I figured out how to get my photos up here, so here’s my ice-fishing story. After a confusing scenario involving my last final exam, grandpa and I headed out to the wild interior of BC. We were greeted by a beautiful clear day and -6 degrees through the first half of the drive. The mountains had a thick blanket of frost, which clung to the tree branches. All of the lakes in manning had a layer of ice skimming the surface, a great sign for hopeful ice-fishers! Manning is often quite a bit warmer than Princeton so that was a REALLY good sign.
- manning on the drive up
We made it through the treacherous mountain pass. A treacherous well groomed, mountain pass. Luckily when we made it through and the little valley that holds Princeton was still there. That’s a relief!
- the snowy backyard
It was minus 9 C when we got to home base and the temperature was dropping with the lowering sun. There wasn’t enough daylight to head out on day one but plenty of time for old hunting stories and warming our toes by the fire. We had a delicious, hardy dinner of frosted flakes and ripple chips at 7 o’clock. Mmmm! Our plan for the next day was to get up before sunup and head out to yellow lake and catch some perch.
day 2
We got up while it was still dark, and threw a few logs on the dying fire. I had had cereal the night before so I let grandpa eat the last of the milk in his, in the morning. We left the house at 7 to head out to the Okanagan valley. But first we made a pit stop at the A&W for a breakfast sandwich. We didn’t pack a lunch so we said we’d come back when we got hungry.
- frozen road
Keremeos and Hedley were all frozen and pretty. The sun was shining and there were only a couple of clouds in the sky…. well maybe a few more than a couple =P
- getting closer
At yellow lake we decided to try the far end of the lake because I had seen perch rising there at one point. But when we got to the end the ice was barely there. When I walked on it I could feel the surface sinking and I was not about to go drilling a whole in it. We figured the ice was about an inch and a half thick at that end. In the middle there was a whole area completely open without any ice what so ever. A last almost helpless attempt before giving up and going home was made at the close end of the lake where we decided to make a test hole to see how thick the ice was. 2 and a half inches thick and 3 inches in some areas. That was enough to for sure hold us. Plus the water was only about 5 feet deep at that part of the lake. About 8 minutes at our test holes grandpa pulls out a nice little brook trout. We decided to keep the first fish of our trip. We fished for about 3 hours and caught a whole bunch of little brook trout.
- the far end
- number one
- the close end of the lake looking towards the rest area
- well this little one came out of the hole extra pretty
We pulled all of these bad boys out with a spoon with a 5 inch leader and a hook and a worm on the end.we found that the fish would take it after you jig for about 5 seconds and then leave it still.
- my hole
We ended up having a very successful day out at yellow lake even though the fish were small. i caught 6 or seven and grandpa lost count. we only took this many home though.
- the catch of the day
here’s the tool i used to do the dirty work!! a freshly struck flake of obsidian. (this is the caveman part :P)
And here’s our royal feast! Pan fried trout in butter. MMM! can’t get much better than this!
What a great ending to the first day fishin’. Once again plenty of time for stories and warming up after the cold day fishing, in front of the wood stove.
Looking forward to a successful day out at the lake towards Merit tomorrow.
day 3
We woke a little later this day, grandpa let me sleep until 7:30. When i got up i packed us a lunch and had a breakfast. the lunch bag had cheese, cheese buns and salami, a well balanced meal by anyone’s standards. today’s plan was to head out towards merrit and fish all the little lakes until we either caught some fish or made it to Ludwick lake. so at around 8:30 we headed on out. the thermometer in grandpa’s truck said -10 C in town.
the first lake we decided to fish at was the first little lake on the drive. the temperature was -12 C here. one time grandpa caught some little brook trout and rainbows there so we thought that was good enough reason to drop a line. first test hole revealed a good 6 to 8 inches of clear ice. just the right thickness not to worry about falling through and not so thick that your arm got tired driling. again we used the tried and true spoon with a worm technique but this time to no avail. we fished first in 10 feet of water then 15 then 25 fishing at different depths within our little holes. at yellow lake we got most of our bites jigging about 1 foot under the ice. after about an hour of fishing we decided that those fish were FAR too smart for us.
the next stop was a little lake that we had, had some luck fly fishing in the summer.before i once got blown to the other end of the lake in a canoe and had to stop and rest up with some kind people who had a dock on the far end before paddling all the way back to the other end… anyways that story can be for another time i guess. we drilled a hole where we hooked some fish in the summer and before grandpa’s line hit the bottom, he had a bite.. after about 5 or 6 minutes of playing the fish out of a little hole out pops a NICE 18 inch brook trout! we figured it was about a 2 pounder. not a bad fish at all and definitely a keeper!
after about 3 minutes of me jigging in my little hole without a bite, i hear another hoot and a hollar “I got another one!! HAHA!” out pops his second fish of the day after fishing for about 12 minutes! this one came out a bit bigger than his last one.
i was using a spoon just about the same as his and with a nice, big, juicy, plump worm on the end, just like him. my hole was about 7 feet towards the shore from his hole.. what was going on?? i got up and drilled a hle about 4 feet to the right of his hole and dropped my line… nothing.. he didnt get another bite after that… nothing.. and still nothing… we must have fished those two holes for another hour after the two fish without any action. i finally said ” ok lets go to another lake!” to which grandpa replied “really??” i kind of felt bad for a while after that but after about 7 minutes grandpa was ready to go to the next lake anyways.
the next lake we stopped at is called ludwick lake. the year before last i caught us a thanksgiving rainbow trout out of there that was 7 pounds and 23.5 inches from fork of the tail to tip of the nose. a beautiful fish!! i caught it on my own fly pattern as well! to get to ludwick lake go from princeton towards merrit and after about 50 km turn off at the A.P. guest ranch sign. then follow the signs to thalia lake and stay on the road. eventually you’ll run into a campsite and that is where ludwick lake is.
last year ice fishing we couldn’t drop a line in without a fish taking it on the way down. however it wasnt the most pleasant day fishing beacause we ended up standing in about a foot of slush. this time out there was no slush to be seen beacause it was -16 on the lake. so first off we went to our tried and true fishing bay, where we couldnt go wrong, but there wasn’t any fish! we fished at our little place and looked through the holes (of which we drilled 7 or 8). no fish… i think we might have scared them all away with our drilling but then again the fish didn’t seem very hungry at all.
- our secret bay
after a good hour of fishing and looking trough holes without seeing any fish below them we mooved over to a place where we had seen some holes dug and some fish blood on the ice. they seemed to have luck there so we decided to give ‘er a try as well. we had two rods in the holes and i was jigging one of them. on of the rods there was power bait on a lure and the one i was jigging every once in a while, had a worm on the end. after about a half hour with a few nibbles.. i see the other rod dip down. “oh a bite!” i grab the rod gently and wait for the fish to come back.. nothing… i set the rod down and then BAM the fish takes it hard. i nail it and set the hook. ” FINALLY!” i yelled to grandpa who was walking out towards the toboggan. i fought the fish and let it run when it wanted to. it made it to the surface of just under the ice and i waited for it to angle up towards the hole.. if you dont it will pull out of the fishes mouth. with one final tug, it came straight up out of the hole!!
the second fish i caught was simillar i was jigging in my hole and bam the other rod dipped down.. i covered the 9 feet from where i was in less than a second and had that rod in my hand setting the hook. i played the fish and out it came after about 3 minutes. a beautiful yellow coloured rainbow trout! i’d only seen them in this lake this colour. this one was especially golden. we decided that the fish was too pretty to eat and let that one go. go live on and reproduce little fishy!
around this point we decided it was lunch time. i pulled out the lunch bag and grabbed the block of marble cheese… then I scrambled around looking for the knife i knew i put in the bag… it wasn’t in there. no knife to a ended up breaking chunks of the cheese off and eating it with a coke. “you’ll never keep a job like this!” grampa yelled… oopseys! hahaa..
we fished for another hour or so until i got bored and decided to go out looking for animal sign in the snow. i found some snow shoe hare tracks, and took some photos of the plants in the snow. i found a black birch tree with many potential bow staves but without an axe i couldn’t bring anything home. maybe in the summer or some other time i’ll be able to head out and harvest them.
after a long hard day fishing and playing it was time to head back to out little place and clean our fish. the night before the obsidian tool i had was an excelent cutter but i needed a chopper for the hunkers i went out side and banged out a crude but effective biface to chop the heads off of our flash frozen trout
so with the dirty work all done and my stone tools all cleaned up it was time to sit in bed and read a book. i read about 60 pages of the traditional bowyer’s bible and shared some fun stories of being a rough-nick.
we decided that this day was so fun that the next day we should head out again and try to catch some big fish again!
day 4
Well we got up undecided of weather or not to leave for home today or to go home in the morning of the next day. So we decided to say ” if we’re catching lots of fish and having fun then we’ll go home tomorrow morning… if not then we’ll come home today.” so I packed a lunch (this time pre-cut cheese and salami) and we headed out to the same lakes as we fished the day before.
- fresh snow on the road
We avoided the little lake that we didn’t get any fish at though. Our first stop was the lake where we had caught the two fish the day before. I drilled two holes in our little spot that we fished yesterday and we dropped out lines. After a good half hour grandpa got up and went with the auger to “find a better place”… I kept fishing at my little hole without any bites what so ever. I finally got bored after a good hours fishing and decided to draw a giant fish on the snow with my feet. It was about 40 feet long and had fins and a tail and everything. I then drew a 3-foot hook with a big worm on the end and line leading up to a hole. I then sat at my drawn hole and pretended I had caught a giant 40-foot fish.
Around this time grandpa packed it in so I followed after writing a massive 40 foot tall SNOW fish beside it.
The next lake on our hit list today was a little lake called round lake. I had never caught a fish in the lake so we decided to give it a try. In short like the last lake after no bites and many holes over the period of an hour and a half, I got bored and decided to go out taking photos. I got some really nice ones of the lakes when the sun came out to play.
- frosty twigs
- snow covered willow
- round lake sunshine
After another half hour without any fish we once again hit the road.
- the road to dry lake!
- snow covered
The next almost futile attempt to catch a fish was made at dry lake. They stock dry lake with 10,000 fish and they all die out in the end of winter. We ran into a family in the beginning and they said they got some bites in the morning and pulled out two 4 pounders out of their little ice holes. But hadn’t had anything since.Well it’s worth a try anyways. The thermometer only said -5 degrees today but little dry lake is right in the middle of a valley. Unfortunately this little valley has a little microclimate of it’s own. The wind rips through their super fast and often it will be completely calm in adjacent valleys. So today the wind was blowing on the lake and it was colder than any of the other days. It blew right through all of my jackets and I had to fish with my back to the wind or else my nose would have fallen off.
- grandpa is cold
- here’s his hole
More of the same in terms of the great fishing day, not a bite at this lake, and by the time we were ready to go we didn’t want to get out of the nice warm pickup truck again. “Well I think we could make it home if we left now”…. “Okay good idea”
- the last view of our cold little lake.
- the bull
- two pines in a pasture
we cleaned up our little house we were staying at and it was time to head out. I get in the truck and we’re just about to pull away when grandpa says “oh I put the fish in the freezer”
“Oh I wanted one or two of them for the city!” so I hopped out of the truck, unlocked the back gate and unlocked the house. I grabbed two of he nice big fish from the day before, one brookey and my rainbow trout. mmmm they’re gonna be great!
I then ran outside locked up the front door, came out of the back gate and threw the fish in the back of the truck. I got in the truck and grandpa just looked at me… and then he said “THE GATE!” … “Ooooops!” All in good fun… I locked up the back gate and then we set off on our final icy adventure of 2010. The drive back. The road was bare.. The mountains were pretty with the setting sun.
- icy princeton
We made it home at around 6:00 not bad time at all, and grandpa got to head on home early the next morning.
What a trip! So many stories! I love these trips with my grandpa I always have a blast. Hopefully we will have another one soon.
i hope you liked it half as much as i liked it, thanks for looking!!
the teenage caveman 
Loved your story.
Gran
thanks for the great story and pictures .I had a great time too. We will do another trip when we get home in the spring.
bye. g