We Found ICE! Sight Fishing For Remote Trout

Well, it's winter now. Like this happened very, very quickly. The lakes are still open around here, but we are doing something pretty special. We are heading north, looking for first ice. Guys, it has been way too long since I've done a filming fishing trip in Manitoba, and we're gonna drive as far north as we need to to find ice. We got a couple of people to pick up on the way, but this is gonna be a pretty epic first ice tour. It's kind of cold outside. We gotta get loaded up. We'll hit the road. Well, the goal is to head north until we find ice. It's a blizzard. The highway is shut down. We're gonna have to wait till it opens up, but we're gonna pack up. Got some electronics. We got some kitchen cook. I saw scoop, shovel. May as well bring a shack. Rods, you need those? All right, guys, we got some good news and some bad news. The good news, as you may be able to tell, the roads are open. The highways are open again. We're gonna make it to Manitoba. The bad news is Judy the cat got me in the face this morning, unfortunately, so. My beautiful face is tainted. It was never that beautiful, but we're headed to Manitoba for the first Manitoba road trip in a long time. I'm very excited about this, but first, we're gonna stop in Winnipeg, pick up our co-host, and we're headed all the way up. We're back in Manitoba. Icefish MB. Where's my logo? Icefish MB. It's good to be back. Maybe we'll see a polar bear. Who knows? Well, we made it to Winnipeg. We're about two hours in. We have a 14-hour road trip. We are headed up to Lynn Lake, to the end of the road in Manitoba. I've been to Lynn Lake before, a couple times, flown out of the airport, but also when Aaron and I delivered the fishing rods to northern Manitoba, we drove through Lynn Lake. It's noon. We just slept in the parking lot. I felt better. Aaron, how do you feel? I feel great, I think. Welcome to the sport fishing capital of Manitoba. So, there's a couple of stock trout lakes up by Lynn Lake, and that's where we're headed as soon as we pick up my teammate. You wanna go ice fishing? Let's go! Do you wanna pull ahead? Just pull under that tree there, kind of. We're just going like 15 minutes away, right? What do you mean? I gotta be back for dinner. We'll be back for dinner. My mom's cooking dinner. Yeah, we can. That's Alex Parrick. I called a long list of people, and he's the only one that responded to my call. So, we're taking him ice fishing. We're bringing him on a whirlwind tour. But all joking aside, Alex was out for the Winnipeg Ice Fishing Show. You guys, thank you so much for coming out to the ice show. Huge success. But anyways, Alex is still out. I'm not sure what he's doing right now. Anyways, we're going fishing with Alex. Still gotta park it. Look at this. I hope to catch one of these bad boys. Maybe one of those? What is that, brookie? Yep. What's that? Rainbow trout? Do you actually think there's gonna be ice? I hope so. Dude, it's minus 13, minus 14 right there. Yeah. And the small part, we'll be fine. We just gotta keep driving. Okay. All right, guys. We've been driving for six and a half hours, says my truck. The roads have gotten better, but we got a semi in the ditch right here. We've probably passed half a dozen vehicles in the ditch. I don't know what it takes to tow a semi out, but this looks pretty serious. It looks like everyone's okay. Just a quick push. Wow. That's a big... Look at that tow truck. That's a nice tow truck. That guy's like... Wow. Wow, it's like drifted in. We're stopping at a little lake just outside of Grand Rapids here called Footprint. It's a pretty shallow lake. So we're just gonna see if there's ice. I don't know. I'm kind of thinking there's not ice yet, but it would be a great sign if it was at least icing up on the shorelines because this is kind of our test along the way. What are the guesses on ice? I think it's too windy. I think it might be ice on shore. Ooh, that's all over the water. There's gotta be some ice that we just can't see. Great news. Look at all that ice. It's kind of slushy, but it's ice. It's on the verge. We're close. I think if we drive another seven hours, we'll be good. Set up the house right here. Sight fish. Sight fish? Well, Footprint is open. Welcome to Thompson, Alex Parrick. Welcome to Thompson. Alex, we have this thing in Canada called Tim Hortons. It is cuisine. Oh, do you think they're serving breakfast or no? Probably not. You guys aren't serving breakfast, are you? Just drinks? Okay. You got Timbits? Not even Timbits. Tim Hortons with no Timbits. All right. We're good. Thank you. What? They don't have anything in them? That was disappointing. So Timmy's doesn't have food, so we're heading to McDonald's after all. Okay, I'll get 10 chicken McNuggets with sweet and sour sauce. How did it go? What do you want? I want the 10 spicy. And we'll do another 10 spicy, please. I don't drink. What do you want to drink? I don't drink. Medium coffee. Wow. Thank you so much. Well, we got some McDonald's, getting some gas. This is our last stop in civilization. And then we're headed to Lynn Lake. I don't know if we'll make it tonight. It's like one o'clock in the morning already, but we're going to try our best. Might have to sleep on the side of the road. We might go straight to fishing, might check into the hotel. I don't really have too much of a game plan right now, but it's feeling cold. It's feeling like winter and I'm hoping there's ice. We actually don't know if there's ice or not. So that's, we might show up tomorrow and there might not be ice. We might be either driving home or spending a couple of days till it freezes, but we're trying. It is cold. There's gotta be ice. It's too cold for there not to be ice. Are you just going to watch me? Don't worry, I'm fine. He's so helpful. Look what I got for food. I'm not sure what's available in Lynn Lake. We got instant noodles. Nice. We got KD. Nice. And we got a staple, stag chili. This is what we're living off of for the next week. If we don't catch any trout. So hoping we catch some trout. It says five hours, 20 minutes, but it's only 324 kilometers. So I think we're on unpaved road now. So you can see Thompson to Lynn Lake, the home stretch. Here we go. Cheers. You guys are both going to sleep and I'm going to bring it home. We're good? Rolling? It is 5 a.m. in the morning. It took us just under 15 hours to make it to Lynn Lake from Kenora with a couple of stops and some really bad weather. But I think we're going to head straight to the lake. I don't think we're going to check into the hotel at five in the morning. So we're going to go to the lake, have a nap at the boat lodge. We'll check if it's open or not. If the lake's open, we might just turn around and head home. All right. We're just going to go down with the chisel, take a couple swings, see what we're dealing with. That's like three hits. We're right by a beaver lodge or something, but I can't really see anything right now. All right. Well, we'll definitely check things better in the light, but we're going to probably go sleep in the truck. This isn't really a great indication, but there is ice. The ice, the lake is locked up and I think we're going to find safe stuff. It'll only be making more ice tonight. So we're going for a nap. It is 5.30 in the morning, five and a half hours later, and we are here. We're going to talk about the lakes, why we're here, what we're fishing for. I don't know if I've given you guys any info, but- No. No, it's bedtime. We'll tell you what's going on tomorrow. I mean, in a couple hours. What did we find? We found safe ice. We found a lake that has some really big fish in it. And we even took a nap at the launch this morning. So I'm happy. Well guys, we've been up for a little bit. We did a little poking around at the chisel. We didn't film that part, but we got some safe, clear ice. Well guys, yeah. Manitoba stocks, I think Manitoba stocks like 70 different trout lakes. I was doing some research with rainbows, browns, brooks, tigers, splake. These couple lakes, Digny and Gemmel, they're called, these are the two near Lynn Lake. Giving you guys the lake names because they're stocked trout lakes. They're stocked to be fished. That's the whole reason. That's why these fish are put in these lakes for guys like me and you to come and catch them. I think these lakes don't get fished nearly as much as some of the Southern trout lakes, just because it's that remote, so long to get here. But yeah, I think they've been putting a couple thousand brookies, rainbows in here every year, every other year. Yeah, they're stocked to be fished. So we're coming to fish them. And that's what I love about, I don't know, doing the research on the Master Angler book and the stocking list. It's just, there's so many opportunities. And otherwise, I might not come to Lynn Lake, but now I'm coming to Lynn Lake to catch a big trout, to cross a new lake off the list. Alex has never caught a brook trout before. So that's one goal on the list. And just, it is stunning up here. I'll show you guys the lake, but yeah. Wow. It's winter time. It's ice fishing season. Actually, I should go test some jog jackets. What is he doing? I don't know what's going on. Well guys, I don't really know what to expect with this lake. We're going to probably try to pack pretty light, probably not bring out electronics. I think we're just going to bring a bucket of jog jackers and some bait. I see a moose nest over there, also known as a beaver lodge, but brookies do like them. So we're going to maybe head over there. We don't really have a schedule. So we're going to just stay here until we ice a couple far North Manitoba trout and get Alex's first brookie. That'd be awesome. All right, a couple of quick pieces of safety gear. This is probably the most important, very inexpensive. Some $10 ice picks. You can attach these to your jacket, wear them around your neck, wear them out your sleeves. And if you break through, boom, spikes go in the ice. It helps you claw out. A lot more difficult without that. As well, I'm wearing a floating suit. I know is a little more specialty, but it is that extra piece of mind if I were to break through. I got my Garmin inReach, and this is because we're out of cell service. I can message people. This thing is like a satellite communicator. Those are kind of extra type things, but this is probably one of the most important. And this is your spud bar. And basically this thing, I'm hitting the ice every step as I go, making sure the ice is good. If you're going through in one swing, you should not be on that ice. I like, you know, three swings, four swings, early ice and making sure that it's good, clear ice. Clear ice is king. If it's milky, if it's kind of chunky, it's not going to be as strong. So if we can find three to four inches, as you can see, we already checked the ice before. We know it's safe, but we're going to go out this way, swing in every step as we go. And there's a beaver lodge, a moose nest back there that I want to go fish in front of. I'm going to give a little sample of what we're dealing with for ice. As you can see, it is clear. It is blue. That is what we're talking about. That's probably three inches, maybe a little more clear ice. That's the good stuff. This is, I would say good for foot travel, but guys, do what you're comfortable with. There's no need to rush it if you're not comfortable. I'm sure it's not the same everywhere on the lake by some of the creeks and some of the narrow areas. There is still open water. So just keep it in mind. Not sure what I deserve in my life to be out here on this beautiful lake with Jay, but vibes are immaculate. We got first like snow coming in yesterday here in Manitoba. It's later, that's for sure. Even though I'm not a Canadian resident, I know that this is pretty late ice, usually for up here. But man, he drove the whole way yesterday because he doesn't trust me in a car. Flip back to maybe when I ran a car into a ditch. Maybe that's one of the reasons, not really sure. But glad Jay made us up here safely. I'm pumped. Remember the Manitoba, baby. I did a video a couple of years ago on Footprint Lake, the lake we checked that was wide open. And I'd never used the Jaw Jacker before. And my boy Keevan and Marcel and myself lit it up. And Jaw Jackers are one of the keys to success. And basically a Jaw Jacker sets the hook for you. It uses the bend of the rod. And there's a couple of reasons why that's good for Stock Trout. Number one, Stock Trout love to drop the bait. They love to light bite it. But as well, they often hit it on the other end of the spectrum and they'll like gut hook themselves with a small hook and a piece of bait. So this sets the hook at the perfect time when they put some tension on it. And it just hooks the fish nicely. It's way better hookup ratio than your conventional tip-up. They're not legal everywhere, but they are legal in Manitoba. What rod are you using? I got a couple of drenches. Is the drench, the drench is the rod, eh? Yeah, but they all are. We designed the 39-inch rod because that's the perfect size for the Jaw Jacker. They designed this rod for the Jaw Jacker. How good is that? So what we're gonna do is basically a split shot, a hook, and then a minnow or some trout dough. We'll kind of switch it up between the two. So the thing about this eyelet is it's just a loop. So I tied a piece of tip-up line into a little loop there. Just gonna pass it through like that, and then through itself. My motor skills are not top-notch. Look at that, it's just gonna pull tight, boom. So how this is gonna work, I'll just show you guys the run down on the Jaw Jacker right now. It bends down, and that little loop is gonna stay open there. So right there is where it's gonna hook in. Right there, that loop hooks in, and then you set it up. And then you gotta make sure your line's sitting there. And that's what it looks like when a fish goes up. And then you want your face right about here. Yeah. I heard it, I heard, oh! That was not staged. A 20-inch brookie's a lot more impressive than a 20-inch. Dude, there's a 29-inch brookie entered out here. 29. What year? Only a couple years ago, like 2017 or 2019 or something. Like, and that fish, if that fish is still alive, that's a match of a record. Yeah, we're getting had too. We're fishing for a match of a record here. This is land of the giants. All right, guys, well, we've been doing a lot of messing with gear. We got some jawjackers out. I am gonna do some active jigging yet, but that's the beauty of using your set line. You're allowed to use two lines in Manitoba. So we can have six between the three of us, which you just gotta take advantage of. I mean, there's so many times that that extra line is what makes the day. So I'm gonna start jigging eventually. I'm gonna do a little walking around and chiseling and seeing what we got for ice in some of the other areas. But I'm happy with how much ice we got here. This is perfect. Just need a bite, one bite away. We're fishing for trophy fish. A trophy in Manitoba, master angler's 20 inches. 20 inch brook trout, 20 inch rainbow, it's a trophy. I think a 20 inch brook trout is a lot more impressive. I don't think I have a 20 inch brook trout. I think my biggest brook trout in Manitoba is probably about 18 inches. So 20 inch brookie would be pretty exciting. We got the lake to ourselves, so it's pretty phenomenal. All right, well, Alex and I scouted a different area that's got good ice and it's a little bit of a reef. Actually, my buddy, Johnny O'Connor, who lived up in the lake for a while, recommended that spot. So we're gonna head over there. We kind of missed the morning bite, but I do like going over there. It is a nice piece of structure and yeah, who knows? We'll spread the Jawjackers out again and see if we can get on some action. The days are so short. It's gonna be sunset at 4.30, so we don't have the opportunity to move around too much. I'm just happy we're fishing today because yesterday was a blur, but we made it here and that's what counts safely. Anyways, we gotta go. This is what we're dealing with for ice. This is what you want. Good, good, solid blue ice. It's gonna hold a lot of weight. Anyways, our Jawjacker popped up. Let's see what we got here. We're gonna hang outside for a little bit. You control the conversation, okay? Fish, fish, fish. Got him. Yeah. Brookie. So sick. Did you get him in? This is so painful. He's up. Nice. Let's bring him out here. Good job. First brook trout. My first brook trout ever. Came up and munched a little microplastic, sight fished him. We haven't seen anything all day and just don't even know what to say. That's such a nice fish. Good job, dude. First brookie ever? Yep. There you go. Okay. You were so calm about that fish. Dude. First brookie. Success. Thank you. My first brook trout ever. Unreal, sight fished in four foot of water. That was so good. Came up, got the hook set. Show me, show me what you caught it on. What sealed the deal? That's it. Mini Slayer. Short shrew's head. That catches them, eh? Catches them. It glows pretty nice too, which is cool. That fish came in and was just charged up. Yeah, I think we should just keep doing this. Well, as you can see, the light has faded and we didn't get a primetime feeding window, which I don't know, maybe it was all a morning bite, but we fished today, which alone was a success making it up here. And he caught his first brookie. I think we got some pretty cool footage of it. So we're gonna pop down the shaft. I'm gonna mark it. You gotta mark your sight fishing holes. I'm gonna put a tree or some branches over top just so, you know, it's gonna freeze overnight, but if for some reason someone's walking by in the dark, they don't fall into that hole. Just a little extra precaution, but we're headed to the Linn Inn. Hopefully there's some warm food and then we're gonna make a game plan for tomorrow. There you go. Welcome to the Linn Inn. Oh, it's toasty. It's warm. Check this out. This is the best part. Come into my crib. Welcome to the Linn Inn. Housekeeping. Fluffy old pillow. We got conjoining rooms. This is actually nice. This is perfect. Where do you wanna sit? Perfect. I love Linn Lake. This place is awesome. This place is pretty nice for the middle of nowhere. For a guy like you. So you got your first brookie. What's the goal for tomorrow now? We gotta catch more than one. Big rainbow maybe? We'll start with one. We'll start today with one. It was a little stressful that we didn't have a fish by three o'clock and then all of a sudden. I'm just happy we found ice. We're going fishing again tomorrow. Great day today. Amazing underwater strike. So happy Alex could get his first brookie. But I think we're gonna break these videos into a couple parts. Brandon's actually staying in the hotel room tomorrow to edit. We're bringing the iMac on the road to bring you guys videos as quick as possible. Shout out Huntfish Manitoba for making this video possible and make sure to stay safe if you're heading on the ice. We'll see you soon.