Ice fishing season finally got underway after an unseasonably warm December in 2006. Most of the crew came along for this one, as we were already suffering from withdrawal symptoms. We got out on the lake at about 9:30 AM, took about 20 minutes to get our holes drilled and our lines set up. The weather was in the –15 range when we arrived and eventually warmed up to about –10.
This lake is stocked with brook and rainbow trout once a week, so catching tasty shore lunch is almost guaranteed. The morning started off quite slowly, with no hits for the first couple hours or so. They were stocking on that day, but unfortunately, due to the number of fishermen on the lake, they skipped our holes / cabin. Pity, it would have been very interesting for the children to watch about 150 trout being dropped next to our 15 lines.
We caught our first couple brookies around noon. They were both in the 12" range, and caught about 15 minutes apart. I got to test my new fillet knife on them, kind of made a bit of a mess out of the first one, as my knife was too sharp, I cut right through it's backbone, which is hard to rectify on a small trout with extremely thin bones. We set up the BBQ out on the ice, shore lunch was under way. As they were cooking, Ari caught a 3rd trout, this one was a female filled with eggs. It was added to the ice / shore lunch.
After a good meal and a few beers, I decided to make the rounds instead of the kids who had been making them all morning, cleaning the holes, and bouncing the tip ups. As I got to the last tip up, I noticed line moving in small circles. I set the hook and brough in a 13" chunky brook trout, weighing over 1 lb. As I was unhooking it, Avi pulled one out of another hole, where he was jigging with one of the tip ups. More fillet practice…
The day ended with one more catch, although this one was a 12" chub native to the lake, I have never seen one that size come out of that lake yet.
Check out the http://freshwaterphil.com picture gallery for some pics from that trip, additionally the fillet instructions page has video of the 13" incher getting filleted.
