Author: Don Lamont

EARLY SPRING SMALLMOUTH BASS Smallmouth bass can be a great choice to fish early season. In Northwestern Ontario when the ice comes off the lakes and rivers in that region, you are still able to catch these great game fish. In fact there is no closure on the season in Zone 5 though there is a size restriction at certain times of the year if you want to keep fish. I can remember fishing early season pike with Mike Asher on Shoal Lake Ontario, when we got into a nice school of smallmouth off a point in about 10 feet…

Perched on the back of Jim Price’s snowmobile, we headed out across the frozen surface of Lake Winnipeg for the last time this winter. It was Good Friday and half of Manitoba and North Dakota was on the lake with us. Seriously, as we unloaded the snowmobiles, a nonstop caravan of vehicles towing ATVs or snowmobiles was pouring onto the ice at Chalet Beach Road. By the time we headed out it was seven in the morning and despite the fog shrouding the lake, we could see that ice fisherman were scattered everywhere. We decided to start out near shore,…

It has been over two weeks since I last ice fished. I can’t say with the conditions in this part of the world I have been totally motivated. Cold and snow is something we have to deal with, making access to many of our lakes and rivers a very hard chore. My last trip was to East Shoal Lake in the Interlake. About three years ago anglers discovered large perch here and the word has slowly filtered out. Angling pressure has increased tremendously and one can only wonder how long those trophy perch will last.Now that is a perch!Speaking of…

Wobble, wobble went the big dodger on the end of my line. Suddenly a massive tug nearly ripped the heavy action rod and reel from my hands. My level wind reel started to give up line, no mean feat considering that it was so tight I could barely pull it out by hand. Something quite large was on the other end, down in about 20 metres of cold crystal clear water. My flame green Fireline continued to go out as friend Jim Price started reeling in his line to prevent any possibility of tangling. Our guide for the trip, Mark…

BARBE LAKEWhat a trip, one of the most memorable I have ever had in close to thirty years of fishing! Barbe Lake is about seventy kilometres north of The Pas, up Highway 10, past Rocky Lake then left at the Sturgeon Landing road for about five kilometres. The first time I was to fish this lake was with friend Rick Hubbs back in 2007 and they say first impressions last. For me, the beauty of this lake and the quality of the environment was stunning!First trip to Barbe with RickTHE LAKEWhile the length is only about three kilometres , there…

Judging by the number of vehicles on the ice this past Sunday the word is out on East Shoal Lake. Part of a group of three lakes in Manitoba’s Interlake, anglers discovered this shallow body of water was full of master angler perch. In the past two years, more and more ice fisherman have ventured out to try their luck. Heavy deep snow has limited access for the most part but as the March sun melts down the major drifts, those outfitted in big four wheel drive vehicles are managing to get around. Our group of anglers was making sure…

LAKE TROUT- TRIGGERING THE BITE: On our last trip for lakers, a big aggressive presentation did not trigger a bite.  Luckily when you ice fish you can use two rods. For a couple years now, Kevin Siemen has been using big baits to attract lakers, then using  a more natural presentation like a white tube jig to get the fish to bite. He particulary likes the baits pictured below.   These are made by Musky Innovations. The big one is a 14″ walleye model. The smaller ones are 11″ walleye and golden tail sucker models. There are about 10…

Kevin’s 39 incher caught last year It’s not like we needed more snow, but more has arrived. Unfortunately some friends and I were out on the middle of Shoal Lake, Ontario when a blizzard hit on Sunday.  We were hunkered down in our portables when I decided to venture outside about 1:30 p.m. Visibility was down to about 50 feet and a foot and a half of fresh snow and drifted on to the road already. Not wanting to get trapped down this narrow ice road that a commercial fisherman had made we decided to pack up and head…

Dave Genz is one of the most accomplished ice anglers in North America, if not the world. He fishes for a variety of species of fish but his insight on catching jumbo perch is second to none. Matt Straw, a freelance writer, did an interview with Dave for the In Fisherman 2013 Ice Fishing Guide that I purchased locally in November. Matt wanted to get some insight from Dave on how to go about targeting and catching perch larger than 12 inches. Since that publication has come out I have reread the story about a dozen times making notes that…

Jim with a nice one!While some anglers have been doing well ice fishing Lake Winnipeg this winter, others struggle. In talking and fishing over the years with a number of the top anglers on the ice, like Lee Nolden, Roger Stearns and friends Murray Olfasson and Jim Price, one thing remains clear, it pays to experiment. As Lee Nolden says, this year has been a very inconsistent one, with real good days and real slow days. Jim Price has been out three times and he has caught some good walleye all three occasions but every day the presentation has been…