My first smallmouth bass on ice

 Ari and I finally made it out for another ice fishing outing today, likely our last chance to ice fish together for a while, with him starting Cegep classes again next week.

For this outing, we decided to venture out to a new region, and fish a smaller lake that we'd never been to before. The lake in question has an exception rule that allows for trout to be fished for in winter, and we were hoping to be able to catch some decent trout there.

The deep heavy snow and slush covering the lake made it tough to trekk any longer distances at a time. With about 1.5 feet of snow cover, were were up to our knees with every step, and the gear sleds were a bit bogged down as well. Nevertheless, we managed to fish out target depths of 10 to 30 feet.

After catching a smaller perch from my first few holes, I finally drilled and ice hole over 28 feet of water. No sooner that the tiny kastmaster spoon I dropped hit bottom, I got a decent tug, and set into something significantly bigger that what I expected to. I was very curious to see what it was, and kept my cool as well as steady pressure fighting the fish all the way up from that depth on my ice rod.

Luckily enough, I managed to gets its head up the 6 inch ice hole on the first shot, and was very surprised to see a big smallmouth bass. While I've caught dozens of good sized largemouth bass on ice in the past, this smallmouth bass was actually the first ever of its species that I've managed to catch while ice fishing, and I've been ice fishing for over 20 years now.

Needless to say, this stunning 4 lbs lunker of a bass not only made my day, but also fulfilled another of my ice fishing goals of getting smallmouth bass on ice off my bucket list of species.

Not much action for me throughout the rest of the day, I managed some more small perch mainly fishing the 20 to 25 foot depth, while Ari managed a couple dozen small perch. Though I probably won't go back there to ice fish, I thinking to go back there in the summer to try for some more smallmouth bass from my float tube.

Spotted this bonus herd of deer on our way out in the evening.