Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Canada Ice, ice Baby !

Paul, you drive a truck out there to plow all that snow out of the way so you can fish your honey hole?

No Marty, this hut was rented, for 2 days, from an outfitter.

My hard shack is not out yet.

More of the spoils;

Went to the hard shack again, with Joe & Judy.

Girls playing Crib between bites;



Bite was slow, but we managed 8 walleye.

Turned 'em into these;



Life, does not suck !

Ice fishemen walk on water. Just saying.

Another few months of pickerel, perch and whitefish coming out of the cold water and onto your plates. Yum!

Doug went out on Saturday, 2 of them got their 20 Crappie, in 3 hours !



Pretty good size, too ! That's a size 12 snow boot.

Went to Doug's, last night, for crappie tacos n beer;





We raised him right !

Pretty good day on the ice for Doug, Joe & I.

3 limits of crappie (30) & some bonus perch.

Good size too !

Cool in more ways than one Paul.

Got after them again, Saturday.

Joe & I only, so limit was 20. Way slower than last week, 20 took 4 hours.

2 Bonus perch & 1 walleye.

Very nice -- love your updates. Great pictures

New 2:
Top of the morning to you Paul, I hope that the rest of your crew is doing well and if you are not, seeing as you've once again caught more and larger than I can dream of - well you know....

My goodness that's a chunky Yellow Perch sir!!!

Are we talking 12" or 14" maybe?

If I caught anything that big I'd have to tear my Stormy Kromer off immediately or it'd get stuck on the corners of my Teutonic noggin due to swelling!!!

Wow that's a lunker.

Hey, as a by the way, have you ever tried bleeding your fish?

I watched a couple videos on it and mean to remember to take some pruning shears with me next trip onto the ice.

It's supposed to cool off again here so if it does, then I'm going to try to go to a local lake where I caught a few last week.

Best to you all this week my friend.

Dwayne

Ha, ha Dwayne !!

Knew that one, would get your attention.

Just shy of 14" !

We used to bleed pelagic species in Australia, Tailor (bluefish), mackeral, tuna etc.

Bleed & into an ice slurry, to cool as fast as possible.

Paul;
Good afternoon once more, thanks for the reply on all counts.

Another question for you if you're so inclined sir, with the understanding that it's been most of a lifetime since I've had walleye and has to be 30 years since I've eaten crappie, but if you were to take a fillet from a walleye, crappie or perch from the same lake, what would you say the difference in texture and taste are?

We used to eat smallmouth and largemouth here, but again it's been a long, long time since I've eaten one of them.

From the same lake as a perch for instance, a smaller bass was pretty close in flavor but perhaps a wee bit more "tough" in texture? A little?

Thanks for the bleeding info too, I might try it just to see what I can see.

Again congrats on the lunker perch, that's a dandy and then some.

Best to you all.

Dwayne

Hmm, interesting thought, Dwayne.

With the understanding, I'll happily eat all 3, I'd say the crappie & perch are finer grained & possibly, a wee tad sweeter, than walleye, but all are neutral, on a "fishiness" level.

bon appétit, Mate !

Paul;
Good afternoon once more my friend.

Thanks for that reply, I very much appreciate it.

That's interesting to read for sure and not entirely surprising to me somehow - but still good to read from someone who has done it recently.

A buddy and I were talking about eating the mostly planted rainbows from our local lakes and we were in agreement that the taste varies lake to lake and then for sure within some lakes during the year.

His thought was when the algae blooms hit its time to stop eating rainbows, but said he thought brook trout held better flavor longer and in different lakes.

When I was just getting back into ice fishing 4 winters back, I went with a buddy up to a mountain lake near his place where we caught some nice 14"-17" rainbows.

My goodness though we should have left them in that water....

If I was going to guess Paul, I'd make a guess that the local rainbows have sold more smokers at Can Tire than any of the sales flyers have.

Thanks again, much appreciated.

Dwayne

Hey 99. Did your boy think it was colder here in Bottineau than where you are nowLol. Edk

Hey Ed,

Doug says colder here, but windier there !

Sound about right ?