Went to a lake less traveled yesterday, almost chickened out due to wind, very glad I didn’t. I had the entire lake to myself, on a Sunday????? Oh yeah nobody fishes here for some reason next to no pressure… their loss. Probably the 2km walk up a frozen channel to the main lake keeps a few people away. I will frequently see guys on snowmobiles or atv pulling fishing gear, but they go up the next lake in the chain, which doesn’t hold the same quality of fish in my opinion and gets hammered easily 5 times the fishing pressure. Slot limit and one line through ice on this lake.
Set out around 10am, walking down the channel, like a wind tunnel, luckily wind to my back pushing me out to the fishing spot faster. I targeted the edge of the biggest flat on the lake next to a steep incline to a point. Scoped out my spot, got 3 ice anchors screwed to ice first, then set up the pop up in the hurricane wind, don’t ask me how it went flawlessly! No messing around, all 4 exterior anchors and two interior anchors, and I still thought I was going to fly away a couple times. Ok, hole drilled (only need one) and graph down, holy crap! The bottom is lit up with bait. I mixture of smelts and perch, bottom 10ft just packed at times, they never left all day, I can’t believe how much bait is in this tiny lake!!
It was a great day for me, jigging vibrato to bring the fish in and sealing the deal with the simcoe bug. First fish came on vibrato, I would jig above the bait all day with vibrato and large trout would come flying up out of the bait and have a look, got the first laker like this on the vibrato, smashed it like no tomorrow… quick battle, a nice fat 27” laker. Kept fishing, noticing some big marks on the bottom amongst the baitfish, when I noticed this I would brave the swarm of perch and smelt with my simcoe bug in hopes of enticing the bigger marks to bite…. And around 1:30pm it worked! Slam! Fish on! I know this feeling, here it comes, 21” Whitefish!!! Heck yeah! Two on the board, I immediately send my big back down as it appears a school of whitefish have moved in the bottom is 5 solid red. Down she goes, tick tick, SLAm!! Another fish on! Get this one to hole and have little dance with it trying to get it out… oops, came unbuttoned and she swam back down to the bottom. It was another whitefish with twice the girth as the one I landed, oh well, I’ll get him in the spring.
Kept fishing the simcoe bug in hopes of landing some more Whitefish, but had a pleasant surprise around 3pm when a 2ft thick red freight train on my graph obliterated my simcoe but about 8 ft off bottom… the fight was on! I’m only using 4lb line on my simcoe bug setup so this requires some patience… at least a 10 min fight with massive runs, about 2 minutes at the hole, and finally pulled out another 27” laker!! This one had even more girth than the first one! Limit of 27” lakers achieved! What a day, adrenaline thumping, I notice the graph has half dozen very large marks on bottom so I waste no time and get the bug back down there… 5 minutes later… the behemoth arrives. Another pig laker decides she must have my simcoe bug. Fish on! This one is different, feels like a rock. 15 minute battle ensues… I manage to get the fish to the hole, it’s head is as big as the hole and broadside across the hole the fish is bigger than the hole…. And I fudge the landing… snap. Bye bye simcoe bug….. man that fish mush must have been 30”+ and like a stuffed piggie gut. Guess where I’m going to close out my ice season this spring?? Yup. Lake no telly.
Wrapped it up around 4:30pm and headed home for dinner. Made up for my double skunk last two outings. Gonna have to restock my lucky simcoe bug. At least it was lost to a worthy foe.
Great Solo Laker day, Made up for the skunks…
