Today Bassan and I headed into the county towards a new (to us) area the Red Gullies. It's a bit of a ride to get there but trail conditions are great as temperatures have dropped after a brief mild spell last week. We took our Honda Foreman's today as project 6x6 is locked in French's trailer and is really to wide for the trails we would be tackling today.

Riding conditions were great with lots of ice on the ponds and snow deep but well packed on all trails.

We did find a couple soft spots on the ponds where melt water gathered and wasn't fully frozen, if we stayed on the main well used path across each pond everything was frozen quite well.

We arrived at the Red Gullies around 10am and got to work setting out lines, and spent the morning moving them around the pond periodically to try and find a hot spot.

It was extremely windy at the bottom of the pond but much better at the top of the pond as it was tucked in under the hill.

On the lunch menu today was bottled moose French and I made a couple weeks ago mixed with instant rice.

Bassan brought coffee and homemade raising tea biscuits for desert!

With no luck on Red Gullies we packed up our gear mid afternoon and headed back the trail to fish some of the ponds we crossed on our way in.

Here we finally found some luck and I landed a couple beauty pan size mud trout just after sunset, while Bassan and I also released a few juvenile trout.

All and all it was an awesome first ATV ice fishing trip for the season, an excellent ride and a lot of fun exploring new (to us) territory.

Cheers, MIKE

Copyright © 2011 Michael Smith