Northwest Ice

Under the influences of one of these tiny windows of ice fishing opportunity we keep getting this winter, Noah and I headed to Northwestern CT in search of new species. The main target was rainbow smelt, Osmerus mordax a small predatory fish that spawns in flowing water in winter and early spring and travels in large schools. CT's native anadromous smelt population has been decimated and are all but extinct. That's why we were heading Northwest rather than south, seeking introduced landlocked populations in deep reservoirs. Historically, four bodies of water had smelt. One no longer seems to, at least they haven't turned up in electrofishing in a long time, one was just drained for dam repairs, and one is illegal to fish. We, of course, were fishing the fourth lake that has historically had smelt, the one that still does, isn't drained, and is perfectly legal to fish. Since we were completely in the dark about smelt targeting Noah and I both did quite a bit of research beforehand and I contacted some people I knew had done a bit of this fishing. We then set out on the biggest and deepest body of water we'd ever ice fished having some confidence we'd find our query.

We set up off a subtle point and I spudded holes at 20ft intervals starting near shore and going out. This is always a good idea to get to know the lay of the land and find fish. There wasn't a distinct deep submerged drop off that fish would be relating to, but the depth of the river basin was fairly clear, and the slope up to a a currently underwater road grade. I caught a perch almost immediately. As it turned out, that was the only fish either of us would catch on this lake that day. We had a few bands of probably smelt pass through under our electronics but we could get them to buy what we were selling. We tried another area and found it completely devoid of fish and so decided to head to a different lake altogether, one that used to have smelt but probably no longer does. What it does have is stocked trout, and we figured this would be an easy way to get the skunk off.

We started in shallow water there, along a weed edge we'd found trout along kayak fishing when the water was open. It seemed at least on this day they didn't have the same sort of interest in this area, so we devolved into just goofing off for a while. After more than one group of guys who had been out over deep water (about 40ft) left and mentioned catching fish, we decided to take their place. I'm glad we did, I got my first trout through the ice.

Three days late and I'd be pretty seriously hesitant to try ice fishing today. It honestly is pretty frustrating to be trying really hard to get into ice fishing and getting Just tiny windows of opportunity each winter when there's safe ice. This isn't how it used to be, and this isn't how it should be. I want ice that lasts, dammit!
Until next time.

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Fish for the love of places fish live.

Fish for you.

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