Just back from a a winter camping slash ice fishing trip by snowmobile. Lake is a 200,000 acre back lake that is 35 miles from the nearest town. Left home at 1100 am on Friday (April 01) and headed to the cottage to pick up all my gear. Arrived at about 230 pm and had the trailer loaded by about 330 pm.





From there i drove to Matheson and spent the night in a hotel to head out first thing in the morning. The road into the trail head ended up being more or less plowed to about 10 miles from the lake. The road in - snow was about 3 to 4 feet in the bush and banks on the road were about 6 or 7 feet:



The trailhead:



Trail quickly narrows to this:



There were two options at the trailhead. First is a longer wider trail that most people use (12 miles). Second is a shorter less traveled trail (9 miles). I chose the shorter trail first time going in but subsequently used the longer wider trail as the shorter trail had two significant mudholes and a small river crossing. The weather was warm (36 to 40 degrees) so i opted to not use the hut and because i was closer to the truck than expected i slept in the snowmobile trailer instead of setting up camp on the lake. Typically setup:



The view from the hole:



The first fish i caught was a micro walleye:



Remainder of the walleye were all 13 to 16 inches (kept and ate four of these each day):



Also caught a bazillion mooneyes:



Kept a dozen of them to try. Gonna fry them up tomorrow. Ice was 2 inches of white ice followed by about 6 inches of slush followed by 30 inches of ice for a total hole length of +/- 38 inches. Below that maybe 5 or 6 feet of water - don't really even need a reel as you never have more than 8 or 9 feet of line out. The bite was incredibly light/soft. With my most sensitive light action rod most times i could not feel it at all - my line instead would start moving sideways across the hole. Took some getting used to and even by the end i was maybe connecting about 20% of the time - but that's okay because bites were so frequent that even a 20% hookup meant lots of fish.

Neat post.

Neat pictures.

Wish I could try that.

Wow! that is a pretty cool trip and some good eating.

Nice Spring break, eh?

any excess floodwater/slushy ice? I know in Saskatchewan it's really bad. You can't stray far from the road on the lake or you're stuck. I'd think mooneye would be loaded with bones....are they not?

Slush is the bain of all ice fisherman. No slush to deal with on this trip. 2 weeks ago was a totally different story. That being said not all machines are created equal. ATVs are the worst, tracked ATVs next worst. snowmobile is best. Within snowmobiles again not all machines are created equal. My machine is a super wide long track, has skins on the front skis for extra floatation and a fully enclosed underbelly for more floatation. With skins and track my ground pressure is about 0.3 psi - pretty much as low as you can get. 900 cc engine with lots of balls helps as well. With slush (or open water) the expression is "pin it to win it." As long as i don't stop and keep it pinned i will stay on top and i don't let off until there is somewhere safe to stop. Setting up a machine in this fashion does have trade offs though - the wide long track and skins require more muscle to handle and makes the turning radius large. Not a good machine for long rides on groomed trails but almost unstoppable in marginal conditions. Most snowmobiles also only have 2 gears forward and reverse - no neutral. Mine has 4 - reverse, forward 1, forward 2 and neutral and can be shifted between 1 and 2 on the fly. Forward 2 is the normal travel gear and forward 1 is low speed super high torque. Forward 1 has a much better chance of getting moving again if you happen to stop in slush. Last but not least my track is fully studded so that if stopped and track is on the wet ice at the bottom of the slush i still have traction - without studs even if the track will spin you won't move. The neutral is also beneficial if the belt gets wet. Put the machine in neutral and rev it until the engine heat dries out the belt - no neutral and you are screwed.

Mooneyes are bony - i cook them whole (gutted) and than pull spine out and generally the bones all come with.

Fun report.

Neat trip!

cool trip - thanks