The winter trouting season here in Newfoundland has been officially open since February 1st, however weather has not been cooperative to this 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 have been favourable enough to get our for an Old Fashioned Ice Fishing Trip. 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 safe call, with only 6 inches of solid ice, and a couple inches frozen slush, it was marginal at best to have heavy machines parked on the ice.

I was first to arrive and set out my Jaw Jerker automatic hook setting rigs (check out my How To: Make Jaw Jerker Rigs  for more info). Weather today was beautiful, clear, and 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 but 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 lit a small campfire to thaw out.

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

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 head 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 (for me) of the season with great memories & great friends.

Cheers, MIKE

Copyright © 2011 Michael Smith