The winter trouting season here in Newfoundland officially opened on February 1st, however weather was not cooperative to that point. Ponds had very thin ice, not enough to even walk out on but of course no open water to cast a line from shore.

However this past weekend conditions became favourable enough to get our for an Old Fashioned walk-in Ice Fishing Trip in the backcountry of Bauline. This was my first ice fishing adventure in a long time where we hoofed it, opting to leave Argos, ATVs and Snowmobiles at home due to uncertain ice conditions.

It turned out to be a good call, with only six inches of solid ice, it would have been marginal at best to park heavy machines on the ice.

I was first to arrive so I drilled some holes and set out my Automatic Hook Setting ice fishing rigs Weather today was beautiful, clear, sunny, but quite brisk at -12ºC accompanied by unrelenting strong winds.

It wasn't long before one of my rigs went off, and continued to do so throughout the day mainly with small toss-backers on the hook.

It wasn't long before I was joined by Slaney & French who quickly set out their lines as well.

Slaney brought some dry firewood in his Pelican sled so we went ashore to get some reprieve from the unrelenting wind and light a small campfire to thaw out.

I already had enough gear in my knapsack, so I opted to leave my cooking stuff home to await a fossil fuel fuelled adventure! Lunch today was simple a thermos of coffee, tea and convenience store sandwiches.

We did manage a couple keepers with Mark and I putting a decent pan size trout each on the scoreboard.

As darkness set in and flurries beginning to fall we started to pack up our gear and hike back to the trucks.

Of course there's nothing like the first feed of fresh pan fried trout for the year, paired with a couple jumbo eggs & moose sausages, even better! All in all it was a fantastic first day of the season with great memories & great friends.

Cheers, MIKE

Copyright © 2025 Michael Smith