With February in the books, here is a short report of my mid winter ice fishing outings:
Started off the month hoping to land some decent pike on my HT polar tip up flag lines. Set up early in the month, fished 8 hours with 10 lines at a spot where I had landed some mid winter pike soaking frozen mackerels. Nothing doing, except for 1 false flag run.
Three days later, Ari and I headed out to the Eastern Townships, in search of some pike and possibly some jumbo perch. Flag lines were silent all day, we managed about 20 or so perch while jigging, but no keepers, they were all kind of small.
Not having any success on the dead bait, I headed out to jig for some jumbo perch on a nearby lake in the Eastern Townships. First hour of the outing provided some very good action but not from perch. I ended up icing a few lake trout on my first few ice holes of the day, most between 3 and 4 lbs or so. Didn't bother with any pictures, as it's forbidden to target or keep them in winter in the zone I was fishing.
The following week, I headed out to target some stocked trout with a young family. For the outing, I finally picked up my first electric ice auger. I splurged on the Ion G2. Likely one of the most expensive and fastest ice augers I've ever had the pleasure of trying. See my video at:
Although they only stayed for a few hours, they landed 4 of 7 trout they hooked, and seems like supper took a fishy turn for them that evening.
Later that week, I headed up to a lake where I had first fished earlier this season on my float tube. After catching many bass up there, as well as some perch, I had big hopes for this lake the first time I fished it on ice in December 2020. At that time, the ice was thin, and there was no snow cover. In retrospect, the fish in that lake must have been spooked, and Ari and I struggled to land a few small perch during a full day outing.
Now that the ice was a good 3-4 times as thick, and covered in over a foot of snow, I had better hopes. I struggled to find fish for the first few hours, until I finally landed a decent perch after noon.
As I got a rattle bait bite, I figured I can call in some more predators. Sure enough, as I moved shallower a few feet closer to shore, I started getting into some bass.
The Yo Zuri rattle n vibe rattle bait bite was on, I ended up finding some small schools of both largemouth and smallmouth bass.
Unfortunately, I had to leave a hot bass bite early enough to make it back home before the mandatory curfew...
A few day later, I headed back to the same spot, only to find a new sign uo next to where I had been parking.
I decided to risk the ticket, and park at my regular spot, luckily I was not ticketed...
Fishing was slightly slower than I hoped for, but after having located the bass under ice a few days before, I knew where to start looking. It took me only minutes to find and land my first bass of the day.
The bass were concentrated very close to where I had hooked them a few days earlier, although they were suspended slightly higher in the water column. I manage a total of 18 bass landed, a new personal record for me. Mainly largemouth bass, with a few smallmouth bass mixed in. Lunkers were all a bit bigger than previous outing, with the biggest largemouth bass and smallmouth bass in the 16 to 17 inch range.
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