Crushed it, Out with my boys

Friday afternoon myself, my son, my son-in-law and my nephew headed up to the cottage to fish Nip on Saturday and Sunday. My son and I fish Nip on the regular but my son-in-law has never fished Nip or ever been ice fishing. My nephew is not new to ice fishing but is new to Nip.

Both days we headed 10 km offshore to the Manitous. Saturday was sunny and calm but cold at -22. Sunday was windy, overcast and snowing with temps of -14. Ice thickness was 18+ inches of hard black ice - no white. Our setup:



Pop up is an Eskimo Outbreak 650i XD and has enough room for 4 guys to fish comfortably. The bite both days was great and we caught a crap ton of perch, walleye, pike, cisco and believe it or not i caught a clam. The perch we kept were all between 9 and 13 1/8 inches. Some typical fish from the weekend:





Son-in-law's first ever fish thru the ice:



Typical pike:



Cisco:



Walleye:



The clam:



The 2 day Manitous haul. From left to right myself, nephew, son, and son-in-law with our haul:

117 Jumbo perch kept (9 to 13 1/8 inch) , 8 eyes (slot limit), 1 pike kept (22 inch) , 1 cisco kept (15 inch), about a dozen eyes put back and some perch put back as well (didn't really keep count of those). The fish we kept filled 2x 5 gallon pails. Burned thru 12 dozen minnows:

Fun time

That’s a haul indeed!

Hardy fishermen as that was a cold start.
I've gone soft in my old age with pop up and fair weather.
use to get into some nice perch years back at the Manitous

That’s a substantial haul Joe, good on you for getting the son-in-law out for his first trip as well!

Wow what a haul after what sounds like a great day

Enjoy the feast. Like the family photo. You guys should send that as a Christmas Card to the fest of your family next year.

Congradulations. Well done.
Hopefully I get a chance to go next weekend. Been so busy at work.

Wow. I really need to figure out a way to get up to Nip. But no way to get out to the Manitous - walker. But still hearing lots of good reports from people fishing elsewhere. Let's see if you have hooked a new ice fisher with the S-I-L.

Cool sounds great. I'm thinking of getting my gang together and heading out there. Any significant pressure cracks or slush?

We got on at the government dock in North Bay and rode from there. Biggest thing to watch for is drifts. There is a crack about 7 or 8 km out that runs more or less north/south. 3 weeks ago it was 6 to 12 feet wide when we crossed but this past weekend it had mostly sealed but is definitely still there so subject to change depending on conditions. Slush wise we only hit one very small pocket about 30 feet long and maybe 3 inches deep.

First for me. Finished cleaning the last of the haul this morning. One of the slot walleyes was tagged by MNRF:



Filled out the report to MNRF online - pretty cool and if it helps manage things all the better.