Why I Don't Like Ice Fishing

When I lived in British Columbia my enjoyment of fishing blossomed. I had always liked fishing but when I discovered a book by R. Haig-Brown and through it Fly fishing my enjoyment turned to a passion It is hard to explain how something so fundamentally simple can be so engrossing. It is just difficult enough to be a challenge yet straight forward enough to reward any effort.


The advantage to making this discovery while living in B.C. was that it seemed that every brook and puddle was full of fish. One didn't need to be an expert to connect with a trout or two, even from the first.

 Seasons were long and the weather tolerable throughout the year so fishing could be a year round avocation. I was living on Richter Street in Kelowna at the time.

One crisp, January day my fishing buddy and I set out to try our hand at ice fishing. I stood in the yard beside my car and absorbed the pure, crisp morning. The sun was rising, bathing everything in a reddish glow. There was just the hint of a fruity, grape scent from the winery barely penetrating my awareness as I tried to blow a smoke ring with the puffs of vapour my breathing created with each exhalation.

The promise of the morning, as I crunched through the the snow the last few feet to my car, washed over me like the sun finally topping the roofs of the neighbouring houses.

We were headed for Bear Lake, a beautiful alpine pothole nestled in the hills above the west side of the Okanagan Valley. I knew this lake to be loaded with small Rainbow Trout. The trout in this region are a unique strain known as Kamloops Trout. Feisty and aggressive, they can grow to tremendous size but my experience on this lake was that the trout were small but plentiful.

It was a perfect place for a fledgling fly fisherman so doubtless a great spot for some January ice fishing.
We used a hatchet to cut a hole in the ice. Take my word for it when I tell you, that is the worst way to do it. About six inches down, the water started welling up into the hole and the next few minutes were a cold, soaking, splashing, mess.

Each stroke of the axe sent ice water flying but didn't make much progress toward opening a fishable hole.
Eventually we got an unsymmetrical gouge hacked through the ice. Of course we were so wet and cold by then that we took another hour to gather some wood, build a fire and warm up enough to be interested in fishing again.

In the meantime the hole had frozen again but that was quickly dealt with and we soon had lines dangling.
One eye for the rod tips, one eye for smoking boot tips, we waited, huddled just a little too close to the fire to avoid being scorched. Man it was cold.

For bait we were using the West Coast traditional ice fishing bait -Niblets Brand canned corn. I don't know why, but it works. One kernel on a tiny hook and a small handful thrown into the hole is the standard recipe. Within a few minutes we had our first fish.

The rod tip started shaking and I snatched it up off the ice. There was a substantial weight on the other end which I just derricked straight up and out of the hole. Within seconds and with no ceremony at all there lay flopping on the ice the biggest trout I had ever caught.

I didn't even know that there were fish of this size in this lake. Just then my partner's rod started thumping and he repeated the snatch and derrick to leave another trout laying at our feet. This one was if anything a little bigger than the first. And so it went until we each had three magnificent Kamloops Rainbows and decided to call it a day. It was barely ten o'clock in the morning.

I should have been happy but the truth is I was flummoxed. Having spent hours carefully crafting flies to match the fauna of this particular lake, having spent days reading the water and sweat practising with wispy leaders to put the perfect cast in front of a cruising fish, I had never managed to land anything even close to these trout, these trout taken almost off-handed on a kernel of Niblets corn.

I guess that it didn't feel sporting or even gentlemanly. The poor buggers were probably so cold that they were willing to do anything to get a little closer to the fire we had going up on the ice.
The day was pleasant and the company superb. The fishing though, well I guess it was too good. I was faintly ashamed of myself and resolved that if I couldn't entice fish like these fair and square with a well planned and well placed fly I would leave them unmolested henceforth.

And so it is that I don't ice fish. I do however tie a great imitation of a Niblets corn kernel in a number twelve and am presently working on a little fly pattern I call the Kraft Mini-marshmallow.