Moments Frozen In Time – Ice Fishing Memories

With ice fishing season slowly, very slowly, approaching in Southern Ontario, I find myself thinking about previous years on the ice.

The first winter we were together, Darrell would go out ice fishing with some friends or his brother. I remember driving by a local lake one day that winter, knowing he was out there fishing. I was on my way back from a farm visit with the vet I was working with, and he asked me if I wanted him to drop me off there so I could head out and join Darrell.

I laughed.

“Nope, I’m never walking on a frozen lake!”

Hmm…never say never.

Somehow I found myself trudging across the frozen surface of that same lake one day the following winter. I was wearing Darrell’s floater suit since I was terrified about the ice breaking. I went out there grudgingly, but I DID want to catch fish. I’d picked up the bug by that point and the thought of going months without holding a fish was too much.

It helped that we had Jack out there with us. That dog made every situation better.

And then we got into fish. Perch. SO many perch. Like a hundred perch or more that day. It was so much fun! Darrell had shown me how to set-up his favourite perch rig, how to use it, and how to sense the bite. Before the day was out my cheeks hurt from smiling and Jack had worn himself out from running between our holes.

Mr. Snowman

This was actually my first outing on the ice. Darrell and I went to Island Lake in Orangeville with his youngest brother, Cody. Since the ice is monitored by the conservation authority, I felt it was probably safe. I really knew nothing about ice safety or even ice fishing back then.

I was horribly underdressed for the day and had needed to borrow Darrell’s winter coat since I didn’t have a warm one. Judging by the pictures, I didn’t wear a hat and I remember my gloves were pretty thin. Thank goodness it was March!

All I remember about the fishing was that it was slow and I wasn’t too interested in it. But the day stands out in my mind because we had so much fun building a snowman and a snow chair. This was 12, almost 13 years ago and I still remember laughing about the snowman and laughing while we took pictures. Like most fishing trips, it’s often not the fish that stand out, it’s the things you do while waiting for a bite that you remember.

Fairy Lake Crappie Through The Ice

Another outing that really stands out in my mind is the first time we caught crappie while ice fishing Fairy Lake in Acton.

Catching crappie in Fairy Lake was what got me hooked on fishing in the first place and we developed an awesome pattern that made almost every trip a huge success. But on the ice, we couldn’t buy a bite.

One day we were out on the ice near a few other anglers, one of whom had a flasher. We’d been talking about buying a flasher and approached the angler to see if we could ask a few questions. Not only did he answer our questions, but he told me to drop my line down his hole so I could see how it worked.

I caught a fish almost immediately.

We quickly learned how deep the crappie were suspending, and where our lures needed to be to encourage them to bite. And this wonderful person who’d let us try out his flasher, told us to keep fishing his holes while he went to talk with someone else.

I’ll never forget that kindness.

Even after he went home we were still able to catch crappie after crappie since we now knew how many times we needed to reel up to be at the right depth.

Not long after, we scraped together all the money we had and bought a PiranhaMax fish finder at Canadian Tire and it made all the difference in our ability to catch fish while ice fishing.

Bonkers Crappie Day on Lake Niapenco

On this day, Darrell and I were ice fishing with his friend, Adam, at Binbrook Conservation Area. This day started with an unexpected catch when I had a beautiful bass put up a heck of a fight, and it went crazy from there. The bass, of course, had been released since it was out of season, but it was the crappie that stole the day.

We had absolute frenzies of feeding with these fish. You’d catch one every time you dropped your line down the hole, then things would settle down for a bit before picking back up.

The best part was that they weren’t tiny fish. Nope, these were decent to large-sized white crappie. And then we started hooking into slabs. Like, really big crappie. They were so aggressive too! There was no finessing these fish. They wanted movement and flash and everything else. It was so crazy that all of us stopped saying the usual “Got one,” because yeah, we knew. I’ve never had a day of ice fishing for crappie like that since. You can read the post about it here.

Ice fishing has given me so many amazing memories. I can’t wait for all the memories that are yet to come. Now if only we’d get some ice.