Nicholas, along with a few friends and I, set out Saturday morning with the goal to find whitefish and burbot. We headed to a lake that Nick had fished in the past during open water for whitefish. The plan was to target whitefish in the morning, shift gears towards lake trout by mid-day and finally burbot at sundown.
On our way to our first location, we encountered two large pressure cracks, the first we were able to navigate around while the second proved to be more challenging. We decided against risking a crossing (for now) and set-up by the pressure crack about 25 metres off an island in 30'-50'.
Within minutes of having our lines down we were marking fish on bottom. Our friend out in 55' was the first to land a fish, a lake trout caught on a pink 1/4oz jig head tipped with an emerald shiner.
The activity picked up and within the next two hours we had landed two whitefish and a nice dark coloured lake trout (7 lbs.) that Nick caught on a pink simcoe bug.
Nick's on the simcoe bug:
Mike's whitefish caught on a gold blade bait:
As is often the case, the fish became less active as the day went on. Our friend landed his second lake trout again on the pink jig head (pink was a hot colour for the day) and Nick caught another to fill their limit.
Against our better judgement, Mike and I decided to work our way around the pressure crack by pushing our fully packed sled across the crack and taking the shoreline. Meanwhile Nick and the rest of our group headed to a point we had fished in the past in search of burbot.
Things slowed down significantly in the afternoon, with only a few small lake trout landed. We decided not to stay past sundown for burbot as everyone was exhausted from a long day of moving around. Each of us had our chances for more fish with a few brief hook ups throughout the day but overall it was a productive outing. If that was the last trip of the hardwater season, it was a good one to end on.
In Search of Whitefish and Burbot, Last trip of the ice season?
