Ice fishing winter 2025

 As winter dwindles to it's end, I figured I'd recap my ice fishing adventures starting from January 2025. Before the start of the 2025 ice fishing season, I set my goal to fish at least 2 new spots, as my old spots tend to get predictable, and dare I say, boring at times.

After doing some research both online and by car, I set my target spots as Lac Aylmer in the Chaudiere Appalaches zone, as well as another spot closer to home on the St Lawrence River, with easy access and waterfront parking, which would let me run flag lines while watching from a heated car, in case of bad weather.

Ice fishing season started early enough in December, I started by hitting a few of my known, early ice safe spots. Exploring new spots on thin ice, is a bad idea to say the least, so they would have to wait until January. December ice fishing report can be found at:

 https://www.montreal-fishing.com/2024/12/december-2024-ice-fishing-report.html 

January 5 2025:

My first outing in January ended up being a last minute guided outing. A childhood friend of my brother was in town visiting with his kids, and booked me to take him out near town. The new spot I planned to hit for pike wasn't safe yet, so I picked another area where I knew we wouldn't need to worry about thin ice. Weather was quite cold, but they were able make it through the day. Flag lines didn't provide any action, but they did manage to jig up a small pike.

January 14 2025:

A couple weeks later, the ice at my first new spot on the St Lawrence River was finally safe enough to access, after a deep freeze. I was happy to find 8 to 10 inches of solid ice to fish on. I brought my son Zev along for the outing, hoping to get some studying and homework done with him, while watching our flag lines from the heated car. Weather was cold and extremely windy, and with a decent current, jigging with flashers was sort of tougher than usual.

I got the lines set up, baited with a mix of thawed mackerel, and smelt. Within a couple hours, 2 flags went off at the same time. The closer one was no longer spinning, the fish had dropped the bait about 20 feet away. The next line was still spinning when we got to it. I showed Zev how to set the handline, and fight the pike hand over hand. I finally helped him guide it's head up the ice hole, and he landed his biggest pike to date, 32.5 inches weighing over 7 lbs.

I don't like keeping pike that big, especially not from the St Lawrence River, so we released it in good health. That was all for the day, but at least my new spot paid off with easy access to the ice,  and Zev's new PB.

January 15 2025:

Having achieved one of the 2 goals I had set the previous day, I figured I'd get it done with sooner rather than later. I made the long day trip to Lac Aylmer, hoping to possibly get into some perch, and possibly walleye, or elusive whitefish, which are known to be in that system. I left the flag lines at home, opting instead to jig various depths until I connected with some fish.

Trekking on the lake was slow, as it had some decent snow cover. Over 5.5 hours, I fished 20 holes with various lures, at depths from 10 to 40 feet deep. Unfortunately, not one fish in sight on the flasher, I ended up getting skunked. As I always say when hitting new spots, if I'm not making a new spot, at least I'm eliminating one...

January 28 2025:

Headed back to my new spot on the St Lawrence River with Zev again, plan was the same as before. Fish flag lines for pike, while catching up on his schoolwork in heated car, as the wind chill outside was -25C. This time, the first flag baited with double smelt, went off just as I was done setting my lines. Having practiced a couple weeks before, Zev did a better job at setting, fighting, and landing this pike, though it was smaller than the previous one.

We ended up keeping that one for the table, and 3 of us enjoyed it for dinner. My new spot had paid off with another fish again, and having the convenience of fishing from the car with Zev, is a huge bonus.

January 30 2025:

This was a short last minute outing that I hadn't planned. An online acquaintance I had been corresponding with for a number of years, invited me out to try a new spot with him. With walleye being the target species, I joined him for a few hours in the evening, at another spot on the St Lawrence river. The spot ended up having more current than I imagined, and in order to see my lure on the flasher down at 20 feet of depth or so, I had to drill a separate downstream flasher hole a few feet away. I did manage to get a few nice follows, but no hookups for either of us. Still, having hit a 3rd new spot, I had already beat my previous goal of 2.

February 2025:

My plan for targeting largemouth bass on another new lake during the first week of February was put on hold, as I found cheap tickets to Miami to visit my daughter and her family. As much as I enjoy ice fishing, getting the chance to spend a week with my grandchildren and fishing open water for exotic species in February, was a no brainer. Fishing wise, I did better than ever on the canal I fished for 6 days, landing some nice jacks, a big snook, as well as peacock bass and largemouth bass. Blog post with trip pictures is at: https://www.montreal-fishing.com/2025/02/miami-canal-shore-fishing.html

I got back from Miami just in time for back to back blizzards, which dumped record snow onto all the regions I fish. All that accumulated snow kept me off the ice until the second week in March, when rain and warmer weather melted most of the cover, eventually refreezing it solid with the next cold front.

March 10 2025:

Not having been on ice in over 5 weeks, I was itching to get out again. I chose to hit another new lake, this time it was Lac Boivin, right in the center of Granby. I've seen pictures of some big largemouth bass being caught there in the summer, so I was hoping for a shot at landing one on ice. Before hitting the lake, I checked the Navionics nautical chart, to get an idea of where to start on this very shallow lake. The chart showed most of the lake having a depth of 6 to 8 feet, with one small hole going down to a maximum of 12 feet. 

When I got on the lake, I was consistently drilling into 3 to 5 feet, with the top 16 inches being solid ice. Seems like the lake was drawn down, as I believe the water level there is controlled by the Yamaska River. I ended up fishing 40 ice holes, and it took quite a while to find the hole which max out at 9 feet. So my assessment of the water level being 3 feet low, was accurate.

Not much to show for except for a perch that I caught very shallow, with a bit over 1 foot of water under the ice.

After ice fishing 6 hours on Lac Boivin with 1 perch to show for, I decided to leave early, and hit another new lake nearby. I made my way to Roxton Lake in time for the evening bite. Noticed a few other people fishing there without much success, but I managed to land a few perch and pumpkinseed sunfish in about 2 hours of ice fishing there.

Definitely won't be ice fishing on Lac Boivin again, though I may be tempted to try float tubing there at some point. Likely won't be hitting Roxton Lake either. Again, knocking another 2 lakes off my list, put me at 5 new spots this ice fishing season. which suits me just fine.

March 12 2025:

Another last minute, half day outing, had me taking my son Eli as well as Zev back to my new pike spot. After setting our lines, it took a few hours for the first flag to go off. Eli was a bit rusty at handlining pike on ice, and fumbled by losing a small pike right at the hole. Oh well...

March 18 2025:

By this point, I wasn't to sure of the ice quality around Montreal, due to some very warm weather and rain. I decided to head North, to one of 2 lakes. I've fished one late in March in the past, with some very good results. The second one was less likely to produce, but the tradeoff would be amazing if I were able to locate and hook some of the trophy size smallmouth bass that I've caught there in the summer. Following along with my exploratory theme for the ice season, I chose the second option.

I got up to the lake early enough to put in 8+ hours of solid fishing. Unfortunately, the very thick ice had a layer of water in most of the spots I tried, making drilling tougher than normal. 

I filmed a comparison video, see: https://youtu.be/log4i-LNaNo 

I was not able to locate any smallmouth bass, despite fishing close to 35 holes in what I figured may be two of the prime areas. I did get lucky, and connected with a tasty brook trout, likely held over from yearly stocking in January.

Got a few pics on the way out.

Setting evening sun:

And some local wildlife on the outskirts of the closest town:

At least I got this lake out of my system as far as ice fishing for bass is concerned, though I will very likely head back there once bass season re-opens in June.

March 27 2025:

Finally, my last outing before the season closes on April 1st. Having done more than enough exploratory ice fishing since the start of 2025, I decided to head back to one of my goto spots for bass. In the past, I've had some very slow, as well as very productive ice fishing outings on this lake, late in the ice season at the start of spring.

Conditions were just about perfect, bright sunny skies, about 16 inches of solid ice with a couple inches or hard packed snow on the surface. Weather just under freezing in the morning, warming above freezing by noon, and not much wind.

My plan was to crisscross the lake and fish various depths until I determined some sort of pattern. Fishing mainly depths of 15 to 30 feet, it wasn't until the 18th hole that I drilled that I connected with my first bass of the day on the rattlenvibe lipless crankbait.

I then fished another 30 holes without much to show for until my next fish. Hole #46 produced my first smallmouth of the season, caught on a kastmaster spoon over 32 feet of water.

4 holes later, another small largemouth, followed by 2 more largemouth on hole #65. Both the rattlenvibe and kastmaster sppon produced again, while not much happening with the jigging rap. The bass were suspended a good 5-7 feet off bottom, in depths ranging from 19 to 23 feet. By this point, I was attempting to maintain that depth until the end of the day, while working my way back to where I had parked.

I planned to fish about 80 holes before making it off the lake by sunset, which meant fishing no later than 7 pm. Sure enough, on my first drop down the last hole, with about 10 minutes left to my ice season, I hooked up to a bigger bass. During the battle, it ran back towards bottom several time, peeling my drag nicely for the first time of the day. As such, I knew it was a better fish. I was lucky to land it, just as it spit my hook at the hole. 

Measuring 18 inches, my biggest bass of the day by far. Managed another bass and the first 2 perch of the day out of the same hole before leaving a few minutes later.

Fairy tale endings do happen every now and then, perfect way to end another productive ice fishing season!