This weekend was the 6th annual ice fishing trip me and three buddies take (Chowder_Head. Airs24 & Chowders dad). This year we rented a place on Purdy lake, about half hour north of bancroft on your way to barries bay. The cabin was awesome, by far the best put together place we have ever rented.
Unfortunatly for us, some warm weather followed by a 20cm snow fall, made it hard for us to access the lake, there was easily 6inches of slush topped with 6 + inches of snow. On day one we made the trek about a half km to the X spot, pulling a clam shleter and gear for 3 guys made it hard slugging. He got into perch right away, caught a few for the pan but mostly tiny guys. After 2-3 hours on the ice we headed back to check in to our cabin.
CABIN PICS
a new quiet setting with only a few places on the entire lake...
The inside was even better a fire place, Big Screen tv, jacuzzi tub, hot tub, sauna and a killer kitchen..
Day two we did not have it in us to make the long trek through the slush (not to mention Chowder blew out one of his size 13 boots) so we pulled up along the shore and fished from 12ft to 40ft of water moving up and down the shore line. This resulted in a skunking, and motivation to move on to another local lake "Salmon Trout Lake". Airs had hooked into some walleye earlier the season so we where motivated. We made the 25 minute drive and 15 minute walk out on the ice to find that the pin on Chowders auger had fallen off, we worked our way back to the trucks slowly lookng for the missing piece, and found it in the back of the truck. With the auger repaired we started to drill, and already slushy ice turned into a lake, 1ft of water on top of each hole we drilled. We stuck it out for 3+ hours and did not mark a fish.
gearing up for day 2
Chowder and Airs get the auger working...
here is the slush marathon..
I decided to lay down to relax, after the long walk out, but not to be lazy i took a couple pics.. great weather
Day three, we deiceded to hit a fav lake of mine, it was a 45 minute drive from our cabin and the first stop was to buy chowder some new boots. By now he had holes in both, and although we taped them up, and taped his feet up with bags, we knew it would not hold up.
here is the boot prep...
All that work and we decided to stop in bancrift where chowder was able to buy some new boots anyways. We also made a Tim Hortons stop or coffee, this is the best view from a Tim Hortons I have ever seen.. (sorry Iphone pic)
Once we hit lake X, we headed out to a perch spot I knew about, it was a honey hole for perch and the odd crusing splake. The day started off great, Chowders dad hooked into two perch within minutes, but then the bite slowed. We moved a bit deeper in search of splake, after drilling some new holes I turned to see that my automatic fisherman had been tripped. made the run and landed the first splake of the day
After that the bite started to pick up, Airs24 landed his first ever splake..
follwed by Chowder landing one just seconds later..
Chowders dad was getting a little frusted as he was the only one who had not landed a splake...
but a short moved later Chowders dad landed his first ever splake while dropping his jig in a fresh hole, his second drop landed him a perch larger then the splake..
I fished the splake catch of the day with my second one, although the splake where not as large as usual, the action was great. A group of guys next tio us landed 7-8 as a group
Not a bad haul, here are some shots of our fish
here I am with our groups catch of the day
With the fishing over it was time to head back to the cabin, Airs cleaned the fish and I preped the, for todays breakfast. a little bacon grease, a little fish crisp, nothing says breakfast like a fish fry
then it was back to civilization, one quick pic for the road (or should I say on the road), this country is beautiful
