In no particular order:

IDO-The best ice shows, although Jason Mitchell also does a good job.

Jason Mitchell Outdoors- probably the most diversity of the good fishing shows, but IDO also does a lot of different shows.

Uncut Angling- they’ve got a unique style but they fish with a lot of guys I know from guiding and tourneys and they are a group of very good, young anglers.

Fishful Thinking- not a lot of diversity in the fish/locations, but he’s done a number of shows from Cree and Reindeer lakes in the last couple of seasons which means plenty of real big fish on camera.

Next Bite, Angling Edge, Fish Ed, Musky Hunter and a few others are good as well but they either don’t put episodes online or the episodes that are online aren’t full length, and that’s the only place I can go for fishing shows these days, so they don’t make the top choices for me.

In Saskatchewan you are not allowed to use live or fresh fish as bait (all intact fish being used as bait must be frozen first) and people pull world class pike through the ice all winter, all over the province on dead bait.

Different types of bait seem to work better on different lakes but ciscoes, smelts and herring are probably the most popular and certainly the most common fish you find in the bait shops. Some guys like oily saltwater fish from the supermarket like small mackerel and I have had some success with those as well, but I prefer a more natural bait like ciscoe or smelt usually. Size wise, I try to get the biggest I can find, big enough that we often have to thread the baits down the hole.

Last spring I was running low on pike bait and none is available here in town, so I bought some frozen cod strips and they outfished the smaller smelts I had out at the same time. I suggest experimenting with type and size of bait and see what works best for you, as it will vary from lake to lake and depending on conditions and time of year.

A third option that I didn’t see mentioned above is propane. Propane is more convenient than gas and with high octane propane, they are a bit lighter and just as powerful as a gas auger. By the looks of it, you can pick up a propane auger for a couple hundred dollars less than the Ion. I have a classic Jiffy 2 stroke, but if I was in the market for a new auger I’d be looking at propane or a good electric like the Ion and the not insignificant price difference might nudge me towards propane.

Here in Northern Saskatchewan, the small lakes usually have enough ice to walk on by the middle of November. That won’t be happening this year. Looking at the forecast, it’s hard to believe that any lakes will have enough ice even by Dec 1 unless things change in a hurry. I winterized my boat and started getting my ice gear ready in late October like usual, but now I’m thinking I might need to pull my open water stuff back out for a bit because the water is going to be soft for a while yet.

I use the same quick strike design I use for pike, only on a small scale with 4-6lb flouro, small trebles and a 2.5″ish minnow under the tip ups. The tip ups actually outfished the jigging rods on this day.

lundojam wrote:

Nice fish! Correct me if I’m wrong: Wouldn’t a splake have a forked tail like a laker? That looks to me like a nice, big brookie.

Not necessarily. The angle of photo makes the tail look straighter than it is, I think. It didn’t have the full fork of a laker, but if you compared this tail to a purebred brookie, it is indented a bit. The lake we were on only has splake in it, and I’ve found that the amount of fork in the tail varies from fish to fish with splake, as does the colouration. Some of them look more like lakers and some look more like brookies. It’s not beyond the realm of possibilities that a brookie got mixed in with the splake fry at the hatchery, but I’ve never seen a brookie with such an orange belly or hybridized tail from the strain of brookies that are hatched here in Sask.

I’d never kill a trophy fish to put it on my wall, and haven’t forked out for a replica, either. But, I think walleye over 30″, pike over 48″, lakers over 40″ are prime candidates for a picture, measurement and replica that will out last every skin mount. But, the great thing about a replica is, regardless of the fish’s size, if the fish represents something special to the angler, they can keep that memory forever without taking fishing opportunities away from future generations.

The biggest problem I see with people removing the prime breeders from a lake is, they say, “well I don’t see a problem with just taking one prime breeder out for my wall” except, if everyone or a large number of people take that same attitude, it’s not just one fish, but many that are taken out of the system and once they’re gone, those genes are lost forever. And the ancient, giant pike that spawn in front of my dock every May would probably like to disagree with those who think the biggest fish are often past their prime breeding years

Thanks!

I do a bit of hunting, I live at pretty much the northern end of the whitetail deer’s range in Saskatchewan, so most people focus on moose, but there are still some nice bucks around. Unfortunately, wolves overran the areas I usually hunt this year, so I didn’t get a moose. But, I’m hoping the rut has the deer moving this weekend!