Home Forums Fishing Freshwater A Day On The Ice!

I try to get out ice fishing four or five times a winter. I have grown to like it - and the social aspect of the ice fishing clan even appeals to my somewhat of a loner personality.
Well day before yesterday I was invited out by my main Elk Hunting partner for a day of fishing.
Well actually it only took a few hours and we had landed 20 fish (released 13 of them) including 18 Rainbow Trout, one Brown trout and one Fresh Water Ling (Burbot).
Normally I don't keep any fish I catch all year but the winter fish on this lake are every bit as delicious as Steelhead trout so I kept my limit of 3 fish choosing to keep the largest ones - which measured 21" to 22".
The highlight of the day though was my partner catching a 29" Rainbow that indeed looked like a Steelhead.
He was so tickled with it he intruded on the ice house next to ours and borrowed their "De-Liar" fish scale and weighed it - it came in at 5 pounds 9 ounces!
I mean that was a war getting that dandy big trout up through the ice hole.
We used mostly bait and maggots on tiny jigs to catch them - but I did catch 3 on a jigged Kast-Master (silver) in 10 1/2 feet of water.
Ice was 15" deep/thick so I felt somewhat at ease (safe).
Wife and I had baked Rainbow Trout for dinner tonight and it was excellent.
I can E-mail pictures to anyone interested.
Great way to spend the day!
Hope to get out another time or two this winter.
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

That's awesome. Sounds like a great day. A 5+# rainbow would stretch the string for sure. How big was the Ling, burbout, eelpout, lawyer? I've never caught one but I know it has a different name in different areas.

According to my buddy who fishes A LOT, you might have thrown back the best eating fish of the lot with that ling. We call them lawyers here in the Midwest, and my buddy would trade you two for one with walleyes to get hold of a freshwater ling, freshwater cod, freshwater cusk, mariah, burbot, lawyer, eelpout for the table. Not sure why that one fish has so many names, but according to Tom, delicious is one of them.