I was hesitant to give up on the ice fishing season, I was having so much fun and there was still lots of good ice. Plus I just got a new Vexilar and 13 Fishing WhiteOut ice rod that needed some use. But the tales of flowing rivers with shiny adipose fined freight trains where beginning to flow my way, how could I resist? It was only a matter of time until my float gear was rigged up and ready to go and Colton and I where ready to attack the ditches. Then the worst thing possible happened, snow and below freezing temperatures. At least we thought that was the worse thing we thought could happen, the fish didn’t seem to mind the weather at all. Rainbows where in the rivers and after a little adapting on our part, we found them…lots of them.
The day started with our hands freezing to our centre-pin reels and needing to break up some ice on the river banks to help land the the fish we caught. Then the slush started…and man was it flowing! We tapped our inner bass angler and started to “dunk” the slush flows. Bulk shooting, shortening up the leads, and waiting for a gap in the slush to drop our rigs into. Drifting Raven Steelhead Worms and Berkley Powerboat Trout Worms was the key until the slush disappeared and the water levels rose. With the visibility shrinking to a few inches, roe became the go-to bait. Staying aware to the changing conditions, making small changes, and communicating with each other was how we kept the action constant.. The most interesting part, we only fished one pool all day, with the water levels and air temperature going up the pool kept reloading with fresh fish for us.
