So I went out for my second trip this year ice fishing, last time I went we had a lot of success, but also caught a lot of really small lake trout.. 12-14 inches.
This time we decided to buy larger shiners, but we had a nice variety.. between 3-5 inches, river and emerald. It seems these larger minnows really payed off, as from the get go we were catching larger fish.
We were fishing near the town of Elliot Lake, Ontario.. between Sault Saint Marie and Sudbury
we were fishing in around 40 FOW, dropping a slip sinker setup to the bottom and lifting it just barely so its tight, I used mono with a fluorocarbon leader.. but for next year i'm gonna switch to all fluorocarbon main line, for less stretch.
there were 4 of us, sometimes 3
Day 1: started around 11 am.. thanks to hangovers..Was nice out despite the overcast, around -2 or -3 and not much wind.. our neighbor wasn't around to help us out with some holes (he has a gas auger) so we did most of them manually.. through almost 2 feet of ice, it wasn't easy to say the least... It payed off almost right away, the bite was on by the time we each had a couple of holes to fish from, I ended up catching 4, one that was 21 inches.. a personal best for me.. was great fun.. even though they were small they fight really well!
We went in to warm up and came back out around 2 pm, the bite was still good and we caught more fish, everybody finished the day with at least 2. around 5 or 6pm we decided to go in, as the bite died down
My grand total was 5, and a small mouth
Day 2: just my father and I, it was really cold.. -10 and really windy.. he got out before I did.. around 930 am, i joined him an hour later.. we froze for two and a half or three hours before calling it quits. I tried jigging with 1 rod this day almost all day, moving my jig up and down the water column and I tried a few different presentations
I went back to TO the next day, they fished 2 more days and had 2 more good days
These 4 are from day 1, we each took one for fillets or for smoking
