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....
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