Some more Buds, some more ice fishing

[Mark Knapp 0]

Took some more buddies ice fishing this week end. We caught about 80 fish total and kept these for eating. We had a great time, all good dudes.

 

[Lesg 0]

Mark, I live in northern Ontario and to be honest an 80 fish winter would be epic never mind an 80 fish weekend. I,m definitely jealous.

 

Les

[Flat Rock native 0]

Sweet time to be at the lake... More pictures of the assorted flies that fished well are also strongly encouraged...at least, by me.

[Mark Knapp 0]

Sweet time to be at the lake... More pictures of the assorted flies that fished well are also strongly encouraged...at least, by me.

I will take some pictures the next time I tie some up.

[fshng2 0]

Good times, thanks for sharing Mark.

Reminds me of when my brother put together a weekend trout camping trip a few years back.

I think their were 10 of us....we are planning another trip this year should be fun.

[Steeldrifter 0]

Only 80? Jeez slackers

[Mark Knapp 0]

Thanks everybody.

 

About 380 fish caught in the fish house so far this season, only four months left.

[Lesg 0]

Mark, are these lakes heavily stocked or do they reproduce naturally? If they are naturally reproducing "HOLY COW".

 

Les

[Mark Knapp 0]

Mark, are these lakes heavily stocked or do they reproduce naturally? If they are naturally reproducing "HOLY COW".

 

Les

These lakes are stocked. About 115,000 fish a year. Both fingerlings and 10 inch fish. But that's not the key, the key is the amount of food in the lake, this lake in particular. About 28,000 fish are harvested in the lake each year.

 

You can put all the fish you want in a lake but if there's no food they will not live and they will not get big. There is so much food in the lake that the rainbows in here grow from 10 inches to 30 inches in 6 years. If we were just catching stockers, you could say it was the stocking but we don't even consider keeping a fish till he's (she's) 16 to 18 inches long. My record fish from here was a 28 1/2 inch rainbow that weighed 7 lbs. In fact, where we fish in the lake and how we fish, we almost never catch a ten inch fish.

 

There's so much food in the lake that the fish swim around full all the time and are quite lackadaisical about eating. I watch them on under water cameras and they just nose most fisherman's offerings. Many jigs get visited a half a dozen to a dozen times before they get taken. The mostly eat snails, scuds, caddis, dragon fly and damsel fly nymphs and fresh water clams, in that order.

 

You really need to come up with something that the fish have never seen before to do well. The average guy with lead head jigs and power bait will catch a limit in half a day, that's 10 fish (with only one over 18 inches), but to get the numbers we get you have to do something different. I use a lot of un-baited bait fish patterns, snail patterns, scud and caddis patterns, as well as baited jigs that don't look like the jigs that everyone else is using with my own cured salmon egg, shrimp and octopus baits.

[Lesg 0]

Thanks for the reply Mark. 115,000 fish per year is huge compared to this area. Some lakes 5,000 some 1,500. These are smaller lakes but are quite heavily fished in the winter. Most are untouched in open water season due to access issues (no snowmobiles). I like the idea of ice flies because these lakes are alive with bugs and are often full of insects when you catch and keep one. Looking forward to pictures of your flies as well.

 

Les