Monday, 16 December 2013

Icefishing Lake Winnipeg Dec. 16, 2013

After a week of being down with some sort of bird, pig or monkey flu it was great to get out onto the lake, put the new ride through the paces and catch a few fish. The morning started out in a whiteout with little to no visibility. We tried a few spots in deeper, clear water and came up empty, with few fish showing on the Vex's. Made a move towards the mouth in 10fow and hunkered down for a bit. As the wind blew itself out and the sun came out so did the fish. Not a big numbers day by any means but the quality could not be beat. We couldn't catch small fish!!


Ice thickness ranged from 12-18" where we drilled. There is some rough ice and some cracks/ridges, however not a pile of snow, travel should not be an issue...however more snow is in the forecast. Gotta love tracks!






Sunday, 1 December 2013

Ice Team TV in Manitoba's Parkland

After a whirlwind week of scouting safe ice, traveling, fishing and filming its time to put some of this to the keyboard.

After a quick scouting mission on the Red to secure lunch, I headed west to check the ice on a couple of lakes and see what was biting. Ice conditions showed a fairly uniform 6-9" on the 3 lakes I looked at Sunday. Spent a few hours fishing and got a couple fish....confidence was running pretty high for day 1 with the camera. Fellow Ice Team pro Jeff Andersen and cameraman and theorist extraordinaire Greg U. were coming up to capture the amazing 1st ice bite for stocked trout in Western MB's Parkland Region.

Got the guys, got some sleep and woke up to big south winds, and everyone's friend horizontal snow. We had a few (very few) chances and managed 1 good fish for the show. Wow...are we going to get a show? After some intense discussions it was decided to stick out the trout and try a new lake the next day. Good choice.

In the first 20 mins we had a couple of dandys on the ice.One big hen brown adorned Jeff's Lift Suit with a souvenior.


Our hot baits were small creature baits, this brown's undoing was a deadsticked Maki Maki




Team selfie!


We found fish along edges in 3-8 fow, small plastics were best for us, a mix of jigging and deadsticked presentations work. White seemed to be the colour of preference. We managed a number of fish catches on film and shot some great underwater footage of these gorgeous fish. Keep an eye out for this online and on WFN at a later date. Can't thank Greg and Jeff enough, great team to work with. Working behind the scenes to make this shoot a success were Sandi and Paul....THANKS!


Last, I had a chance to try out the Clam Auger Conversion Kit I had really dismissed it as something for others further south and of little utility for us here in MB. I was pleasantly surprised. With a 7" bit this machine drilled 35 holes through 8" of ice on 1 battery in -20C. For early ice and panfish, this rig is slick. Being able to walk and drill holes carrying half the weight of a conventional auger really facilitates mobility which makes you more succesful. Is this for Lake Wpg in March? Of course not, but when conditions allow it is a great tool.

Stay tuned for ice updates on the conditions sections of the blog....