Hi all,

I had a fun and interesting activity today that was "survival training" related and thought I would share it on the Forum.

Today my work partner and I had the assignment to do some on-ice inventory on one of the large, heavly utilized tourist lakes in the area. The area was accessed by snowmobile and we had good weather, about 0*c and partly cloudy.

Around noon we left the large main lake and followed a rough trail into a very small adjacent lake, the sun came out as we arrived and we decided it was lunch time.

We parked the sleds amid where someone had been ice fishing yesterday, the holes through the 2 foot thick ice were only froze over about 1 inch. My partner (who is a serious fisherman) said "Duh, we should have brought some rods so we could fish over lunch hour".

I then remembered that in my snowmobile kit I had a small amount of fishing tackle. After some searching I found 2 spools of mono line and 2 small silver jigs, one was a Swedish Pimple, and the other was similar but I do not remember the name. We opened up the holes with an axe and my partner searched around the area for discarded minnows from the day before. He found no bait (the ravens clean that up quick here) so he put a sliver of sliced turkey sandwich meat on the small treble hook. His line was rigged for no more than a 30 seconds and a fish started nibbling at it, after a quick set of the hook he had a 12" long Brook Trout on the ice!

I had not even got my line in the water yet, so I quickly added some sliced ham to my lure, and 4 jigs later I had a twin to his fish flopping at my feet!

We figured we would get our limit easy and continued fishing for about 1/2 an hour, we even tried all the other holes in the area and we did not get another bite (trout are funny like that). So we cleaned the 2 fish and continued on with our work day.

Since it was only my teenage son and I home for supper tonight, I got both fish. I pan-fried the 2 trout and the orange-tinted flesh was delicious, of course my son said he could have eaten 4 more that size.

So, with minimal equipment and a little ingenuity you never know when/where you can find something to eat.

Thanks for listening,

Mike

Mmmmmmm Nice. Now I wants to go smelt fishing. Nothing tastes better than fish taken through the ice.

of course once the ice melts I can use my boat again...

Sounds like fun. 'Cept for that 0 degree stuff, and the thick frozen water. I once caught a lake trout using some Velveta cheese from lunch, in 90 degree weather. More to my liking...

Nice! Uh, except for that whole "ice" thing. You can keep all that up there.

So, is your partner going to start packing a fishing kit?

-Blast

Thanks for the replies fellows,

Taurus - I agree with you that fresh fish is the best. I have netted/cleaned thousands of smelts (it is a real spring social activity here) but never really liked the taste of them. I find I have lost my patience for ice-fishing (I usually end up doing bushcraft stuff on the shoreline), but I am better in a boat because you can travel around.

OBG - Yes I am truly tired of winter this year; we have had 4 months of it so far and there is still 2 feet of snow on the ground. If crazy fish bait works (cheese, ham), then it is not crazy; I caught a walleye once on red flagging tape.

Blast - My partner usually keeps a mini-fishing kit in his sled, but him and I have an ongoing battle over other equipment.
He is a minimalist, not only for survival gear but even for work tools; I am a "gear horse" if you need it I proabally have two.

Yesterday as we were off-loading the sleds he said "If you are going to bring your giant pack, them I am not bringing mine", I just could not operate that way but he is fine with it. I did forget my Ice Extraction Picks yesterday and it bothered me all day, because we were near some thin ice at creek inlets. I put a couple of large nails (spikes) in my pocket instead but they are not as available in an emergency.

Later,

Mike

Nice!!

Blitz