It's a perfect summer day. There's a light breeze, its overcast with some sunny breaks, and the temperature is comfortable. I have lots of choices available to me. There is great river fishing, good trout fishing, good pike fishing, and good walleye fishing. I decide I'm going walleye fishing.
The experienced guides at Ena Lake reminded me that ...
With the exception of Lake Whitefish, all the fish I pursue through the ice are most successfully caught using bait. The bait varies widely, but the saying, “nothing beats the real thing,” applies. My fridge and freezer will demonstrate my belief in this theory. In my fridge right next to the jug of juice you can find dew worms, trout worms and maggots stockpiled for future trips. In the freezer there are at least three different sizes of minnows ranging from wee little ones for perch to full sized extra large herring for pike and lakers.
Last month, in our tips column, I talked about the virtues of catching big perch up shallow which definitely happens on occasion but is most certainly not always the case. Generally most perch like to hang out deeper and catching them requires a different approach. Deep water perch are a schooling fish so, where I find one, I typically find a bunch and it then becomes a matter of getting the critters to bite.
The fall has been exceptionally warm and affords us a rare opportunity. With November mere days away, many, if not all the lakes and rivers are still open. There have been ice fishing seasons where I've been on the lakes and drilling holes by November first. It seems last year's wild and crazy start to the winter that seemed to just go on and on has been offset with a glorious fall this time round.
I've been going back and forth to the coast for many years and it's always a thrill to look down into the water and see the mottled brown diamond shape twisting and turning on my line. Halibut are sought after and with a little perseverance, they can be caught. The hardest thing about catching halibut is locating them and sometimes this requires a lengthy boat ride out into the pacific. Big halibut are often deep dwellers that make forays into the shallows to feed.
It's too much of a good thing to keep this under wraps. In the past few weeks I've been to several pothole trout lakes within a couple hours of Edmonton and for every one I've been to, the results are all the same. The fishing is red hot, with a seemingly unlimited number of trout willing to bite my hook.
