First ice fishing trip of the 2008 season

I finally made it out for an afternoon of ice fishing on the Outaouais River near Pointe des Cascades. Not my ideal place to go, but with only an afternoon off, I figured it was better to stay local. As I don’t have an auger, and prefer to be sure that I’m on safe ice with other cars and cabins on the surface, it seemed like the logical choice. The ice was thick enough, and getting harder as the temperature dropped and high winds blew away / froze the wet conditions from the previous day. I originally tried the spot in 2007, didn’t get any bites then. I went out over deeper water this time, but I got skunked again, not even one bite! We fished ice rods, tip ups and some new home made contraptions I plan to use for big pike in the ice, using live and dead minnows, worms, and even some large, frozen sardines I picked up in the grocery store before going out. Needless to say, I won’t be going back to that spot until the ice melts as not a bite on 2 separate outings over 10 hours of fishing is not quite worth it. Again, the only up side was that we had no trouble keeping the beers cold…