Winter on Lake Manitoba
Perch fishing has been pretty good for the first couple of weeks. Hopefully it will continue for another month. Temperature has just begun to warm up too. So the ice crack should start to pile up like crazy. the ice has been "talking" since yesterday when the south wind started. Quite often you hear "Chunk" as the temperature rises. Today we could hear rumbling like thunder for sometimes 5 minutes on end as the crack pushes together until something gives and carries on for 30 or 40 miles, crushing together 3 to 4 feet of ice.
"The Lake is big outside the Reef" This is a saying that was written on an old wooden fish tub that is still over at the family farm. It means outside Long Point Reef which is 4 miles south of Einar's island which is 2 and a half miles out from Scotch Bay which is 1 and a half miles west of my house, the lake is BIG! Kind of an inside joke between my brother and myself. We do not know who wrote that but it is very true. There is nothing but smooth mud bottom out in the middle of Lake Manitoba, but that is where the Perch are. The lake is big outside the reef.
Minus 46 Degrees Celcius with the Wind Chill, Feels pretty good? Not really.
That is the Jigger under 3 feet of ice. It takes out the line to set our nets.
Fishing was so good, one day this week we ran out of tubs. So we just dumped them on the floor. It takes around 240 Perch per tub to fill. Lots of picking in a day.
We catch a few pretty big Perch too.
