Being hit with this early spring weather, it had me thinking about planning my rainbow trout trip somewhat earlier this year.
I knew it was now or I would probably miss the bite. So some quick plans were made with a couple local friends, Skip Macumber and Jay Hewitson, and off we went on the road at 5 a.m.
I was quite confident of a productive trip, as we had talked on the way that we have yet to have a bad day ice fishing on this lake over the years.
As we arrived at the lake three hours later, we quickly noticed how bad the ice on the lake was getting. It was already opening up from shore, so driving on was not an option, after backing the truck down to the lake we quickly unloaded all our gear into the sleigh and off to our location we went. Setting up the clam ice shelter and getting our holes drilled we were ready to fish in no time.
After clearing the holes of ice and then dropping chum down, it did not take long for the fish to come in, I had seen up to seven trout come through at one time, I knew this was going to be the start of an interesting day. Moving around from hole to hole we could see groups of fish, I have never seen so many rainbow trout at one time in such a small area, Using just a single hook tipped with a frozen shiner it did not take long to land the first fish of the day, a small rainbow trout. But we were looking for much larger fish. As we all got our lines set in our holes the fish were coming through in groups, you could tell they were definitely in the spawning mode, Even with the amount of fish around it took sometime before we landed another fish, and when we did the action really picked up quite a few small fish and eventually we got into a nice 24-inch rainbow while jigging inside the clam ice shelter, a nice fat female full of eggs, we ended up using the eggs and Macumber made some egg sacks, the fish really turned onto that.
Hewitson was having fun landing fish after fish in one of his holes, but unfortunately he missed a big one, which broke his line. We all continued to hit a few fish on all our lines, I was unfortunately stuck inside my clam shelter holding the fort as we ended up getting winds gusting to at least 50 km/h, almost blowing me down the lake in my Yukon clam shelter.
The action was steady all afternoon with many small fish being caught and a few of trophy size unfortunately the largest fish were lost at the hole, at the end of the day we estimated at least 50 trout were caught and released I have never seen so many rainbow trout caught on one trip and this would be my last ice fishing trip of this year.
Angler's edge: Our local ice fishing is now finished but ended on a good note with anglers having much success on Paint Lake and catching some nice trout out of Mid lake, some decent lake trout were also caught coming out of Ospwagan Lake. Anglers were able to get out on the Burntwood River with their boats before the season closed and some anglers got into some good shore fishing.
The season is now closed until May 22, but remember you can fish stocked trout waters all year. Take advantage of that, as the action can be incredible. And don't forget to renew your fishing licence.
For those that like to dip net suckers the run should be almost here.
Looking for some local fishing updates? Have any great local fishing stories or photos? You can get in touch with Dave Colibaba by e-mail at: colibaba@mts.net
