Renewal

After the long winter we had, it has been refreshing to check off the boxes of another spring season. The first striped bass of the year is always a notable fish. For me, this came in mid-April along a sandy beach, at high tide, before getting chased off the water by lightning. The fish ate a yellow wooden darter made by my friend Jim. He was next to me when I caught the striper, which was pretty damn cool.

Spring is also a favorite time to look for Native American artifacts. When I spent a day off arrowhead hunting in April, it was a bit early as the farm fields I visited had not been plowed yet. Fortunately, I was still able to find a small-stemmed projectile point made of quartz. It was evident that this point had been heavily reworked over time; a good reminder of how prudent these ancient tool-makers were. 

Another day this spring was spent in my kayak, on the same body of water that I was ice fishing just weeks before. A stiff wind made things challenging, but I found some lee behind land and worked my tail off for a 22-inch brown trout. I hooked another one that felt larger, but it came unbuttoned during the fight. It was the first time with my new electronics in the kayak—a gamechanger from what I was using previously, yet I still need to spend more time dialing it in just right. 

Old Fashioned Winter

It's been a cold winter and I squeezed as much out of it as possible. I fished through ice on 10 different days, in four different months, on six different waterbodies, with a bunch of different people, targeting a number of different species. There is still more than foot of ice on certain lakes and ponds in Connecticut, yet my season is over. And it will go down as one of the most memorable of my life. 

There were lots of highlights, but one that rises to the top was ice fishing with my uncle again after nearly eight years. I will always owe him a debt of gratitude for getting me hooked on hardwater. It came full circle this winter, with both of us witnessing each other's best ever trout through the ice. Those memories will forever be etched in my brain. 

Bringing my girls out three times this season was another high point. It felt a bit forced one 13° morning, while doing sock changes in our shelter in front of a Mr. Heater. They fought through it and earned the chance to see the biggest bass any of us had ever experienced through the ice. A couple of weeks later, we had a kids day in tee-shirt weather, chasing flags on a favorite pond, eating hot dogs and grilled cheeses. Those trips will always stay with me. 

It seems to be the new norm that ice fishing seasons like this one are few and far between. Some years I don't get to walk on my favorite deep-water lakes, or get to fish with my favorite people on earth. That's why winters like these become chiseled into our memory, and keep a fire lit until we're fortunate to live through another one. 

Early Ice Esox

What an impressive winter we're in the midst of. Connecticut hasn't experienced one this cold since 2017. Ice anglers can fish just about anywhere their hearts desire in the Nutmeg State. The deep snow and slush conditions haven't made things easy, yet there are stellar hardwater options for those willing to put in the effort and brave the elements.

Before we started measuring ice thickness in feet, I got in two pike trips on two different lakes. The common thread between the outings was frontal systems bringing in fresh snow. Both days produced a handful of northerns—nothing giant, but a solid way to kick-off what's looking like a lengthy season. 

Deeper water options have since been filling my cup, though I'd like to do an excursion for pre-spawn trophy esox before all of this ice fades away. 

One-Day Season

Last weekend's short-lived arctic blast produced just enough ice in Connecticut for one memorable day of hardwater fishing. Knowing this was essentially a one-day season, we got an early start and had lines in the water before first light. The little ice we had was strong and crystal clear. The first spud into it sent a loud reverberation across the waterbody. By mid-morning the ice was turning grey with air bubbles. By early afternoon, there was more water on top than there was ice below. It was time to go home. 

Those hours in between though were glorious. It was a scalding hot bite at times; the type of action you dream about when a lake or pond first freezes over. There was a point when I had three of my allotted six lines out of the water at once because I was unhooking fish and rebaiting tip-ups. Four of us fished together and we all caught our target species of northern pike, with a few good ones in the mix. A highlight for me was catching three of them by rod and reel. Something I have been exploring more of and recently wrote an article about.

It's not lost on me how lucky I was to get in a few hours of ice time this winter. The stars and moon aligned with the conditions, timing and location. For how crappy this winter has been in terms of local hardwater opportunities, this was an outing I will never forget. 

Farewell & Adieu

Red-winged blackbirds are calling in the marshes. Stonflies are hatching on thin blue lines. Osprey and river herring are arriving any day. All signs pointing to winter's last gasps and another ice season's end. 

The weeks and months leading up to ice fishing are filled with anticipation. Hours upon hours devoted to prepping gear, securing bait, analyzing forecasts, and checking ice. Then, after arctic blasts transform our lakes and ponds, we fish when we can until its gone. Sometimes the season doesn't last long and the brevity of it all adds to the allure. 

This year my hardwater season lasted 51 days from January 14 to March 5. In that time I made six trips to three water bodies--the first half focusing on northern pike, the second half reuniting with a favorite trout lake I hadn't fished since 2011. Those two styles of fishing are incredibly different, but each enjoyable and exciting in their own right. 

It's always bittersweet packing away the ice gear in the rafters of my basement, but bidding farewell to winter means saying hello to spring and all of the amazing outdoor opportunities it brings. 

Here a is a short video from my ice season finale and a few other memorable moments that will hold me over until next winter.

Raising the Bar

I have hooked and landed longer brown trout through the ice, but never one so heavy. This fish was stuffed yet still had room for my pike shiner set 30-feet down. By the time I had reached my tip-up, it had ripped dozens of yards of Dacron from my spool. Then I gained it back, hand over hand, and it froze on contact against the bare ice. Luckily most of the long battle was between the last 20-feet of line, half of which was 10# test fluorocarbon that gave me a little more confidence during the final throes around the hole. 

When my fishing partner reached down and helped scoop the trout topside, there was a sense of joy and relief, followed by fast action to document the new personal best before its healthy release. It is moments and fish like this one that become seared into our memory and drive us out into the elements each winter.

 

Return of the Jig

I really enjoy ice fishing with tip-ups, but there is something special, and different, about jigging. Hooking and fighting my quarry through the ice with a rod and reel is such a thrill to me. When the target species is a quality trout that rushes 20 feet up the water column to eat a metal spoon I am pulling away, well, even better. 

It had been 11 winters since my last trip to this favorite body of water. Like seeing an old friend, we picked up right where we left off. I already can't wait to get back there, and God willing it won't be as long until next time. 

Cutting Teeth

It’s hard to know exactly when the last day of ice season will be. You can tell when it’s getting close, but the thought of sneaking in one more trip is always there. When it’s finally over, after the auger and tip-ups have been tucked away, it’s good to look back on how things transpired. This past season I was fortunate to get on the ice nine times with friends, old and new, and witness some memorable catches. The highlight, though, was introducing my daughter to the pastime that consumes me each winter.

Cora is no stranger to fishing. She’s been joining me on open water trips for panfish, trout, and snapper blues since she could walk. Ice fishing is a different ballgame though—conditions are harsher, drives are longer, trips start earlier. Cora had been inquiring about hardwater for a while. Now six years old, it seemed like the right time. The season is brief in Connecticut, and circumstances don’t often allow a youngster to tag along, but it happened this winter—twice—and I’m grateful.  

There was a learning curve for both of us. More planning and preparation involved than a normal outing. Each of our patience was tested. It takes time to get set up on the ice before you’re actually fishing. Then there’s no guarantee the fish cooperate. A few things helped keep Cora interested—the first was going with other kids her own age. A friend brought his two boys and they had a ball exploring while us dads put lines in the water. Another way we kept them engaged was assigning tasks to help with. It turns out that keeping ice holes clean of slush with a ladle is a perfect job for six-year-olds.

Keeping busy.

Lucky for us it got cold enough this past winter to lock up a tidal cove of a large river close to home. The cove is deep and full of fish, nothing I would dare ever eat, but there’s always potential for lots of action and the occasional surprise trophy. Flags started popping immediately as yellow perch zeroed in on our live shiners. A couple of the perch were pretty large and all of them were fun for the kids to pull up by hand and proudly display.

Cora hoisting an eater-size yellow perch (that we can't eat due to PCBs).

A Hali jig tipped with a wax worm will catch almost anything through the ice

We didn’t know it then, but the next time the kids came out with us turned out to be the last trip of our ice season. It was a cold start that morning with temps in the 20s, but never once did Cora complain of the cold. Her first pair of merino wool base layers helped, as did the hand and toe warmers. I also busted out the trusty pop-up shelter where she enjoyed a hot oatmeal breakfast, which made it worth the effort.

A big mistake I made was not buying ice grippers to strap under Cora’s small boots. We lucked out with crunchy snow on the ice for her first trip, but the surface was super slick for her second outing and she was falling all over the place, to the point I was worried about her getting hurt. Thankfully our host that day brought an inner tube to lug his gear out and I gladly towed Cora around in it, including to a few fish flags.

Enjoying breakfast in a warm, albeit worn, shelter.

Cora with her first black crappie.

The highlight of the day, in fact the highlight of my ice season, came just before 9 a.m. that morning when the flag of our farthest tip-up went up and, like a sled dog, I hauled Cora a few hundred yards over the frozen terrain. The spool was spinning at a steady clip—I pulled the trap, set the hook, then proudly watched my daughter fight, hand-over-hand, a heavy smallmouth bass. It was the first smallie I had seen from this spot more known for northern pike, so it was a welcomed surprise and a moment to celebrate, one neither of us will soon forget. Cora’s fingers went numb from handling the cold, wet Dacron, but her grin stretched from ear to ear, and so did mine.

A fine fish and proud moment.

Stealing Home

For the second consecutive trip, the morning bite was hotter than two hamsters farting in a wool sock. The type of bait and whether it was alive or dead didn’t matter; the pike were hungry and far from shy. Flags were popping all over our spread, but particularly along a weed line that ran perpendicular to shore. I had just released a small pike and was rebaiting the tip-up it stripped when I heard something hit the ice. I couldn’t immediately place the noise, so I scanned the direction it came from and noticed about 50 yards away the rod in my I Fish Pro was missing from view.

Over the past few years, these contraptions have helped modernize the way ice anglers catch fish with tip-ups by allowing anglers to retrieve fish using a rod and reel, instead of the traditional hand-over-hand technique. They were invented in Canada and popularized by YouTube channels like Uncut Angling, Jay Siemens, and Clayton Schick Outdoors. In Connecticut, where ice anglers can fish with up to six lines, it’s impractical to use just I Fish Pros, but friends and I have added a few to our line-up and it’s been a hell of a lot of fun. 

When it fully registered that that the sound I heard was my rod falling, I broke into the highest gear one can travel in Yaktrax across ice. A pike had taken my bait and the stiff wind had wrapped my bowed line around the tripped flag of the I Fish Pro. The fact that my conventional reel was in free spool didn’t matter; when the fish began to pull the fouled line, the rod jolted from its holder and was gradually towed toward the hole in the ice.

From a few yards out, like the scene in Sandlot where Benny steals home, I slid on my side and scooped up the dragging rod that was inches from disappearing. With some luck, I freed the braided line from the flag and kept the fish tight in the process. That kicked-off an eventful fight consisting of me dancing around the hole to achieve favorable angles while the pike peeled drag and changed directions like a warplane in a dogfight.  

By this point, one of my friends watching the spectacle unfold ran over to assist. After a valiant effort, the pike began to tire and its jaws emerged upward from the icy water. Aaron placed his hand under its gill plate and hoisted up a very well-fed northern pike. Sporting beautiful dark colors and a big head and shoulders, it was my best pike of the ice season and my largest ever taken on a rod and reel.

A couple of seconds was all the difference between me landing that fish and losing an expensive combo in a frozen lake. A lesson was learned about the need to be more cognizant of wind direction when setting the I Fish Pro, but that awesome fight and fish further cemented the tip-up’s place in my hardwater rotation. Thankfully things turned out how they did and I have noteworthy memory that will always be tied to that morning on the ice.

Photo credit: Aaron Swanson

False Starts

Connecticut’s ice fishing season has been a series of false starts so far. With our current weather pattern, it’s been a case of one step forward, two steps back. The first holes drilled in the state this fall were around November 17^th on the usual small, shallow ponds in the northwest corner of the state. But, in what seems like a yearly occurrence now, it warmed up before the ice really took hold. This temperature tug-of-war didn’t change in December. It got could enough for more ponds, coves, and even some larger lakes to lock up, but not could enough to build a solid base of ice to survive the next warm spell and bouts of rain.

All that said, if you really wanted to fish hardwater in Connecticut right now you still can. There are a handful of water bodies tucked away in higher elevations of either corner of the state where fishable ice endured.  However, they have been pressured hard and, at least to me, aren’t worth using up the few free passes I’ll be given this winter. With the predicted long-term forecast, it’s going to be a while before anything exciting freezes over again. We could use an extended blast of cold air. I just don’t see it yet.

The first hole drilled of ice season

While watching the forecast and plotting my next move, I’ve been reliving the two times I was fortunate to get out this floundering ice season. Two weeks ago, my friend Jeff and I were the first ones to put holes on popular northern pike fishery, which had us brimming with confidence. We were treated to an incredible sunrise and three inches of gorgeous, black ice, but the pike bite never materialized, at least for us. Another group did quite a bit of flag chasing and landed their share of hammer handles using small live shiners. We were fine ruling out smaller fish that day in hopes of finding one large pike, but our dead baits sat mostly untouched. Fish or no fish, it was an awesome return to hardwater. I hadn’t laughed that hard or fished on ice that nice in some time.  

Into the black

The most important tool in ice fishing

Tecumseh at first light

Frozen in time

Oatmeal in the shelter

About a week later, a couple days after Christmas, we were lucky to get out again, this time on a different body of water with a few more friends. I’d fished there once before and knew it was in our best interest to ditch the dead baits for live shiners. Collectively for the group, it was a day on the ice to remember with both quality and quantity. The morning action was scorching hot; multiple times there were two or three flags up at once. The best part of my day, a moment now seared in my brain, came during a phone call home.

It was FaceTime call with my girls who were enjoying a lazy morning during Christmas break. I was jigging over a hole in the ice with a phone in one hand and a rod in my other. I had tied on a Hali tipped with a piece of smelt flesh, hoping to entice some keeper yellow perch or calico bass. There were a few marks on my electronics, but I was caught off-guard when my rod doubled over. This was no panfish and the kids could sense my excitement. When Jeff walked over, I passed the phone so he could give my wife and kids a live look at my first fish of the ice season, and what turned out to be my first-ever northern pike caught while jigging. A pretty cool moment for those on the couch and on the ice. 

A FaceTime pike on the jig!

It was that kind of day where things just went right. We were surprised to even be on fishable ice. There was about two inches of soft, grey ice on top and almost four inches of black ice underneath, but with temps in the high 40s, we lost ice throughout the day. That turned out to be the last day this spot was fished in 2019. Even cooler was that all five of us caught our first fish of the ice season that day, which would have been the highlight if it wasn’t for two brutes that capped off the trip.

Our host Mark hooked the first a little after 10 a.m. He’s not an avid angler and doesn’t own ice gear (yet), but his brother Frank insisted that he take a few of his flags that outing. Mark chose the right one to take and latched into a hell of a fish on light line and fought it very well. When it finally came topside, the pike measured about three feet in length and was thick all around; by far the best fish of Mark’s life. It was the high point of the day for sure until Buddy topped it no more than 20 minutes later with another girthy pike that went about a half inch longer. Both pike were released in incredible shape. With good genes and appetites, those fish are well on their way to becoming trophies. 

Mark with the best fish of his life

Buddy with best fish of the day.

Between the group we landed about 20 pike that trip, perhaps the most I’ve seen in one outing, with a crappie and smattering of perch mixed in. The majority of the pike were smaller in size, but all well-fed and growing, which leads me to believe this area is a healthy nursery for northern pike. It’s nice to know that there is always the prospect of very respectable fish moving through too. The two December ice trips were a great way to close out a year in angling. Now it’s a waiting game for the next ice trip, but there are plenty of open water opportunities to keep anglers busy until then. All the best to you and yours in 2020—tight lines!

Bye bye ice.

Last fish of 2019!

First fish of 2020!