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You have not experienced all Canada has to offer if you have not gone ice fishing, and surprisingly, few people living in Edmonton have gone before!
I had recently gotten into ice fishing and thought that it would be fun to take some people along who had never been out before. There are two licence free, free fishing weekends a year in Alberta. One in the summer and one in the winter, which is an excellent opportunity to get people out fishing for their first time.
The free fishing day was coming up in February, and I started making preparations. We checked with Fish and Wildlife to see if it would be all right to get a group out, and we checked the fire regulations. Because most of the people had never been out ice fishing we decided to supply the fishing rods, which were pieces of lathing that had been cut into foot long pieces. We tied on line, de-barbed the hooks and they were ready to take out. We packed up the rest of the car and got ready for an early start the next morning.
Everyone met up just a bit after eight in the morning, carrying their folding chairs as we had asked. We brought many extra supplies, especially winter clothing, in case someone didn’t have the proper equipment, and it was a good thing we did! Most people were woefully unprepared, some were missing gloves, some didn’t have snow pants and one even showed up in leggings! It turns out that most of the group that came out were international students from all over the world! On the drive out to the lake, we learned that many from our group had been in Canada less than six months and most of them had not even had a chance to leave the city limits.
We drove out to the lake, a few hours outside of Edmonton, and managed to find a way down to the ice with the truck. We got everyone to unbuckle as we drove out onto the ice.
“Where is the lake?” One of the girls in the truck asked.
“We’re driving on it!” I said.
A look of panic, “You can drive a truck on ice?”
We stopped and started unloading the truck. The weather was perfect, not too windy and the thermometer read only a couple of degrees below zero.
Once we started drilling the holes in the ice, everyone looked much more relieved and seemed more confident standing on the ice; but most still jumped when a crack in the ice ripped past them underneath the covering of snow. The ice, at nearly three-feet deep, was almost too deep for the auger to drill and it was very difficult. Everyone who wanted to could try out the auger, although some of the holes were very crooked. Some had their photos taken holding the auger, or standing out on the frozen lake. I suppose when you come from a place like Ecuador, just being outside in the winter is an experience on its own.
We all sat around our holes. A little late, we realized we drilled the holes a little bit too close to shore, but instead of drilling another 15 holes we drilled a couple more further out and gave the existing holes a shot. Everyone learned how to put bait (a combination of corn, shrimp and bacon) on their hooks to make the jig look like a small fish. Half an hour passed and there had been no bites yet. I started to build a fire in case people were cold.
Our fire was a makeshift contraption; a two-foot diameter tire rim propped up with a metal grate across the top. Once the fire was going, we had a small group constantly huddled around it with people leaving to fish temporarily and then coming back to the warmth. We brought hot dogs and marshmallows in case anyone was hungry and we boiled water for hot chocolate. Most of the students had never cooked on an open fire before, but everyone seemed to enjoy the food.
Allen set a marshmallow on fire and started wildly swinging the stick around to put it out. Fortunately, we avoided the flying ball of burning sugar from hitting anyone and instructed him to blow the marshmallow out, and then we carried on.
Daren came over to get more bait for the hook. “I just keep getting nibbles; the fish got my bait again.”
So far he was the only one with a bite at all, so several of us clumped up around his hole. “See, another nibble,” Daren said.
Gavin replied, “You have a fish there!”
Daren pulled up the line and sure enough, he had a perch. It was not a massive fish, but for a perch, it was a keeper. I was instantly relieved that we had caught a fish! When everyone noticed that Darren had caught a fish, they swarmed over to have a look.
The fish was dispatched quickly and immediately Sean showed everyone how to fillet. Then the cast iron pan and lots of butter were brought out to cook the fish in. The butter bubbled and popped around the fish as it sizzled. It smelled so nice in the open air with the wood fire and cooking fish. It didn’t take long for it to cook, and once it was done, Daren offered a bite of perch to anyone who wanted some. Darren’s girlfriend Teryn tried some and then stubbornly sat down at her hole; she was determined to catch more fish than her boyfriend!
After the excitement of the fish had faded, I noticed a pile of charred marshmallows on the ground next to Allen. He looked at me sheepishly and said, “What do you do with them?”
“Well, you can eat them, or toss them in the fire,” I replied.
He grinned, tossed the group by his feet into the fire and then he plunged the next marshmallow right into the flames; seemed like we woke the pyromaniac up inside of him.
We never did catch another fish that day, but it was still a success. Everyone seemed to have a good time and everyone learned a lot from each other. On the way back into Edmonton I was asked a lot of strange questions, like ‘why did we cut down all of the trees for the farms’ where we explained that it was prairies around Edmonton naturally, and ‘is that a buffalo?’ about nearly every cow we drove past.
I would definitely like to take a group out next year, but next time, I will do some things differently. For example, we should have brought some maggots for bait, as the guys fishing with maggots next to us nearly had their limit of perch after three hours, and I would suggest bringing another power auger, because a hand auger is fine for a few holes, but through three feet of ice, it gets tiring fast. ■
Gwen Roy enjoys fishing when she gets a chance to go, and works as a biologist.
For previous Reader Stories click here.
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