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| Boyd and Odie enjoying some pike action |
Three days of fishing in central Saskatchewan, what could be better! So when I got an invite to speak at the annual Porcupine Plain Wildlife banquet just before the close of the ice fishing season, I was all in. Friend Jim Price and I headed up to Carrot River to hook up with our friends to fish Tobin Lake and area beforehand.
We were not to be disappointed with some great fishing for both pike and walleye. Our first evening upon arrival saw us out on the Saskatchewan river jigging up walleye. As the sun sunk below the tree line, the walleye fishing lit up! And I mean lit up with rods going off all over and big fish stretching lines. Friend Boyd Holmen and I were in the middle of the action with a number of nice walleye landed the biggest at 30 inches. All were caught on small jigs tipped with a beautiful Tobin Lake shiner minnow.
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| Russ holding the famous ice jug tip up |
The next day we headed down a back country farm road out on to the Tobin Lake flats and Ditch# 2. Here we drilled a circular series of holes and set up tip ups. Some had big whole herrings and some had ciscoes. By the end of the day, the herring and out produced the ciscoe by five to one. I also learned from by buddy Russ how to make a milk jug tipup. First you get 27 feet of 50 pound test braid and tie it to the handle. Then you add a quick strike to the other end. Finally, you take the rest of the line and put it inside the jug for travel purposes. When fishing with it, you set your rig so the bait is a foot and half off the bottom, then take the jug out on the ice to take out any slack in the line so the bait doesn’t move. Once situated correctly you pack snow around the jug so it stays in place. This also prevents the wind from moving the jug and setting off a false alarm. As luck would have it, the first flag (jug) to go off was of course the jug. It started skipping across the ice as a big pike helped himself to the herring. No worry about this fish getting off, the jug wedges in the hole. Russ has caught pike up to thirty pounds on this technique.
While the fishing was not fast and furious this day, we caught enough big pike to make it interesting and the company was outstanding. It was another glorious day fishing in Saskatchewan.
