Dude, Where's Your Rod Case?

 Saturday has come and gone for another week and traveling to the Cambridge area for ice fishing has quickly becoming routine...except this week. Let me explain.

 Late last week my internal clock got royally scewed up. I'd only gotten 2 hours sleep leading up to my last shift of the week, so when Tackle Shop surprised me by picking me up at the factory at 8am I'd already been awake for 20hrs. We had breakfast and hit a few tackle shops on the way home, which for me is the perfect way to start a weekend, but by noon I was a drooling idiot without the good sense to go to bed. I'M AWAKE! It was 10pm when I finally did wake up with nowhere to go and nothing to do other than catch up on what's been happening in the blogospere. I stayed up all night, went fishing in the morning, and once again put in over 20 hrs before passing out. Which takes me up to now, writing this at 8am. when I should be sleeping.

Tackle Shop's son Sid the Kid

 Yesterday morning was full of surprises. Tackle Shop's son, I'll call him Sid The Kid (just to piss him off for not supplying an on-line nickname) finally accepted the weekly invitation to join us. Sid has only joined us 5 or 6 times in the 7yrs. I've been fishing with TS, and never out on a frozen lake so I had mixed emotions as he loaded his hockey equipment into the van. We picked up Dodger and made the short and uneventful trip back out to Cambridge and Little Lake.

  My sled comes out of the back of the van first and I immediately began to suit up and check my equipment.When I was all ready to walk out, TS was still struggling to remove hooks from a seatbelt and I'm standing there wondering why he didn't put his rods in their case. I asked TS "where's your rod case", meaning... why don't you put your rods in the case to prevent tangling and breakage. That's when the bomb dropped. TS's rod case was nowhere to be seen in the sled or in the van. The only thing we could figure is that it fell out of his sled as we were walking back to the van last Sunday evening. Inside the case there were 5 rods and at least 3 reels. The exact extent of the loss is not immediately known due to the vast amount of equipment regularly transported, thus the nickname "Tackle Shop", but a ballpark figure puts the loss at well over $300. Needless to say there is a reward for the return of the case and contents, and anyone who might have found it and may be reading this can leave a personal message to arrange the return.

Dodger's 1st Hardwater Bass

  OK... so there's already a damper on what should be a relaxing day, but we're there and there's still enough rods to go around so we might as well make the most of the situation, try to forget about our problems and catch some fish. Sid's watching the preparations as he's lacing  up the skates, Dodger and I are rigging one set line each with large shiners for pike and jigging with maggots on our other rods for panfish, while TS has two set lines patiently waiting for the big boys to come for dinner. Dodger draws first blood with a beautiful 10' largemouth bass. He's overjoyed and I'm jealous. I make up for his quality with quantity, quickly catching and releasing dozens of small pumpkinseed, bluegill and perch. Wow, I'm really impressed on how well maggots work on these guys, I can hardly wait to try them on lockjaw jumbos on Simcoe!

 An hour later Sid's stick handling laps on the bike track, TS is still patiently awaiting dinner guests and obviously thinking too much, Dodger's into the sunfish, and I'm starting to hole hop and generally having a blast slaying the panfish. All of a sudden there's an unusual weight on my line and after a brief fight I'm holding my first ever bass on ice!  Ten minutes later and I've caught a second larger bass, and it's then that I realize this day, regardless of the earlier hardships, is one to go into my personal record book for variety of species caught through the ice.

Small but not Crappie

  Eventually the novelty of skating laps on a frozen lake has worn off for Sid so he trades the skates for boots and helps the others relocate to the far end of the lake. Fortunately for Dodger and TS the novelty of using the auger hadn't worn off yet. I'd gotten it into my head to try and up my tally by searching for crappie in deeper water. While working a deep school my tipup finally shows activity and I get a large pike up into the hole only to have the line separate as I made a wild grab at the fish.  I did manage to ice some small crappies, upped my personal best to 5 species and wandered over to the group, mission accomplished and ready to leave any time.This was not to be. TS, down in the dumps more than ever had yet to get a single bite despite having his bait surrounded according to the sonar

 Eventually we worked our way back to the origional spot and TS's patience finally pays off with a strike on one of his set lines, unfortunately the fish escapes from the hook set. Minutes later my set line comes to life but the fish let go as I approached the hole. As we're packing up to leave, Dodger finally hooks into and lands our first and only pike of the day, a whopping 12" fish.


 It occurred to me as we were walking off the lake that that pike was Dodgers fifth species of the day also, he's too modest to say anything about it.

 So... a banner day for some, a chance for outdoor entertainment for others, and a day of loss for another. Definitely a day of surprises.

Little Lake, Cambridge

 It's Family Fishing Weekend in Ontario, and to celebrate this semi annual event Tackle Shop and I travelled to Little Lake in Cambridge once again just to prove we could fish this tiny lake effectively. The previous few days had seen record temperatures in the 50's F. followed by a flash freeze last night which left the lake barren of snow with 12 to 14 inches of semi clear, rippled ice. When we arrived at the lake it was just below freezing with clear skies and a slight breeze from the southeast, perfect conditions for our mission with one exception, our desired destination on the edge of a weed bed was already taken by several groups.

  TS deftly inserted himself between the groups while I set my tip up farther out from the crowd. After rigging the tip up with the usual 4'' shiner for pike, I drilled a series of holes and immediately found an active school of panfish. While I was working the school, TS was working his new neighbours Lee and Derrick, picking their brains for further info on the lake as they were locals and had already iced a half dozen decent pike and a few good perch.

  I'd been trying a variety of jigs, small spoons and rubber in an attempt to tempt when the bells on my tip up indicated some heavier action 100' feet away. For the first time in it's history, my tip up actually tipped over and if not for it's design, would have been dragged completely down the hole. By the time I reached the hole, only an inch of the cork handle was above water and the submerged reel's drag could still be heard screaming in protest to the powerful hit. After a brief fight we were all surprised by the size of the pike that nearly took my rig: a scrappy 24". Not a monster by any means but a good early start to the day.

 Meanwhile, Tackle Shop's new friend Derrick has iced another small pike and Lee, to my surprise has landed a 12"smallmouth bass! While all that excitement was happening, I'd broken out my secret weapon; a live maggot on a Northland's Hexi Fly jig. With this combo I quickly worked my way through the schools of small bluegill, pumpkinseed and perch in each hole, searching for the elusive schools of crappie that I never would find on this day.

Northland's Hexi Fly jig

Tiny Bluegill

 By mid afternoon Derrick packed up his fish, said his goodbye's and had his holes immediately taken over by TS. And so it seems we all shifted a little towards the left, as I'd worked my way through several schools of tiny fish and was now in the general area of TS and Lee. I'd already caught a personal best 4 species for the day and was working to increase that number when Lee dove for his rod, just a few feet away from my tip up, and landed a beautiful pound and a half largemouth!

The "Bass Man" Lee

  Not to be outdone for long, TS finally comes to life and lands a pike of his own, an identical twin to the fish I'd landed a few hours earlier. Tackle Shop's a real character at times. Notice in the pic below how he "lips" a pike as if it were a bass! I'm waiting for the day he tries that on a 40 incher!

Twins...perhaps, but mine was definitely eating better!

 By late afternoon the sun disappeared behind a solid cloud cover and the wind increased, foreboding another round of winter weather. TS and I both had numb fingers but the deciding factor to pack it in was the persistent threat of being run down by an overzealous motocross ice racer.
 TS had words with this "tool" and his family, stating the obvious lack of respect and inherent danger involved in the activity which stopped only long enough for us to leave the lake's surface. All things considered it was still a good day of fishing and of making new friends on the ice.