We often get hung up on the fact that most fish hug the bottom of the water column. Although this is true in several instances, there are several occasions when predator fish move away from the bottom to peruse forage fish.
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.
My favorite hole on the North Saskatchewan River never failed to produce and usually I could count on catching a few suckers and walleye for an afternoon's effort. Over time I found myself staying later and later until I would keep right on fishing into the night, under the stars. There was some ambiant light from the glow of the city, but for all intents and purposes, it was night. Under that faint light I could just barely make out my bobber, but did manage to see a lot of bites. Through the night I caught a bunch more fish, most were walleye, but there was the odd pike and goldeye mixed in for flavor.
Whitefish will be front and center for the duration of the ice fishing season and like I mentioned in the feature article, the burbot spawn will kick the whitefish action into high gear. After the spawn the action doesn't stop, it simply shifts.
If ever there's a time to get on the ice for some great fishing, this has to be it. The burbot event, as I like to call it, is starting. I was at South Buck, a newly discovered favorite lake catching all kinds of pike by day and walleye by night. The fish were biting strong right into the night and then . I had hooked a heavy, heavy fish that didn't run, but pulled real hard. Burbot have a habit of doing that.
Ice fishing, more than any other time of the year is prime time to size down. When sizing down, I'm talking about lightening up the entire package. I use lighter line, smaller baits and lighter lures, be it jigs, spoons or flies. The reason is two fold. The first has to do with line detection.
I have had to go elsewhere to look for whitefish. This has led me to Gull Lake where I now routinely make trips to get in on the whitefish action.
My good friend Ayr Miller dropped by last weekend. He had just came back from a trip to Calling Lake and the fishing was as good as ever. He proudly displayed a mixed bag of pike, perch, walleye and burbot.
Consider this: I can watch every fish swim up to my hook before it bites, I can see lots of fish throughout the day and I can keep some for the table. That in a nutshell is fishing for lake whitefish.
This spring I was at the Fishing Show in Calgary when I came across a new rod that grabbed my attention. It was the Finesse Ultra Light made by Rapala. I usually don't get too worked up over a rod, but this one was different.
