While waiting for the Lady Simcoe to freeze-up to my comfort zone, I thought some fresh walleye would be nice to have on the dinner table. Soooo here we come Nippising....
Overnight camping on Lake Nip (Good 11-12" of ice as of Jan 13, out from Callendar Bay) with a buddy of mine was not for the faint of heart as night time temperatures dipped to -20C. We stayed only one night because the next night (tonight) was going to be twice as cold at -40C 😯 It was a whole new learning experience for me. I was in my 4 man pop-up, he was on his 2 man double insulated flip (lucky bastard!...lol)... Good thing the fishing was awesome.
Caught more than a dozen good size walleye (only kept two that fall within the legal slot limit of 40-45cm (15.7 - 17.7"), the rest had to go back to the lake, even though there were more keepers. Some nice fat Perch and one good size Cisco were the bonus. Buddy also caught a similar number of fish (walleye/perch/cisco) plus a 60cm bruiser walleye.
I've never eaten a herring before (well I lied, I did in fact eat some smaller size pickled herring sold at stores) and I wasn't sure how to prepare it at home. So I went by my gut feeling; Herring being a cold water fish is slightly more oily than the warmer water species, so I thought it would be good grilled. To my delight I was right. It turned out almost as tasty as the sea bass (one of my favorite salt water fish). A glass of beer complemented it perfectly.
And now some pictures to commemorate this rare event (may actually become a habit after I make some accommodation adjustments to my ice camping setup 🙂)
My first overnight ice camping on Nip
