Photo Journal: Lake Simcoe in Search of Perch

This has been an odd year for me when it comes to time on the ice. With the fluctuating weather and ice conditions along with family and work obligations I have not been able to hit the ice as much as I have wanted to.. We even had to cancel the annual "Boys Icefishing Weekend" which has become a bit of a tradition over the past few years (and usually takes place over SuperBowl weekend). Luckily enough although we could not make a weekend out of it, we were all able to get together this past Saturday and hit the ice on Lake Simcoe.. famous for jumbo perch as well as a decent white fish and laker bite.

Aaron (or @airs0024) was the man in charge of setting up this trip and he made the right choice by calling "Steve's Ice Huts" out of Port Bolster, I wont turn this post into a paid advertisement but I will say this was an incredibly well run outfit, warm, comfortable and on fish all day long. 

Our day started early, Aaron and I were on the road at 4:20am and after a quick stop at Tim Hortons for   coffee we picked up Brad (@rabidsponge) and his dad Kenny. Back on the road we made the 1hr 20 minute drive to Lake Simcoe where we met up with the team from Steves Fish Huts. 

We were all loaded into what looked like an ice hut train pulled by a snow mobile and were dragged out to what they called "The Party Hut" this thing was monstrous (see above) and already fully warmed  up with with a propane stove.  Yes, we were ice fishing in style!

It was not long after we dropped our lines that we realized we are on one hell of a perch hole, both my Marcum LX7 and Kenny's Marcum 825c were lit up all day long,

Aaron beat us the punch and landed the first perch of the day and then followed it up with the first Cisco of the day. I then hooked into a monster perch that man handled my new clam straight-line rod and quickly worked himself loose. Pissed for a short time I got back into the game and quickly broke my skunk with a smaller perch. It was not long before we were all on the board and the pace heated up, each of us easily averaged 20+ fish an hour which put our total day at well over 600 fish.. thats what Lake Simcoe produces.

The biggest fish of the day was caught by Aaron and weighed just under 1lb.. (thats my hand as a bit of size reference). It was the only real monster fish we landed, but we pulled out dozens of eaters that were all dropped back down to swim another day.. this day was for fun not for food (although we kinda regretted it afterwards)

While on this hunt for perch we also ran into a few Ciscos, these are not in season on Simcoe so I have no pics to show, but since this was my first cisco catch I would be remiss not to bring it up here. They were amazing to watch as them came in out of nowhere and surrounded then almost stalked our baits and then one after another they hammered them, it was a 4-banger and each of us had one on at the same time... then they were gone, and we did not see another one for the rest of the day.

The below pic shows how nice our window was to watch both the perch and that round of Ciscos. It was my first time fishing in a cut-out like this and I loved every minute of it

As usually when on Simcoe we also got a visit from the MNR, friendly as always they checked our licenses and asked about the days catch. Simcoe is an important fishery and Im glad they are out in full force. I cant remember the last time I fished on Simcoe and was not visited by an officer

Our days wrapped up at jsut after 4pm, the team from Steves Fish huts where promptly on time to pick us up and get us back to civilization, they had over 20 huts out there in perch spots and from what we could see from the other groups being picked up the fishing was good across the board. Again I cant say enough about Steves ice Huts, they did a great job and they will be seeing me again 

I have to close this one off in a fashion, an early morning start to the day, then nearly 10 hours on the ice made for a long day, it was not minutes into the ride home that Brad was already taking one of his famous mini naps.. "what Im not sleeping".. Busted!

Meanwhile...

After getting back from Simcoe I checked in with fellow Dobyns team member Derek Brzezicki who was also spending day on Simcoe ice, he and a few other members of the Dobyns crew where in deeper water doing battler with Lakers.. now they may not have had a 600 fish day, but you gotta admit, they had a great day.. nice fish boys!