Ontario Angling Hitlist Chapter 1: Frigid Fishing

Ontario Angling Hitlist

By Logan E.

Chapter One: Frigid Fishing

Read Time 6 Minutes

I have always asserted that in life stagnation leads to death; when one lacks growth, challenge, motivation, drive, or change they become stagnated. It is vital to constantly seek out new experiences, interactions, hobbies, knowledge, or skills because these lead to enriching experiences that contribute to a positive mental and physical wellbeing. One of the main reasons I started this Ontario 58 species challenge was to drive growth and change in me as a person and as an angler; I could have very easily stayed in my comfort zone and pursued the same species utilizing the same tactics and I would have been decently successful. To become a better angler I needed to push past these familiarities and launch myself into pursuits involving tactics and species I rarely (or never) target; I needed to pursue Frigid Fishing.

If I were to choose a species I was not familiar with or rarely targeted it would either be walleye or lake trout, similarly if I were to choose a tactic to make me uncomfortable targeting those species it would certainly be through a solid sheet of ice. Enter the first few pursuits of my Ontario multi-species challenge: walleye and lake trout.

Lake Trout

When people often think of the king of the Great Lakes region most think of the muskellunge, but there is another heavyweight contender that actually gets heavier than the mighty muskie. The lake trout is one of Ontario's heaviest species of fish; there have been reports of triple digit specimens netted out of Great Bear and Great Slave Lakes in the Canadian Territories.

Despite its name the lake trout is actually a member of the char family and is closely related to the brook trout (another char) and Arctic char. The lake trout is a unique species of salmonid for many reasons: it is highly adaptable in its diet unlike it's salmon cousins; it can adapt to various diets and can subsist on micro plankton or large prey, it also lives a long time compared to other trout, salmon, or char- up to 70 years. Lake Trout typically eat prey fish, invertebrates, and plankton, but can also eat large prey like burbot, perch, Whitefish, or their own kind! The Ontario record lake trout weighed 63.1 lbs and had the staggering dimensions of 51.5x32.8"!

Anglers typically target these fish by vertical jigging through the ice or on open water, or by trolling deep in the summer time, unique opportunities to cast shoals for these fish also exist in cold water conditions. I had a very minute amount of success targeting this species in early January on fresh ice. I caught a very small lake trout vertical jigging a buckshot spoon tipped with a minnow head in 54' of water along a steep drop-off near a main lake basin. I jigged my spoon just off of the bottom of a diagonal cliff drop that I knew would have cruising Lakers; walls like this provide a good ambush point that schooling Lakers can utilize to corral prey species by trapping them against the embankment where they are easier to catch.

A very small example of a Laker I caught jigging

My buddy Calvin with a much more respectable example of a Laker

Walleye

The walleye is aptly named because of the opaque/reflective appearance of the lens of its eyes, a unique adaption for greater vision during low-light periods. It is a member of the Perch family and is closely related to the yellow perch and sauger. Next to bass the walleye is one of the most widely targeted species, pursued for its tasty white meat. It's distribution in Ontario is vast, with it ranging across all of Ontario in diverse environments, from the humblest creeks to the vastest Great Lakes.

An image I took that accurately exemplifies the name 'walleye'

The walleye is a bonafide predator with it consuming crustaceans, invertebrates, amphibians, and other fish species, due to it's ocular adaptions it capitalizes on low-visibility periods where it marauds unsuspecting perch and Cisco! Although it is not the largest fish species in Ontario it gets to a respectable size with the Ontario record being 36.5x21 inches in dimension and 22 pounds in weight.

Walleye are a unique angling target because they can be caught through diverse tactics: trolling, jigging, casting, bottom bouncing, and drop-shotting are the typical means of acquiring walleye.

A little walleye that broke the ice (pun intended) on my Nipissing Trip

My walleye mission brought me to the mighty Lake Nipissing which is a known muskie and walleye factory. Some buddies and I rented an 8 person ice hut on the lake through Lakeside Ice Condos; the hut was amazing and facilitated comfortable fishing for a lot of people. Ironically all of the walleye action came at high noon and the typical sun-up and sun-down period was devoid of action. The walleye hit on a mix of dead-sticked shiners and jigging lures. Our outfitter suggested using white and silver colours because the main forage in the lake is Cisco. I caught half of the walleye on a buck shot jigging spoon and a mister twister on a jig head, and the other half dead-sticking live bait. The windows were short but action-packed as schools of walleye and perch roamed underneath our campsite! I'm not the biggest fan of a walleye pursuit, but this endevour proved to be filled with action and the fish tacos were delicious.