Winter 2008

February 6, 2020 Whitbourne Argo Ice Fishing Trip (29 Photos)

With our previous plans for the week abruptly cancelled, French and I took advantage time already booked off work and beautiful weather Thursday to head out over the highway for some ice fishing. The weather was forecasted to turn poor Friday & Saturday so this would be a great opportunity to get up in the woods. French would be running his 2017 Argo Huntmaster while I of course piloted Project 6x6, both machines are equipped with tracks, windshield and convertible tops.

We headed as far as Whitbourne and unloaded the machines near Monty's Place Restaurant as he is a good buddy of ours. We took the old rail bed a short distance South then turned left and broke trail East all the way to the pole line. I knew the route well so I powered my '89 6x6 through the deep snow with surprisingly little difficulty!

Once we got to the pole line French lead the way to our desired fishing destination. Snow from our mega blizzard was packed down quite well and provided a surprising amount of traction for our tracked Argos. Usually these machines on tracks have difficulty climbing steep hills but today they performed the task with ease.

My 1989 6x6 tearing up fresh powder in High Waters.

Both machines worked great especially in this deep snow and we soon made it to Highwaters where we planted some ice fishing lines.

We really didn't need to take two machines, but the most fun you can have in an Argo is operating one. It also gave us a backup plan if we had trouble with one of the machines or got stuck bad.

Today we both ran our convertible tops with the driver door rolled up just in case we broke through as we weren't 100% certain of ice conditions on every section of the gullies. Our heaters still kept us toasty warm even with one door open!

We were surprised to see over a foot of ice everywhere we checked. Reports just after the blizzard had ice levels at 5-6", but we had 20mm of rain since then. All that rain soaked into the 12" of snowpack on top of the ponds but froze solid before it drained. This created lots of ice, not as strong as clear hard ice, but well enough to safely support our machines.

My new hand made ice fishing lines from Outdoor Pros (not a sponsor) work great and look great. I'll probably be picking up a few more in the future.

My 6" cordless drill adapted ice auger continues to work really well with my Milwaukee M18 FUEL drill. I would like to make up an auger extension as this particular auger is short which limits how thick the ice can be when boring holes.

While I set out our fishing lines French got out his trusty Husqvarna T540 top handle chainsaw and knocked down a few dead trees to have a boil-up.

These fantastic saws are lightweight, compact and make the task of gathering firewood so much simpler and faster.

In no time we had an awesome fire roaring built on a bed of green logs laid directly on the snow.

For lunch I fried up 2lbs of Wild Game flavour Ground Moose made this past fall and later added two cans of beans for a kick ass hearty trail lunch.

When lunch was nearly done I added a couple green logs to the fire to prop up my Kelly Kettle which boils in about three minutes. A couple cups of fresh hot coffee went really well with lunch.

Plans may change but often times as it was in this case they change for the better. French and I had an excellent day in the woods, caught a half dozen keeper mud trout and had an outstanding Argo rip.

Cheers, MIKE