“ I’m going fishin’… I got me a line… I know nothin’ about fishing… “ Chris Rhea couldn’t have put it better: I know nothing about fishing. Beyond casting a line with some kind of fish food in the water and wait and wait and wait until some fish shows that it has more intelligence than me by eating that bait and leaving the hook untouched, well I know nothing.
Here in Manitoba, fishing is a whole different affair, it’s an art and a real sport. Even more if you start talking ice fishing. Fishing on ice is a whole different way of fishing and for some a way of living. At any rate fishing in Manitoba is a good opportunity to catch great photographs.
On Lake Manitoba waiting for fish
And no, the fish is not biting through the ice to come up to present itself for my supper…
For that, fish have not enough and too weak teeth. Take a look at my weak attempt to photograph the thickness of the ice currently on Lake Manitoba at The Narrows.
The ice is about 3 to 4 feet thick and it strong enough to hold the small bulldozer that cleaned this patch of ice to make a skating rink.
3-4 feet thick ice
Of course there are still small signs saying “Thin Ice, keep off” but that is hard to believe. However, at The Narrows that may be possible due to strong currents between the north and south parts of the lake.
When we tried to check in on Saturday at The Narrows Lodge, we were told that everything was booked full and there was no place. Hmm, ok so we pushed on to the next town, I didn’t care for going back to Ashern. Well the next town is Ste Rose du Lac. A small town with nothing to do or to see, apparently. We were tired and wanted to eat something and then relax. The next morning we went back to The Narrows and tried to have some fun. We brought our new ice fishing gear, bought for 75$ at Cabelas’. They told us it was all we needed to catch the fish. Except that they didn’t give us a clue on how to get through 4 feet of ice…
On the Red River where we were a few weeks ago, the fishing community was very developed and some nice people bored us a hole through the ice in this way:
Getting a hole with an ice auger
Ourselves, we might have needed about 3 hours to get through that ice, it took them exactly 35 seconds… The community on ice was rather well developed, with roads, houses, parking and heating.
Ice fishing community
So, when we wanted to go fishing on Lake Manitoba at The Narrows, we thought that there might be at least one person to bore us a hole. With the Lodge being booked full and the reason for this lodge being there being fishing… Well, surprise. No one on the ice, the only fishing hut we found was a converted top part of a truck and furthermore, nobody inside.
Makeshift fishing hut at The Narrows
So, no fishing. Nobody around, a good moment to take some sunshine and try to get a tan. It was warm enough for me to take off mu fur toque my wife bought me in Ukraine and to open my jacket. No not so far as to get a full body tan, the ice would have melted in horror.
The next picture is the idea I had of the result of ice fishing at The Narrows, but it is from a different story…
Nice catch!