Lake Simcoe, Day Two

Fished with Fred and Dwayne off Virginia Beach, Ontario Canada.  Temperature this morning was in the lower single digits and when we quit fishing it was in the middle teens. It snowed 4 to 5 inches last night and the wind was blowing 10 to 15 knots. We fished with the same ice fishing outfitter but we fished in different huts today. I don't think that made any difference because the fishing huts are in the same general area. The water was still cloudy which made it difficult to sight fish again. Fred and I just pecked away at the perch today but Dwayne had a pretty good day. He used a large rapala (orange) as a decoy to bring the fish off the bottom of the lake to where he could see them and then would catch the jumbo perch with his small jig. I lost mt slab grabber midday so I went to a jig and minnow setup fishing the way Dwayne was. We kept around 60 perch today which gave us a total of around 130 perch for the trip. We cleaned all the perch on the bathroom counter top at the Holiday Inn where we stayed, if only they knew!!! Mike, the ice fishing outfitter did a great job of taking good care of us. He made sure we had heat, minnows and that we were catching fish. Great time had by all fishing Lake Simcoe.

Lake Simcoe Perching

Fished the Virginia Beach area on Lake Simcoe in Ontario, Canada with Dwayne and Fred. The ice was 5 to 6 inches thick. Temperature this morning was in the lower 30s and when we quit fishing it was in the middle teens. The wind was howling out of the northwest around 50 MPH. It rained, sleeted, hailed and snowed so it was a good thing that we had a rented fishing hut. I poked my head outside the fishing hut one time and could only see about 20 feet. We fished in 7 to 8 feet of water to the right of Virginia Beach. The water was very clean in the morning and then it started to cloud up around lunch time. We figured the high winds and all the open water caused the water to get dirty. We constantly had fish in the holes so we had to pick out the jumbos that we wanted to catch. Once the water got dirty we would try and bring a pod of fish up off the bottom to where we could see them and hope there would be a jumbo perch in the group that we could catch. My best set up was a large slab grabber and Fred used mostly minnows on a red hook. Dwayne was using a small jig with a red plastic tail tipped with a spike. It sure makes it a lot of fun to sight fish for jumbo perch. We kept around 70 perch today.

Beautiful Day for Ice Fishing

Fished with Dale and Daryl. Temperature this morning was in the middle 20s and when we quit fishing it was in the lower 30s. The wind was light and variable and the sun was shining which made for a great day of ice fishing. We fished Mud Bay off Big Portage Lake. The ice is about 5 inches thick. We started to catch fish right out of the gate but they were all very small gills. Started to move around a little and we caught some bigger fish but we still had to sort through them. Only fished for about 3 hours and we gave Dale a nice pile of fish to take home.Used spikes and wax worms on small jigs fishing just off the bottom and we kept bluegill, crappie and sunfish. As we drove by Portage Lake a lot of it was open water. The forecast is for rain and temps in the lower 50's this weekend so that is going to put a damper on the ice fishing for a while.

First Ice Fishing Trip of the Year

Fished with Daryl. Temperature this morning was in the lower 30s and when we quit fishing it was in the middle 30s. The wind was out of the west 10 to 15 knots. We fished a small lake in Stockbridge and the ice is 3 to 4 inches thick, plenty thick to fish on. The catching was slow but the fish that we caught were very nice. We caught sunfish, bluegill, large mouth bass and crappie. We had spikes and wax worms for bait and most of the fish came about 1 foot off the bottom. I decided to do some exploring and as I was walking up a small creek that fed the lake I fell through up to my knee with my left foot. I did not get very wet but it sure was mucky. When I got out of the water there was black muck all over everything. Daryl caught this nice 13.5 inch crappie.