Welcome to my Fishing Adventure Blog. Let me give you a short introduction of myself and what this blog will be focusing on. Quite simply I'm a doctor who loves to fish. Doesn't matter if it is Kayak, Ocean, Stream, Shore, Alpine, Spear, Ice, Deep Sea or Fly Fishing. If it has anything to do with Fishing I'm into it. Hope you enjoy and feel free to give me suggestions for topics!
BACK TO ICE TACTICS... WHAT JIG or LURE???? This is a vast topic otherwise I wouldn't have tackle cases loaded with lures. But after years of fishing all sorts of lures there are two I most consistently go to through the ice! In this topic we will cover the Tungsten JIG!
If you are new to fishing and see the price tag attached to tungsten it may make you shy away and go for a cheaper lead jig. Understandable and I did it for many years. It wasn't until several years ago when I went fishing with @chriskindraka that I for once saw the AMAZING properties of TUNGSTEN.
Number ONE most panfish and even mini submarine sized trout are often filled with small aquatic insects. If you want to get things down to near natural size the Tungsten is your friend.
Number TWO usually a 1/32 or 1/52 jig is so small you can barely even feel it on the end of your line, rendering it very difficult to find bottom, jig or feel bites. Tungsten is quite a bit more dense than lead and always gives you a good thump on the end of your line no matter how tiny. You'll underestimate how shocking this is untill you actually have one on the end of your line.
Number THREE hundreds of colors to chose from but take it from me that more often than not the HOTTEST color seems to be CHARTREUSE. So if you want to dabble in Tungsten prior to becoming a HARDCORE FANATIC then pick up a few chartreuse. They have amazing visibility in low light and bright sun and for some reason fish seem to love it.
Number FOUR use bait! But use tiny pieces of bait! Shrimp, bugs, meal worms, maggots, worms. Whatever you use keep it small and keep the hook exposed. This is a FINESSE presentation so don't mess it up with a big gob of bait.
Lastly these can be jigged, deadsticked, and put under a flasher spoon. Super versatile and super fish catchers!!!
I hope you enjoyed that, follow me for more tips on ICE FISHING this season.
ICE FISHING LINE!!!!! WHAT TO USE and HOW TO CHOOSE??? People often ask me what type of line I use.
Most anglers underestimate the importance of the fishing line during ice season. This probably leads to more frustration and less productive days.
The number one mistake is over testing. This is a major factor and the colder it gets the more of an issue. For monofilament lines the heavier test you use the worse the memory will be in cold weather. The coiling memory in the line is more noticeable underwater, affects your jigging action and reduces your bite detection. Imagine fishing with a coil in between you and the fish absorbing all the shock. NO GOOD. SOLUTION: go lighter and fish 4 to 8 pound monofilament ice rated lines. I find these are much better and once you pass the 10 pound mark you will find the MEMORY becomes a significant issue. Use your drag more and line test less to manage your fish. Lighter lines also are less noticeable to pressured fish and provide a more natural active presentation that fish love.
What if you need a higher test line or fishing BIG FISH in Deeper water. Well then you may want to consider an ICE or other Braided Line like Power Pro. These should be combined with a fluorocarbon leader attached to the lure. They have no memory until absorbing water on cold days when the line freezes, no stretch and super sensitive. Super tough and won't break on the ice. I love braid to be honest especially lake trout fishing in deep water. WARNING: if you're spooling a metal spinning reel with braid tie the line on then wrap some electrical tape over the line, otherwise the whole spool of line will spin on the spool when cold. Very frustrating when you hook a big fish.
Fluorocarbon is not great for a mainline since it coils worse and is stiffer than mono. I do use it sometimes, but only go as high as 4 to 6 pound test. If you want to use anything else heavier then just use it as a leader. You can attach the line with a small swivel or a uni to uni knot!
ICE FISHING EXTRA LINES!!!! Ok so here is the low down, unfortunately in BC you are only allowed one line through the ice and I wish they would change that to two. Around the rest of the icy North of America you are allowed a set line, extra lines through ice. So check your regulations and if you can use one then this post is for you!!!
Dead sticking is one of the oldest in the book. Just set up an extra rod and drop it down. Sometimes this "no action" bait will get all the action.
@jawjackerfishing has taken the dead stick to a whole new level by creating a loaded dead stick waiting to be triggered by a fish below. The trigger can be set super light or any range of tension you choose. Once the fish touches the bait the rod tip is released and the hook is set by the loaded rod. The fish can fight the rod while you run your butt over to reel it in.
Leveling up as pictured is the Jigging JawJacker! Now this rig basically fishes for you and will catch more fish than you! Don't feel to bad, happens to me all the time. There are three different wheels for different jigging actions. I've caught perch, trout, whitefish, kokanee, lake trout, pike and walleye on these. Excellent device.
Tip-up is a flat based device with a spool and a flag. Usually used with larger baits for pike. When the fish takes the bait the flag goes up and the fish can pull out the braided ice line. Run over and haul them in.
@ifishpro is another unit that turns your rod into a tip-up. Any rod becomes a tip-up and you get to set the hook and reel it in on your rod. So if you think the Jaw Jacker does to much then maybe this one is for you. Check out my pike videos using it. Pretty sweet how to video.
There are other things you can do like tieing line to a pop bottle or stick. I've seen all sorts of custom dead sticks so get creative. Most catch fish.
If you have any questions or suggestions for people let me know.
This fishing adventure started quite a few years ago back on the frozen ice of December 2012. The location was none other than Cold Lake, Alberta. Maybe more familiar with people in regards to the location of Canada's Air Base and weapons range, but we were more interested in the life below the ice. This is a large open body of water at approximately 16 miles across and over 300 feet deep. For this reason it is one of the last lakes to freeze in northern Alberta and much caution should be taken when venturing out on the ice at any time of the season. Many years it is safe to wait until mid January to get out on the main lake, while some of the smaller bays will freeze earlier in the winter.
We were in luck though since this year was a quick freeze and trucks were already out on the ice at Christmas time. We already knew the lake after fishing it many times during the open water season. The only thing that separated us now from the fish was a few inches of ice that our auger would help us get through in no time.
So what is the big draw to Cold Lake and why is everyone still talking about it 5 years after out first adventure out there. Well lets just say it's something in the water! A healthy population of obese, hard fighting and willing Lake Trout have created a stir all around the ice fishing sphere! I had been watching the popularity of this fishery grow the years prior and I wasn't about to let another ice season slip by without getting out there to try it out. This was also the first year I had a Marcum flasher sonar on the ice to use to my advantage.
I discussed my dreams of icing fat lake trout with my uncle Johnny and he thought it sounded like an adventure worth pursuing. We packed up and left the house early in the morning with the plan of hitting the ice as the sun came over the hill. As with most fish these lake trout will feed most heavily during the morning and evening hours. You might still pick up a few fish during the day, but it is often a slow wait till things get going again when the sun falls back towards the horizon. We hit the ice and as beginners often do followed the trail out to an area where it looked like other people had been fishing. Once we drilled some holes we realized we were on a drop off from about 80 to 120 feet of water. We later found out that this is typically the type of water people target and usually is what you want to look for on the charts.
With great anticipation I dropped down a big 2 ounce white and chartreuse buck tail jig tipped with a smelt. I watched as it fell towards the bottom on the flasher. In a matter of minutes the first mark came storming in and slammed my jig. After a great battle I landed my first Lake Trout through the ice and I was stoked! I just love it when a plan comes together like that and in a matter of minutes you're on the fish. Trust me it's not always that easy and we've struggled some days out there.
We kept on fishing and the fish kept on coming through slow and steady. The Marcum was a big help as I could see when the fish were coming through and at what depth so I could crank my jig up to their location and often trigger a bite. My uncle didn't have a flasher yet and after one day of me out fishing him in a ratio of 3:1 he was sold! Within a few weeks he had purchased his first Marcum and has never regretted it for one moment either.
If you want to watch our adventure to see how it actually went and watch one of the first videos I ever published as The Fishing Doctors Adventures, then you have to check this out!
Getting Down to Business:
So what does it really take to catch these fish. Well here are some of the things that I have learned fishing it over the past few years.
#1 Get out to Cold Lake and give it a try next year and I'm sure you'll have a great time out on that big lake. If you don't know where to fish and it is your first time to the lake take a look at the underwater maps available on Agler's Atlas. You're looking for areas where it drops off from about 60 feet down to 120 feet. Underwater points and humps are great places to start. When all else fails look for the groups of fishermen and join the heard. Probably some fish hanging around under their feet, but give them some space and try to fish the same structure line instead of on top of them.
#2 Drill your holes from shallower to deep off the drop and fish them in that order too if you get out there early in the morning.
#3 Choosing a rod and reel for lake trout through the ice. Longer ice rods will work better for lake trout. Chose one over 28 inches long in the medium/heavy to heavy weight. Some people even come out with their full length summer rods too which also work well. Any reel will do but bait casters seem to work the best and hold more line for these deep water, long running fish.
#4 Having a flasher sonar like a Marcum, Vexilar or other brand is a game changer. If you are serious and want to catch more fish you need to have one of these on the ice with you.
#5 Choosing a line depends on what you expect to catch and these fish can grow in excess of 20 pounds. So I would recommend having 12 to 20 pound test. A braided line with a fluorocarbon leader would probably be your best bet for these deep water fish, but as you see in the videos we were using mono filament which also works.
#6 Lure choice goes along with the depth. You will need a heavy lure to get down fast. Usually jigs 2-3 ounces heavy will work best at getting you down to the right location quickly. I have caught fish on buck tail jigs, tube jigs and airplane jigs. My favorite though is a Big Hammer swim bait. The Cold Lake Special is probably something you'll want to pick up before you head out as well. When choosing a color remember these fish love to eat ciscoe and white fish. So white is generally a good color, but chartreuse, silver and blue seem to be good choices as well.
#7 Bait choice is probably the most simple as most people use pieces of smelt to tip their jigs.
#8 A key ingredient is a stinger hook... don't go fishing without one as you are likely to lose a lot of short hits. Put on a treble stinger that sits near the tail end of your jig.
#9 I find if you have a Marcum you can Yo-Yo the jigs up and down the water column and see what depth the fish are at. You can do the same this without a marcum but you won't know where to stop or drop if there is a fish. If fishing blind the best seems to be fishing near bottom.
#10 Don't forget to have fun and read the regulations before heading out. You can currently keep one Lake Trout over 75 cm long. This is a big trout so make sure you measure correctly before you take one home!
Good Luck out there and if you want to watch some more lake trout being pulled through the ice check out these videos from other trips we took out there.
Fishing Hermitage Park Pondrainbow trout that lurk under ice is something I enjoy trying when home for Christmas. Unfortunately this year I didn't make it to the lake until later in the ice season after Christmas. You see this small pond is only about 12 feet deep and stocked with 3000 rainbows a year. As the winter lingers on oxygen levels plummet and the trout are left struggling to survive. Sadly nature wins out and the lake consistently winter kills leaving the remaining trout dead under ice. No one can predict when this will exactly happen as a lot of factors come into play. For example live weeds add oxygen and dead weeds consume oxygen. Regardless I always go out to give it a try.
The forecast was for a rapid change in weather throughout the day. It started out on the cool side, overcast and calm. By the end of the day it was freezing cold and blowing snow.
I tried a faithful point on the lake in the morning, but there was no trout activity on the radar at all and no strikes on the awaiting Jaw Jacker. I decided to pack up and walk across the lake to a deeper section and see if there were any fish around. I drilled holes starting from a shallow bank and out every 20 feet into the main lake basin. Shortly after I set the Jaw Jacker in shallow water it went off! I ran over and lost the first nice rainbow in the hole.
I reset the line and returned to jigging with my rod and MarCum VX 1P. I noticed that there was some action on the flasher half way up the water column. I raised my Kastmaster with dropper fly to mid water column and soon had something that felt like a bite. Then the Jaw Jacker went off again and I landed a nice rainbow at 15 inches. I returned to the jigging rod and started to have more hits and landed another rainbow. The trout were ON which was unusual after Christmas. I attributed the action to a rapid fall in barometric pressure which sometimes turns the bite ON! Regardless the cause I was just happy to be the one experiencing it.
Things slowed down mid day and I moved to another hole. I decided to try a few inches under the ice in 12 feet of water. In no time I had a strike and then another. I got down on my belly and stared down the hole. In no time a rainbow was staring back at me inches from my face. They were swimming back and forth right under my nose. This was so cool I thought. Turns out this is typical behavior as the oxygen levels fall in a lake. The fish start to swim closer to the ice where trapped air pockets and cracks are the only way oxygen enters the lake late in the season.
I quickly drilled another hole and dropped the GoPro down to see if I could get any footage. Turns out they weren't camera shy and even though it was getting dark the footage is still pretty neat. Check out the video links below.
I continued to catch fish on the Jaw Jacker and rod right under the ice. Turned out to be one of my best days on Hermitage Park Pond. I saw several other groups of people on the ice and nobody else was catching. Just goes to show you can't always stick with what usually works. The fish were not on the bottom and unless you moved around and fished mid water column and up to the ice there was no catching going on. So don't forget the rest of the water column when you are out on the ice. Also having a MarCum Flasher can really help you understand how fish are using the water column and put your lure in the high traffic area.
I've been very impressed with the Jaw Jacker on ice. I set it up with three small ice jigs or flies about a foot and a half apart and tip with pieces of meal worm. Drop the set up down and wait. More often then not when it goes off there is a fat trout on the end of the line waiting to be brought in by you. If you are allowed a set line in your province or state I highly recommend investing in some of these.
I previously used tip downs which I built, but usually by the time I ran over to grab the rod the fish had dropped the bait. The Jaw Jacker actually sets the hook for you increasing your odds of catching more fish!
If you'd like to see the action from this day click the links below. I also do a demonstration of my Jaw Jacker rig for those of you who are curious.
The sun was just cresting over the horizon as dawn promised a beautiful day. I was in the back seat of my uncles Chevy listening to the stories of old exchanged between my uncle and his father in law. We were headed off ice fishing and spotting dear in the never ending glistening snowy fields of northern Alberta. Now this may have been over 20 years ago, but I still remember the stories they told about fishing Seibert Lake. That famed Trophy Lake where you weren’t allowed to use bait and the monstrosities of fish would just cruise on by.
Over the years I’ve fished Pinehurst and Spencer, but never stopped to see if the fish were biting at Seibert Lake. That is until this summer.
We were visiting family in Canada and were fortunate enough to have a neighbor lend his fishing boat to us for a few days. I had been researching all the lakes north of Edmonton and decided that the one I’d most like to explore was Seibert. I’d never been there and the chance to keep a walleye for dinner had me excited to go.
Now considering I have a 6 month pregnant wife, a daughter who’s a few months from two, a 15 year old brother and the parents along I wasn’t expecting to leave at the crack of dawn. So we got a late start and headed out to Seibert Lake. If you’ve never been there the last 20 km of road is a sandy forest road. We pulled a 16 foot aluminum Lund behind my Dad’s Escalade and needless to say it was a little muddier than when we started.
The sun was shining, the wind was blowing and the fish awaited us. We launched and headed up to the north side of the lake where I hoped to find some structure. We trolled a drop off with deep diving crankbaits in 20 to 30 feet of water. The fish finder was marking some very nice arches. The only problem was that all these arches (sonar fish) were right on the bottom and were refusing to take our offerings of Rapala and Reef Runner. There didn’t appear to be any suspended fish either which are usually more likely to hit trolled crankbaits.
This predicament required a change in attack, so we sped around to the other side of the lake and found some weed beds. My Dad was the first to hook up. It seemed to be a pike on the line and dragged him right down into the thick of the weeds. We had to position the boat against the wind in order to try and pull the fish out. When we finally got the line free there was only a fishless crankbait covered in weeds at the end of the line.
Nearby a gentle point on this very featureless lake beckoned me to give it a try. I decided there must be some walleye hanging around, so we stopped and anchored off the point in 20 feet of water. We selected lures and started casting. I went with a personal favorite to use on bait ban lakes, the chrome and glow Cicada blade bait.
I started my fan casting pattern to cover the water by tossing it as far out as I could. Let the lure free fall to the bottom with a semi taught line. Using this technique you can tell when your bait hits bottom or a fish takes it on the drop. When the lure contacts bottom pull the rod tip 1-4 feet and let it flutter back to the bottom under light tension. This method may imitate a feeding or wounded baitfish.
It wasn’t long before one of those pops off the bottom led to a subtle tap. Without hesitation I loaded up the
rod and sunk those barbless hooks into a nice fish. After a short battle a fat walleye was in the boat. It measured over the 50cm size limit and went into the ice chest for dinner. After the success my dad and brother switched over to the Cicada and started catching walleye as well.
Soon the afternoon sky darkened as large rain clouds headed our way. We thought they might miss us, but then the down pour came rapidly. We pulled the anchor and headed straight for shore to hide under some trees until it passed. We weren’t even under the trees for 5 minutes when the rain subsided. You have to love Alberta afternoon showers! The sun came out and the lake was glass calm.
We decided to have a little shore lunch since we were already on solid ground. After finding some dry wood we started our fire, dried off and ate some yummy hot dogs before heading back out on the water.
The rest of the evening was spectacular and we continued to cast blade baits for a walleye here and there. It wasn’t fast and furious action, but we did manage to release a bunch and take home a couple for dinner. Good fishing considering we were exploring a new lake in August. What a great way to spend the day with family.
Another great adventure, creating my own story fishing the Trophy Lake of Old.
