Friday afternoon myself, my son, my son-in-law and my nephew headed up to the cottage to fish Nip on Saturday and Sunday. My son and I fish Nip on the regular but my son-in-law has never fished Nip or ever been ice fishing. My nephew is not new to ice fishing but is new to Nip.

Both days we headed 10 km offshore to the Manitous. Saturday was sunny and calm but cold at -22. Sunday was windy, overcast and snowing with temps of -14. Ice thickness was 18+ inches of hard black ice - no white. Our setup:



Pop up is an Eskimo Outbreak 650i XD and has enough room for 4 guys to fish comfortably. The bite both days was great and we caught a [censored] ton of perch, walleye, pike, cisco and believe it or not i caught a clam. The perch we kept were all between 9 and 13 1/8 inches. Some typical fish from the weekend:





Son-in-law's first ever fish thru the ice:



Typical pike:



Cisco:



Walleye:



The clam:



The 2 day Manitous haul. From left to right myself, nephew, son, and son-in-law with our haul:

117 Jumbo perch kept (9 to 13 1/8 inch) , 8 eyes (slot limit), 1 pike kept (22 inch) , 1 cisco kept (15 inch), about a dozen eyes put back and some perch put back as well (didn't really keep count of those). The fish we kept filled 2x 5 gallon pails. Burned thru 12 dozen minnows:

Well done. Looks like quite a meat haul.

Nice work! Great pic's.

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That's cool! I've looked at taking an ice fishing trip to chase yellow perch! Good eating little suckers they are!

and a Awesome Post. Thanks for sharing.

I wish I could learn to fillet a pike so I could try to eat one.
Tried several times always full of ones.

thats great

Looks like a great time had by all. Ice fishing can be loads of fun.

Too cold for me!! My boss left today for an ice fishing event in MN. I leave for Florida next week. Fair trade off I think.

Nice job on the fish. I bet they taste amazing coming out of that cold water!!

Youtube is your friend. They have an extra set of bones called "Y" bones. Lose some meat but they can be filleted boneless.

If i were going to travel from Texas for a perch fest my first choice would be Lake of the Woods in Minnesota. Fishing for perch on my "Home" lake (Nipissing) is as good or better for perch but the outfitters are focused on Walleye in this part of the world so the perch is kinda meh when going with an outfitter. For locals like me though who target them and know what to do and where to go it can be off the charts. Had a trip last year where i averaged a Jumbo every 3 minutes and 40 seconds for the entire weekend.

And eating wise they are on par with walleye. We are having a big extended family fish fry next weekend to put a dent in the pile i have in the freezer.

If you want an outfitted trip in a bungalow on ice on the lake Nip is primo. Heated bungalows with beds, full kitchens, satellite TV, bbqs, attached heated washrooms etc... Not cheap but way more comfortable than the running and gunning with the popup like i do. I just have to head back to shore each night to my lake house which is actually more comfy than the bungalow. If you investigate a trip on Nip the best time is the first 3 weeks of January and the first 2 weeks of March. There is a definite lull for the month of February and if your are local you know how to work around it but the outfitters cannot easily move their bungalows once setup.

Very nice