NSR Fisher
01-02-2018, 12:33 PM
Well it seemed like the super moon as well as the start of a warming trend really turned on the bite!
Me and another forum member "sportman" ended up heading out to Lesser Slave lake to do some ice fishing. We had an absolute blast and got along well, so nice to see this forum full of great people like him :-) I have yet to have a bad experience while meeting up with forum members!
So the morning started off a balmy -31c, the set up was a bit of an ordeal but we managed to get settled by about 9:30 AM. We accessed the ice at Spruce Point and drove a couple kilometers out towards the deeper basin. We ended up setting up in 27 feet of water, about half way down the steep drop to the mid-lake basin.
I was marking fish on my graph right away. I got the crazy idea to try a deadstick with a slip bobber, and quickly learned its almost impossible to keep the hole ice-free even inside the tent with a heater going haha! While I was messing with the bobber deciding whether or not to just hang a jig, I had a fish take my minnow while the bobber line was in my hand. I set the hook and hand lined in my first fish of the day, a skinny little 20 inch pike. Ended up with another couple of those small little pike before the action died off a bit.
We decided to have lunch and some coffee just after noon, and after that the fishing really picked up. Back in my tent, I was watching several large marks come up and investigate my jig, never really committing though. I decided to go with a more finesse presentation and tied on a large chartreus/gold Slender spoon. Right as I dropped it down a walleye came up and smacked it. I didn't even get a chance to jig it, he slammed it on the drop. I guess you can say I found what they wanted at that moment! Within about 45 minutes I ended up slamming another nice Walleye, this one I had to work on for quite awhile, he would come up, look, then swim away. Finally I tried just holding on the spot and just lightly wiggling it before holding it really still, and he just couldn't resist that quivering action of the spoon. The tasty minnow head wiggling in front of his nose probably helped too!
Ended up finishing off the afternoon by catching a little whitefish on the same large 2 inch slender spoon! I had him chase the spoon from about 25 feet all the way up to 10 before he finally hit it! I still can't believe he got that treble in his mouth! Poor guy, it really messed up his face. I also had a large pike get off right at the hole, his head was massive and filled my entire 10 inch hole. I was pretty upset haha!
Hopefully these pics work! For reference my ice rod is 28 inches long.
https://i.imgur.com/59V7XML.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/IKCB4sr.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/7PIqYDO.jpg
I will definitely be heading back sometime this winter!
Me and another forum member "sportman" ended up heading out to Lesser Slave lake to do some ice fishing. We had an absolute blast and got along well, so nice to see this forum full of great people like him :-) I have yet to have a bad experience while meeting up with forum members!
So the morning started off a balmy -31c, the set up was a bit of an ordeal but we managed to get settled by about 9:30 AM. We accessed the ice at Spruce Point and drove a couple kilometers out towards the deeper basin. We ended up setting up in 27 feet of water, about half way down the steep drop to the mid-lake basin.
I was marking fish on my graph right away. I got the crazy idea to try a deadstick with a slip bobber, and quickly learned its almost impossible to keep the hole ice-free even inside the tent with a heater going haha! While I was messing with the bobber deciding whether or not to just hang a jig, I had a fish take my minnow while the bobber line was in my hand. I set the hook and hand lined in my first fish of the day, a skinny little 20 inch pike. Ended up with another couple of those small little pike before the action died off a bit.
We decided to have lunch and some coffee just after noon, and after that the fishing really picked up. Back in my tent, I was watching several large marks come up and investigate my jig, never really committing though. I decided to go with a more finesse presentation and tied on a large chartreus/gold Slender spoon. Right as I dropped it down a walleye came up and smacked it. I didn't even get a chance to jig it, he slammed it on the drop. I guess you can say I found what they wanted at that moment! Within about 45 minutes I ended up slamming another nice Walleye, this one I had to work on for quite awhile, he would come up, look, then swim away. Finally I tried just holding on the spot and just lightly wiggling it before holding it really still, and he just couldn't resist that quivering action of the spoon. The tasty minnow head wiggling in front of his nose probably helped too!
Ended up finishing off the afternoon by catching a little whitefish on the same large 2 inch slender spoon! I had him chase the spoon from about 25 feet all the way up to 10 before he finally hit it! I still can't believe he got that treble in his mouth! Poor guy, it really messed up his face. I also had a large pike get off right at the hole, his head was massive and filled my entire 10 inch hole. I was pretty upset haha!
Hopefully these pics work! For reference my ice rod is 28 inches long.
https://i.imgur.com/59V7XML.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/IKCB4sr.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/7PIqYDO.jpg
I will definitely be heading back sometime this winter!