Family Ice Fishing on Lake Simcoe – February 2013
by Nicholas Giuga
February 11, 2013

Lake Simcoe, Feb 3rd 2013
Temperature: -16
Wind: none
Depth: 6-12 feet
My dad, my brother, and I woke up at about 7 am to go ice fishing on Lake Simcoe. We packed up all of our gear, ate breakfast and left at about 8:45 am. We had investigated a few fish hunt options on Lake Simcoe, including Pefferlaw Fish Huts and Dave’s Fish Huts. We were lucky that Dave’s Fish Huts had an opening due to a cancellation.
They took us out to our hut and we set up. Our hut was great, it had two 4′ x 1′ rectangle holes for fishing, a bucket of minnows, and it was really warm.
We quickly got to fishing. I was using a silver Rapala Jigging Rap; my Dad was using a Slab Grabber; and my brother was using a very small spoon with a minnow. After about 1 minute of fishing, I quickly got into my first Perch and released him quickly. After about 10 more minutes of nothing, my brother and my dad got their first fish of the day; I got my second.

Our hut had very little activity compared to the other huts so the next fish of the day came 5 minutes later.
Since there was very little activity I decided to set up a home made tip up so that I could increase the chances of getting a fish. After about 10 more minutes of nothing my brother noticed a very large fish coming towards us. It revealed itself to be a MASSIVE pike that was easily over 10 lbs! We were all freaking out when it came by but it was not interested in anything; not even the baby perch that were hanging around.

We caught a few more perch, but they were all very small. I was getting really hot inside the hut so I decided to take the auger outside with my tip up and go hole-hopping. There had been some holes left over from some others so I decided to use those first. I set up my tip up in one of the holes and began drilling another while I was waiting. Unfortunately, the ice was really thick, black ice; and drilling it with an 8 inch auger was just too difficult. I decided I would just move around the lake looking for abandoned holes. I came back to my tip up, pulled up, and found a decent sized perch had taken my minnow. I continued doing this all over the lake and managed to catch more than 10 perch. After a while I wanted to start jigging again. I set up my tip up once again; walked back over to the hut; got my rod and walked back to my other line; but no fish. After about 10 minutes of catching little perch, I felt a large tug! Some of my drag was pulled; I reeled up to reveal a 1 lb perch, my new PB.

After that the day slowed down again; and only about 10 fish were pulled up for the next few hours. At 3 pm my Dad let us know that we were gonna head home at 4; so I decided I would venture off to an area that I hadn’t checked yet. I hopped from hole to hole catching about 10 perch in my last hour of the day; and then headed back to the hut. The door was locked to keep the heat in; when I knocked, my dad said “hold on a sec, there’s a big one”. I waited about 5 minutes and the door finally opened to reveal a nice sized herring caught by my brother.

We took some pictures with our catches of the day, released the Herring (closed season) and headed back home.

Overall it was a really great day for ice fishing.
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Nicholas is a young, multi-species angler. Despite his youth, his passion for fishing has fueled vast angling experiences. While his target species includes trout, panfish, muskie and pike, his favorite species is bass. Nicholas is also committed to related environmental efforts. He often participates in clean-ups and habitat restorations to ensure that the fish have good and healthy habitats which will in turn help to improve the fishing experience for all anglers.
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