Ontario Early Ice Fishing

Winter has finally arrived, and in true Northwestern Ontario fashion, it has brought with it hard water and plenty of snow.

When guests inquire about the best time to make the winter trip to see us, I am quick to say early season ice fishing is some of the best you’ll experience all winter. The reason being is that we are able to pinpoint schools of fish using the knowledge we gained from late fall.

While guiding, especially early season, I use my fall fishing experiences to sway the advantage in our favor. I will always start my fishing campaigns close to where I have late fall and early season spring success. Using those locations as a base, I set up my early morning attack, well before sun up. During the day, I may move around a bit, however I am right back to those same locations where I started the day, well before the day light hours start to dwindle.

In addition to the best time to ice fish, tackle is usually second on people’s list of questions. Obviously ice fishing is much different than open water fishing, especially when it comes to mobility. Given that fact, we have to rely heavily on attracting fish to us, rather than being able to troll to them.

I am a huge fan of, and have found great success with anything flash and rattle. Any jigging spoon that you can find that produces flash, simulates the natural forge base and gives off vibrations (or rattles) becomes a huge advantage when mobility is limited. Northland Tackle has a tremendously effective jigging spoons series in their Buck Shot Rattle Spoon. I have used them with great success and would encourage any early season ice angler to augment their arsenal with them. I am also a huge fan of the time tested Swedish Pimple. The size I like to use is the 3CH or 1/5oz weight, especially sliver with perch aesthetics. These really come in handy when we are splake fishing.

I recall one trip early last year, right after safe ice. We had fished a majority of the day with marginal success and had just settled in to our final spot, right before sun down. As is common in adventure ice fishing, throughout the day we had some equipment causalities and I was forced to fish using a spool of line and one of my favorite Buck Shot Rattle Spoons. As day light transitioned into dusk, known in slang terms as “go time”, the bite started coming fast and furious. In less than 15 minutes, I landed well over a dozen eyes using my Neanderthal rig. Although I am used to a little more advanced fishing set up, the key to our success that day was, without a doubt, location and, just as important, presentation.

Although my experiences are based mostly on our adventure style, run and gun ice fishing, I am confident you’ll find the same success should you be more incline to fish from a permanent ice house. You won’t see them around our parts, but many parallels can be drawn between fishing local, and the far less pressured, pristine ice fishing of Canada. And for the serious angler looking to test his skills, I can’t think of better proving grounds.

Until Next Time ~

PS – if you haven’t had a chance to check out the new web site, head over there now. It’s loaded with great info on fishing in Ontario and Canada in general.

www.pashalake.com