By: Davis Viehbeck

With the ice fishing season in full swing ice anglers are out and about in search of fish in their favourite destinations.  Like a lot of other anglers, I love catching a few fish for the frying pan but the thought of catching trophy fish is what really makes my heart tick.
Searching out trophy fish requires a lot more patience than just heading out to the ‘community holes’ to catch a few crappies or walleye.  In general, the likelihood of catching larger specimens of fish is far lower than catching small to mid-sized fish so it’s important to take some extra precautions when out targeting trophies.

First and foremost, it’s important to maximize your likelihood of landing big fish and that means selecting the right gear for the job.  As an example, if you’re out looking for big lake trout in the 10lb plus range, you need to be fishing with ice rods in the 28” to 40” length category with a medium to medium-heavy action matched with a mid-sized spinning reel.

I like spooling up with a no-stretch line like Sufix Fuse or Sufix Performance Braid when targeting lake trout.  Using no-stretch line or ‘superline’ matched with the right rod and reel combo will reduce fighting times on these large fish which helps ensure a successful release.  The ‘superlines’ on the market today also provide anglers with the advantage of feeling even the lightest bites which also helps reduce the likelihood of deeply hooking fish.

Once you get that monster fish near the hole, it’s great to have a friend help you land the fish and to avoid laying the fish on the ice if possible.  Naturally you’ll want to snap some pictures of your catch, so I always like to keep the camera gear ready to go in order to minimize the amount of time a fish is left out of water between shots.

Perhaps the two most important considerations in being a successful catch and release angler are to properly support the fish (ideally in a horizontal manner) and to minimize the amount of time a fish is out of the water between shots.  I like to use a wet cotton glove or tailing glove to hold the fish in the water between taking photos.  This is especially important when fishing on really cold days when even the slightest amount of exposure to cold air can be detrimental to fish.

Late in the ice season last year, I was up on Lake of the Woods fishing with fellow “Hooked Magazine” contributors Jeff “Gussy” Gustafson and Dave Bennett along with a crew of outdoor writers and photographers from Ontario and Minnesota.  The goal of this trip was to snap some high-quality shots of BIG fish for future magazine content and to no surprise Gussy and Bennett along with multi-species guru Dean Howard put us on some dandy fish.  What was really cool about this trip was to see the effort all of us put in to fish care while taking pictures.  This was often at the expense of our hands being submerged in cold water, but that little bit of pain was completely worth it knowing that all the big fish we were fortunate enough to catch would swim another day and hopefully put a big smile on some other lucky angler’s face.  Catching big fish is a phenomenal experience for all of us anglers, so be sure to practice “CPR” (catch-photo-release) on these larger fish and take the extra precautions like matching your gear to the species to ensure a successful release!