendary. Hoping to return sooner rather than later, for good occasions.
Not much ice fishing in January for me, with only two ice outings done all month. Finally got back out with my 13 year old son Zev to kick off February. Target species were stocked brook trout. A number of lakes in various regions in Quebec get stocked a few times per year, with various organizations running the stocking programs, which are often tied in with local derbies.
After one such derby on Saturday, my son headed up to fish the lake on Monday, hoping to find some of the trout that managed to avoid getting caught during the derby.
We got onto the lake in question by mid morning. Second hole I drilled produced back to back brook trout for Zev and I.
We then made our way around the area of the lake, drilling and fishing until we ran into a bunch of schooling brook trout in the 14th hole I drilled. Zev managed to pull 8 of 12 trout out of that hole over the next 1/2 hour or so, while I got a few more brook trout out of other holes nearby.
Most of Zev's hit on a small Kastmaster spoon tipped with a mealworm, while I landed a few on a small lipless crankbait. Big surprise was their avoidance of worms still fished on our secondary rods, only one brook trout landed on still fished worms all day.
Weather was amazing, sunny, no wind, and it warmed up nicely enough for us to shed out coats and sweaters for a while.
Unfortunately, we were not able to get to two bag limits, as the last 20 holes I drilled didn't produce a single fish. As well, the brook trout that got stocked were significantly smaller than I have caught there in previous years. That being said, free is free, and beggars can't be choosy.
Looks like we'll be eating well once I'm done cleaning these....
New year's 2026. Woke up to a lot more snow than forecast. High winds and blowing snow forced me to cancel my plans of fishing flag lines for pike near Montreal I headed up North solo instead, as my kids didn't want to attempt fishing out in the open in -25 wind chill.
I got to my spot mid morning, ground temperature was a balmy -18C.
Nearly half hour trekk on foot to my spot, towing the gear sled. Wearing that many layers, it takes very little time to heat up. It's crucial to avoid getting your underlayers sweaty, to avoid freezing later. As such, I remove most layers for the walk. Sometime, there is only one way to cool off.
I got started fishing not far from where I left off last week with Zev. Didn't take long to start catching bass.
Action was a bit more sporadic than last week, but I managed to catch a few nice bass up to 16.5 inches.
They were nailing those rattlebaits pretty aggressively. Mini Rattle n vibe from Yozuri, and Rapala Rap V blade tipped with mealworms did the trick again.
I made an effort to stay away from perch in deeper water. Despite some very nice ones in the lake, most are infested with worms. The few I did catch, completely swallowed my lures, and in these very cold temps, the delay in getting them released is likely to kill them after the release.
Day ended up with decent results, 18 largemouth bass, and 5 perch in about 5 hours of jigging. Left around sunset.
Ice fishing season is finally here again. As usual, I sort of pre-plan where I intend to fish and what I'm attempting to catch, well in advance of the season. As opposed to last year's goals of trying a bunch of new spots, this season, I plan to hit more of my usual spots, hopefully bringing my sons along as well.
After a lackluster outing on first ice earlier in December, I decided to take Zev out for a day of jigging, in relatively warmer weather. With the high just around the freezing mark, and him dressed as warmly as possible, we got out to jig for perch and pike.
Action was much slower than I hoped for, but my I achieved my main goals of training Zev to effectively use a flasher and jigging rod, as well as to get an idea of his general resistance to cold weather. He did stay warm overall, but unfortunately for him, he seems to have his mom's hands when it comes to freezing quickly. Despite the relatively warm weather, and my heaviest gloves lined with additional disposable hand warmers, his fingers were still very cold.
We didn't manage all that many fish, a few perch, and 1 small pike while jigging.
For our next outing together the following week, I picked up a couple Zippo electronic rechargeable hand warmers on clearance at Sail. Definitely get a lot hotter than the disposable powder ones. We headed up to a lake where I've had some very productive fishing for a mix of largemouth and smallmouth bass, as well as jumbo perch. With the weather hovering around -5 and very little wind, it was about as good of a day as I could hope for.
We trekked to out spot, and got to work trying to locate a pattern. After spending a good hour or so of searching, we got into some sporadic perch at about 28 to 32 feet of depth. Sizes were good, I even managed to land my biggest ice perch at 13.5 inches.
Still only 1 bass nearly 3 hours into the outing.
Based on past experience on this lake, I had a hunch the bass action would pick up after noon. Sure enough, once we located them between 25 and 28 feet of depth, the action was just about non stop. Over the next few hours, we managed to land a whopping 33 more largemouth bass, as well as a couple smallmouth bass too, with Zev catching the majority of them, as I was guiding him along. Mostly caught on small lipless crankbaits, as well as small spoons.
Zev was more than thrilled, and couldn't believe what was happening. He'd never caught that many bass in any given season, let alone in one afternoon on ice. So much for largemouth bass being a "warm water" species... Better yet, he was able to push through his frozen fingers to get at the fish. Truly a unique experience I was happy to be able to get him onto.
At this point, it looks like my 2025 season has come to it's end. It's been another fun season, with many very nice surprises. From a crazy week of catching saltwater fish in a freshwater canal in Miami last winter, to the insane numbers of pike and walleye landed during a few of my summer vacations, to some trophy carp in fall, and now ending off with this latest bass frenzy on ice. Just about ready to get my 2026 season under way as well.
At this point, I'd like to wish everyone a great 2026, with lot's of good fishing, great catches, and a happy new year!
icon indicates a change from the previous season.
