Last Trip of the Hardwater Season, March 25-26

Went out for a final go this past weekend. Looking at the forecast leading up and Saturday looked rough. Left the city before the freezing rain started and got to the lake around 8:30 giving us ~1.5 hours of calm before the storm hit. Things turned quickly after that, swirling gusts, 8 anchors in and still enough to have you bracing for the shelter to come unpinned. A few marks rolled in but as the high winds and sleet arrived, the fish shut down. (A note on the ice: variable at our location with a flow of open water nearby likely contributing to that, 5”-6” of mixed ice with minimal black ice). 4 hours passed with no marks so we decided to pack it up early and head to our accommodation nearby.

Around 5:30, Mike (wootang89) arrived and having not wet a line yet ventured out onto the lake in the freezing rain and was able to land an OOS walleye that was quickly returned, skunk avoided.

The high winds continued throughout the night and into the early hours of the next morning as we prepared to set out to try another lake. We were meeting Nicholas (mykola) hoping to get into some lake trout and whitefish. Ice conditions were better on this lake, over 1’ of ice and a fairly consistent layer of black ice. Finally around 8, the precipitation stopped but the wind remained. Around 10:30, I heard someone shouting my name and ran over to Nicholas’ hut thinking he had just hooked up but we realized it was Vince in the next hut over. After a quick drag adjustment and two runs, the lake trout came up. 62cm, over slot. As the day went on, things slowed down. Fish came through but didn’t appear to be active. By mid afternoon the skies cleared and the sun was fully out, spring-like conditions. It felt like our luck was close to changing as activity on the sonar slowly began to pick up. Mike moved over to a hole that Nicholas had previously been fishing. We had discussed how it seemed it was just a matter of time before these marks would commit and sure enough, not even 30 minutes later, Mike hooked into a 65cm lake trout.

A great way to end the ice season for us and to have been able to meet up with a fellow forum member as well. Looking forward to your upcoming trip report Nicholas, good luck this week!

Mike’s walleye late on Saturday:

62cm lake trout:

Mike’s 65cm lake trout:

Great story and tough outing with some sunshine and good luck mixed in. Thanks for posting.

Good for trying

Thanks for the interesting report, way good closing)))

Nice fish! (Though I myself am not ready to close the season just yet:-)

Starting to think I may try to get out one last time as well… good luck!

Starting to think I may try to get out one last time as well… good luck!

Good luck to your REAL season-closing one, too:-)