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. 

Re-Cover

The number of false alarms was starting to remind me of The Boy Who Cried Wolf. The flag on one of my Heritage Lakers kept going up with nothing to show for it. There was zero wind to speak of that day, and my bait was the large and dead variety. Something was messing with me. Still, sooner or later, I just knew I was going to walk up to a spinning spool. I made a small adjustment by lowering the bait, laying it directly on the silty bottom. The next flag was the one. It turned out to be the largest northern pike I had ever landed, through the ice or otherwise. 

That series of events took place one mild afternoon in January 2017. Fast forward eight years and a photograph of me releasing the fish, taken by Aaron Swanson, now graces the cover of The Fisherman magazine. The new cover of an old catch has been a fun walk down memory lane. It's good timing, too, considering the Northeast is finally experiencing a winter like the old days. Unlike the last two years, there is no shortage of ice fishing opportunities. I'm trying to get out as much as I can, revisiting old haunts and even getting my girls on the ice with me. If not now, when? 

Tight lines and stay safe out there!

First Ice, First Fish

Our footprints were the only ones on the lake aside from the coyote tracks we followed to our spot. It was a deliberate walk in single file, testing the ice in front of each step with whacks from a heavy steel chisel. There should have been more ice than there was, but a recent snow had slowed its growth and hid her imperfections. Even still, there was enough black ice under a grey layer to make us feel comfortable, and temps would be stuck in the 20s all day.

It was mighty good to be ice fishing again, but in the back of our minds we knew it was fleeting. Just like last season, it looked like we could be in for only a short window, so we had to make it count. That’s why we took the day from work and set our alarms for 3 a.m. It’s also why we brought more gear than we needed. What’s the point of owning all of this stuff if we don’t get to use it?

A flag went up just as snowflakes from a light system started to come down. Jeff noticed it first, standing tall on the farthest tip-up in my spread. The bait was a large fallfish that I had trapped in my home waters and vacuum-sealed almost two years before. It’s hard to describe the feeling when approaching a dead bait flag on a windless day. Suffice to say, it was exciting to look down and see a slow rolling spool with line off to the side.

With a firm tug on the Dacron, my hook found purchase in the maw of a hefty pike and the fight was on. Euphoria was soon replaced by despair when the tension went slack. The predator below had bolted toward the hole, fooling me into thinking I had lost her. Once I retrieved enough line to come tight again, our spirits lifted and the battle resumed in close quarters. The fish was still green when her jaw opened just enough for a plastic gripper, and we kept her in the water as we removed the hook and readied the camera.

When we pulled the entire fish from the hole, what struck me first was its color. It sported the darkest greens I had ever seen on an esox—just an absolutely gorgeous specimen, thick from head to tail, well on its way to becoming a true trophy. After quick photos and a measurement, she kicked away strong and cemented a memorable first-fish-of-the-year moment. Jeff and I were flying high for the rest of the outing and it set the tone for the ensuing days, which may or may not have been the last of the ice season. Time will tell.

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. 

Winter Purgatory

Usually my inaugural fish each year is caught while ice fishing in Connecticut. It goes with saying that wouldn't be the case this year. Every day this month at the climate station in Bridgeport has been warmer than normal. The average monthly temperature there of 40.1°F is 8.4° above normal. The same goes for Hartford where the second warmest January on record is underway, 9° higher than average. For ice anglers and snow lovers, we are stuck in winter purgatory; a seemingly permanent state of early March.  

With no ice fishing opportunities within a two-hour drive, I have been looking for other ways to scratch the itch. I had a few hours to myself on a recent afternoon and decided to spend them along a stream I had not seen since May. A fresh rain had the flow in its sweet spot. I started out with the dry-dropper method and never strayed from it. The first combo of flies was my go-to; a #14 Stimulator dry with an #18 bead head pheasant tail nymph trailing below it. Kneeling on the bank beside a familiar riffle, I watched a small wild brown trout attack my dry fly. A surface eat in mid-January for my first fish of 2023. I'll take it. 

After several drifts with no love for my nymph selection, I swapped it out for more of an attractor pattern; a trusty San Juan Worm. That seemed to get their attention and a couple more wild browns quickly came to the net, each slightly bigger than the previous. I also missed one or two others due to late sets on the dry fly. It felt good to wield a fly rod again and shake the rust off. No native brook trout on this trip, and what the browns lacked in size they made up in their beauty. Just gorgeous creatures. 

The second and last stop of the afternoon was a short drive downstream. There were trout rising to what I believe were small winter caddis. I didn't bother embarrassing myself with a cast in this shallow, slow stretch; instead I just watched them feed for a while. I walked up to the next riffle and missed a fish on top during my first drift. That was it. A couple hours of fresh air and a few tight lines. It may not have been ice fishing, but to quote a legendary Stones tune, "you can't always get what you want, but if you try sometime you'll find you get what you need."

The Waiting

The late, great Tom Petty said it best: "the waiting is the hardest part." That's how I and many other ice fishermen feel this winter staring at forecasts and hoping something will change. The issue is not just in Connecticut; since the New Year, large swaths of the Northeast and Midwest are experiencing a lengthy period of above normal temperatures. January thaws are nothing new, but it's hard to remember a sustained stretch of winter warmth like the one we're experiencing now.

I enjoy learning about weather, yet I don't pretend to fully understand all of the reasons causing this particular pattern that we're stuck in. Like the complex Pacific jet and the North American ridge that have been blocking the deep cold air bottled-up in the Arctic. Aside from the elephant in the room that is climate change, there are a lot of moving parts. 

Winter is far from over and we are due for a strong cold spell. However, the days are getting longer and the sun is getting stronger. Ice fishing seasons are always on barrowed time, but this winter, more than most, that seems to be true. We only have a few more weeks to turn the bus around. 

My friend Jeff landed this northern pike on the lone flag of our short-lived ice season

It's crazy how we got here. Only a few weeks ago, right around Christmas, I thought we were off to a banner start to the ice season. A string of frigid days and nights locked up ponds and even some larger lakes in northern Connecticut, enough for eager anglers to squeeze in a few days of ice fishing. My buddy Jeff and I were fortunate to get out one of those days. We fished on three-inches of strong, clear ice. Optimism was high for some classic 'first ice' action. That was not to be. While we were both more than happy to be out there, Jeff got the only flag of the trip and made it count with a feisty northern pike that we watched battle its way to the hole under our feet. 

Things went to crap pretty quickly in the days after that. I went on a family trip to the Catskills for New Year's Weekend—not a lick of snow to be seen. By the time I got back, any ice we once had wasn't strong enough to fish on any more. The real kicker though was having to nix my bucket list birthday trip to the shores of Lake Michigan. For years, a friend and I have been talking about pulling the trigger on hiring a guide to put us on the world-class giant trout fishery in Milwaukee Harbor. Southeastern Wisconsin had early ice around the same time Connecticut did, but the warm stretch during the first two weeks of January killed it. Just today I had to cancel my hotel and flights. Woof. 

God willing I get another crack at that Milwaukee trip in the future. In the meantime, I have my fingers and toes crossed in hopes of a local cold snap that makes just enough ice for us to scratch our hardwater itch. All I'm asking for is the chance to jig up a few trout and chase a few pike flags. We've waited long enough. 

Tight lines and be safe out there. 

Dogs on ice. Mustard only.

WTF

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. 

First Encounter

Catching a beautiful northern pike through the ice will always be exciting, but experiencing it with my daughter for the first time brought it to another level. It has been incredibly rewarding introducing kids to ice fishing. Their reaction to this predator getting pulled from the hole is going to stay with me for a long 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.