Ice Fishing Tips from a Pro

In this episode, Andrew and Jesse interview Drew, an experienced ice angler and fishing guide. They discuss the basics of ice fishing, including fears associated with ice fishing and the essential gear needed for a successful day on the ice. Drew shares his favorite aspects of ice fishing and provides insights into his guiding service. They also delve into specific techniques and lures for perch fishing. 

In this part of the conversation, Drew discusses various topics related to ice fishing, including jigs, baits, and techniques for catching lake trout, whitefish, and pike. He also provides tips for beginners and emphasizes the importance of safety and proper clothing. The conversation concludes with a discussion on the best time to catch big fish in winter and the choice between an underwater camera and a live scope. 

Check out Drew:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dchookedguiding/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/quan.soup/?show_switched_toast=0&show_invite_to_follow=0&show_switched_tooltip=0&show_podcast_settings=0&show_community_review_changes=0&show_community_rollback=0&show_follower_visibility_disclosure=0

Baits mentioned: Use these links as a reference - exact colours and sizes may not be shown. We have no affiliation with these shops but if you happen to order do us a favour and mention in the order comments that we sent you! 

Berkley Vibrato: https://www.gagnonsports.com/copy-of-berkley-vibrato-1-2oz-pinkescent-2-1-4.html
True North Laker Tubes: https://truenorthbaits.com/products/mouthful-tubes-6?variant=43841493926051
Jigging Rap: https://www.gagnonsports.com/copy-of-rapala-jigging-rap-glow-slimy-lime-09.html
Meegs Jigs: https://www.canadiantacklestore.com/collections/ice-fishing/products/meegs-jig?variant=36272978493595
Slab Grabber Spoons: https://www.canadiantacklestore.com/collections/ice-fishing/products/mcgathys-slab-grabber?variant=37228850380955

Transcript

Jesse (00:02.306)
We'll just go over the outline quick, just so we kind of have an idea what's gonna happen. So we're gonna talk, well, first, Andrew's gonna do the intro, which is just whatever. And then I'm gonna do an interesting fishing fact, and then we're gonna get into like an introduction about yourself, and like, feel free to like pump your guiding service, like that's what this is all about. Just like, tell me a bit about yourself, what you like to fish for, blah, blah.

Drew (00:25.052)
Okay.

Jesse (00:30.25)
And then there's the questions there. We kind of outlined like why you like ice fishing, why people should try it. We're kind of like catering this podcast more to like people that are like beginner to intermediates. So like.

Drew (00:42.611)
That's what I love the most. Yeah, that's great. That's great. Yeah, absolutely.

Jesse (00:45.386)
Yeah. And yeah, just have fun. And the other thing you'll notice with this software is like probably the footage you're seeing of yourself is pretty clear, but maybe like you'll see me and Andrews just get super blurry. Just don't worry because.

Andrew (00:55.104)
Yeah.

Andrew (00:58.992)
or even if like we just, it goes like a black screen on your end or whatever, just keep going as if it's all normal. Yeah, that's okay. So what.

Drew (01:04.775)
you're blurry right now Andrew you're like not anymore but yeah okay.

Jesse (01:04.926)
Yeah.

Jesse (01:08.886)
Cause I guess what happens is it records on your device and then the files go to the cloud of this Riverside app and then it downloads like pristine like video. So it's not just like zoom crap. Yeah. And the other.

Drew (01:18.275)
Okay, right, right.

Andrew (01:20.24)
Yeah. You'll see that you'll probably see the top of the screen there. It says like a percentage uploading and on top of your screen. So that's, that's your computer trying to keep up with uploading. Once the recording is done, anything that's left to be uploaded. Once you've stopped the recording, it'll finish off. So, um, but yeah, like I said, if it goes blurry, don't, don't worry.

Jesse (01:23.946)
uploading.

Drew (01:26.98)
Oh, yeah, yeah. 99%

Drew (01:38.985)
Okay.

Jesse (01:39.806)
Yeah. And then after we're done recording, yeah, and after we're done recording, like he'll stop the recording, just stay logged in until it completes. Like I'm sure when we're done, we'll talk for a few minutes anyway. Because if you leave immediately, then all that it won't save, apparently, I don't know. So, yeah. So this is what, episode 41?

Andrew (01:52.607)
Yeah.

Drew (01:52.875)
Sure.

Drew (01:56.764)
Oh no.

Andrew (02:03.124)
This is 41.

Jesse (02:04.382)
All right, Andrew, start any time.

Andrew (02:07.244)
Well, welcome to another episode of the Average Ontario Anglers Fishing Podcast. I'm your host this week. It's Andrew and as a guest, we have Jesse as usual, and we also have Drew. Now, don't get confused. My name starts with an A-N and his just finishes off with a Drew. That was the dumbest joke you're going to hear tonight, hopefully. But-

We're, we're exciting because this podcast is all about ice fishing. We talked a little bit about it last, last week too, but this year I'm getting pumped as 2024 now and I can't wait for, you know, the time I can be out on that hard water and get going. So I'm excited to learn a lot from Drew today because he is, uh, he's a hammer when it comes to ice fishing. This guy knows, knows his stuff. As yeah, for sure, man, as usual, we're going to start off with an interesting fishing fact though.

Drew (02:58.685)
Thank you.

Andrew (03:04.48)
which Jesse has repaired that is completely unknown to myself or Drew as to what the topic is so we'll see if we deem it as interesting or not.

Jesse (03:14.942)
Yep. All right. So feel free to, again, this is our first guest in a while. So feel free just to, you know, talk and go along with this. This is an interesting one. I kind of really liked the fishing podcast we did a few months ago about different fears. Remember, we did the one about fishing fears, and we kind of covered a lot of topics from like getting struck by lightning and hypothermia, and grass carp, stuff like that. So I was actually thinking, what are some fears that pertain more to ice fishing?

could be interesting, okay? So don't judge me by the pronunciation of these words because I can't pronounce half of them because some of these fears, the pronunciation of what they are is pretty complex. So I'm gonna try my best at it. So I, oh yeah. So the first one is actually called Pegaphobia, which is the fear of ice. So that's not good for ice fishing. Imagine being an ice fisherman, an ice angler,

Andrew (03:58.732)
Apparently even the word pronunciation.

Drew (04:11.248)
Boom.

Jesse (04:15.57)
and you're absolutely terrified of ice. And these people are not only just scared of ice in large areas, but they also can be afraid, terrified even, of ice cubes in drinks. That's how bad their fear is of ice in their drinks. Now you may think, obviously fears are there for different reasons, people have fears of different things.

Why would someone be afraid of ice? What could have caused this? Because you're probably just not born with a fear of ice because ice is a natural thing, right? Yeah, sensitive teeth for sure. But you might have a near death experience or traumatic experience with ice or snow. We may think of like, you know, maybe you're ice fishing and you actually, you know, fell in the water and were under the ice. That would be something traumatic and that might give you this Pegaphobia, which is the fear of ice. So that's one thing that...

Andrew (04:49.216)
Sensitive teeth.

Jesse (05:10.782)
It's a weird, not a weird fear, I guess. It's always a fear, I guess, of mine when we're ice fishing that you always see those movies when someone crashes through the ice and they're underneath the ice and they can't find the hole. That's terrifying. Like that's super terrifying. So that is one of the fears. That's the most, probably one of the more normal ones we're gonna talk about. So there's another one, which is, it's not very weird. It's called cryophobia, which is

Drew (05:21.031)
Yeah. Oh, yeah.

Andrew (05:22.517)
Yeah.

Andrew (05:31.469)
Oh no.

Jesse (05:38.198)
the fear of the extreme cold. So as an ice angler, having a fear of cold is probably something you don't wanna have because generally speaking, except in Ontario apparently, it gets pretty cold in the winter, especially when you're on the lake. I'm sure you've been out on like Simcoe or whatever and you get those like 40, minus 40 kilometer power, winds that are minus 40 and it just freezes. Like Andrew, I remember his mustache just froze up last year.

Drew (05:51.251)
Yeah, yeah. Oh yeah.

Andrew (06:06.598)
Yeah

Drew (06:08.287)
get the eyelids are frozen, everything's frosted. Oh yeah, oh yeah, I've been there.

Jesse (06:08.318)
all the droplets. Yeah. So that's a legitimate fear. And this fear oftentimes is caused by someone that may live in a very, very cold area of the world, like somewhere like up in the mountains, or like, you know, we're talking the Arctic, Northwest Territory, something like that. And it obviously has...

Andrew (06:11.441)
Yep.

Jesse (06:34.422)
you know, some basis, obviously, because if it's freezing cold, that's obviously something dangerous or something that we should fear. So that's another fear. Now, another one, which is actually, I think the funniest one that I found is. This is called. Try po phobia, which may sound slightly kinky, but it is. It is the fear of holes. So imagine you're ice fishing.

and you don't know your buddy has this phobia and you drill a hole through the ice, he looks down and just starts screaming his head off because this fear is the fear of holes. And for whatever reason, maybe it's the fear of the unknown of what might come out of the hole or maybe you just look into the hole and you don't know what's gonna come up, maybe something scary, but that's a legitimate fear that apparently is not super uncommon to have. Now,

Drew (07:01.726)
Oh, man.

Drew (07:25.579)
You gotta bring him to a crappy lake, for sure. And just drill a big grid of holes. Poor guy.

Jesse (07:32.054)
Yeah.

Andrew (07:34.745)
I was thinking what kind of a toilet does he use that doesn't have a hole on the bottom?

Drew (07:38.943)
Yeah.

Jesse (07:39.506)
Yeah, it's a serious problem, Andrew. Something that I'm glad you don't have.

Andrew (07:43.868)
Now, now what you need to do here, Jesse, is, is cause you can edit the audio a lot better is just be like, look a hole insert Wilhelm scream. Anytime that we say hole the rest of the podcast, you to insert a Wilhelm scream right after it.

Jesse (07:52.276)
Ha ha

Jesse (08:00.103)
So that that's one fear that it sounds random, but I mean, there's people are afraid of so many different things, obviously, but that's I found that's one that for an ice fisherman would be terrible. It's like you said, if you're crappie fishing, like oftentimes when we're perch fishing, we're just running gun, we're drilling holes, drilling holes, drilling holes. And it's not just sitting in one spot all day. So every time you drill a hole, your fishing buddy just starts freaking out, you have to calm them down. So if you do have these fears, man.

Drew (08:24.607)
Yeah.

Jesse (08:27.222)
We're not making fun of them. This is a serious thing, but these are things that if it does happen, at least you know now what's going on. So the last fear, it really applies to Andrew and Drew here. It doesn't so much apply to ice fishing, but these are things that you could possibly see while you're ice fishing. You ever guess what it is?

Andrew (08:49.2)
uh... blizzard

Jesse (08:49.386)
It's called, it's called Poganophobia. I'm not pronouncing these right at all. It's a severe fear of beards and mustaches.

Drew (08:59.899)
Ah, I like that one.

Andrew (09:00.644)
I'm not seeing that, you're seeing that, Jesse.

Jesse (09:02.702)
Yeah, this condition can make it difficult to function in a lot of social situations where people may have beards, which oftentimes outdoorsmen, not so much outdoors women, but mostly outdoorsmen have facial hair of some kind as I'm trying to grow right now. But that's something. So say you're ice fishing and yeah, say you're ice fishing and you go up to a guy and he's catching fish. You're like, Hey, how's it going? He turns around and he has a full beard and you're just like,

Andrew (09:19.376)
Don't gatekeep, Jesse.

Jesse (09:30.178)
So of all these fears, they're all pretty serious, but which one would you say would be the most scary for yourself, hopefully not the beard one?

Andrew (09:41.454)
Why don't you go first, Drew?

Drew (09:44.289)
Uhhh

just like the fear of ice in general I mean that would be terrible if you want to try ice fishing and you're scared of ice probably not the place you want to be but that's a bad one man the fear of ice in a cup too like that's mind-blowing

Jesse (10:02.122)
Yeah.

Andrew (10:02.192)
You know that girl on Jerry Springer or Morrie with the olives?

Jesse (10:06.538)
Yeah, she was afraid of olives for whatever reason. Ha ha.

Drew (10:09.412)
Oh, you... I don't get it.

Andrew (10:12.08)
For me, I'd say, yeah, being afraid of the ice because you, ice fishing comes with the fact that you have to trust your instinct and your, your knowledge of the conditions of the ice that you are on and trusting your life with. So anything to, that would decrease your trust in, in that ice you're standing on is, is going to be a bad situation.

But I kind of understand the fear of holes because anytime I go ice fishing and I'll like pull my phone in my pocket, I'm just like, the chance of this, if it falls 100% is going to fall in that hole. Like I have that fear of holes.

Jesse (10:46.175)
Yep.

Drew (10:46.291)
100%, every time, every time.

Jesse (10:51.828)
So anyway, again, we're not making fun of people if you have these fears, I just found it interesting and some of these fears related to ice fishing. So we'll let Andrew take us back to the main topic of what is it ice fishing essentials. Yeah.

Andrew (11:03.377)
Ice fishing essentials. So Jesse and I, we have talked about a little bit about ice fishing before. The great thing about seasons two, when it's starting now for the podcast this year is we're actually going to be hitting prime ice fishing time. So we'll have more of an opportunity to talk about this stuff. And Jesse and I, we've, we've done ice fishing for years together. I lived on up on or close to Lake Simcoe. So I used to frequently go and fish for a perch.

the ice. Just a classic pastime for me. I still love to do it when I can get out there. But I am excited because Jesse, like both Jesse and I, we're very limited in our ice fishing experience, I would say. We have, like I've caught a rainbow through the ice singular. I've caught one. I know Jesse, he's still trying to get a lake trout under his belt. You know, I've caught, I've caught a handful maybe. We've each caught some decent perch.

But that's about the extent, I just got a couple of pike. I've yet to catch a pike through the ice. So we're still pretty green when it comes to the actual firsthand knowledge of ice fishing. And yeah, you can read a bunch of books, but when you get to talk to someone like Drew here, who has real life experience doing it, there's so much you can glean from someone like that. So we have some awesome questions that we have ourselves. And we also then at the end, we'll have some questions from our Instagram.

followers that were able to post someone on a post Jesse did recently. So we're going to talk about some of the skills and everything from basics, from beginners to advanced tips for guys who've been ice fishing as well, their whole lives maybe. So let's start off with, uh, Ontario or what do you like about ice fishing?

Drew (12:50.663)
do I like what do I love about it oh there's so much to talk about so much to love about it but I would say honestly it's such a short window you know what I mean you've only really got a good maybe two and a half months not this year obviously but normally it's getting shorter and shorter unfortunately but I would say honestly the thing I love the most is the opportunity that it brings you can go out there

Andrew (13:06.865)
It's getting shorter.

Jesse (13:08.684)
Yeah.

Drew (13:18.291)
You can go to a pothole back lake that has just say rainbow trout and you can drill in five feet of water, put your hut up, you can drill a site hole and you can actually, it's like you're in a fish tank, you know what I mean? You can experience that whole, that whole deal is amazing. There's so many opportunities that you have, like back lakes that maybe you cannot put a boat on. You can never put a boat on it. Well now, if it's locked up, you can walk across. You can walk through the bush.

There's just so many adventures to the sport. It's just amazing.

Andrew (13:53.38)
And so that, that does really well. Even the second question I was going to ask is like, why should people try it? The accessibility is, is huge. Like ice fishing. Yeah. Like you say, you can get anywhere now. Yeah.

Drew (14:01.435)
It's huge. Not everybody has like a truck and boat, right? Not everybody has a truck and boat or like even a kayak or they might not have anything. So when the lake is locked up, you can walk out there and you can ice fish and you can go exploring. I'm telling you, it's like Ontario is such a beautiful place and there's so much lakes. There's more than just Lake Simcoe. There is so much opportunity on the ice. It's crazy, man. You know?

Andrew (14:16.342)
Mm-hmm.

Andrew (14:29.712)
Yeah. And most people I find when you mentioned ice fishing, I would say majority of, perhaps even our listeners would say, what comes to mind, what body of water comes to mind when you say ice fishing? Lake Simcoe, ice fishing capital of the world. Like people come from all over to fish that lake. But it's, I'm sure, like, would you say that in your experience?

Drew (14:30.965)
Yeah.

Drew (14:49.724)
Yes, yes.

Andrew (14:55.492)
Is ice fish is Lake Simcoe your favorite place to go ice fishing or are there so many other great opportunities? I'm not asking for GPS coordinates here for your favorite Lake. I mean, well, not during the recording. We'll ask after, but.

Drew (15:05.183)
No, no, of course, of course. No, no, of course. So I've been fishing Lake Simcoe for the better part of my life. I've lived here for 30 plus years. I've been on the lake pretty much my whole life. And to be honest with you guys, I would say, realistically, 10 to 15 years ago, that lake was something else. It was special. It was unbelievable. Now, I'm not the... I try not to be on it as much as I can. I've done a lot more...

Jesse (15:08.419)
Yeah.

Andrew (15:27.517)
Mm-hmm.

Drew (15:34.151)
Muskoka trips lately, especially being like a lake trout dude There's so many opportunities in Ontario to chase after lake trout But everybody seems to think that like Simcoe is the only place you can go and catch a 20 pound lake trout But that's not true, right? There are lakes around here that do have 20 25 pound trout in The problem is Simcoe not now is it is way over pressure Way over pressured and it's becoming a problem in my opinion You know

You got way too many people out there and the limits, I don't know, I think the limits, they could maybe work with those a bit because the lake's just getting, it's not, it's like 15 years ago, you could walk out there, you could catch 10 trout all by yourself, 10 trout, no problem. Now you're lucky in a day, man, like you're lucky to drive into one or two of them. Honestly, it's becoming really tough out there now.

Andrew (16:23.166)
Mm-hmm.

Andrew (16:28.533)
Yeah.

Yeah. And even just the fact of how much of our winters have been changing, like lakes, that affects Lake Simcoe so much because like when I lived in Lake Simcoe, you know, that was, that's going back eight, eight to 10 years now when I was out there and I would drive my old Cavalier out all the time, like when January hit, there was a foot and a half of ice out there. Easy.

Drew (16:55.443)
Tons of whites, tons. Yup.

Andrew (16:57.444)
There are so many years I'd have to get an extension from my auger to drill through the, you know, the almost three foot of ice by hand. Like it was nuts. But I remember a couple of years ago, they had the huts out for maybe like a month and a half. Like the hot runners, they couldn't get them out there and they couldn't run their big, you know, machines and stuff. So just because I guess it's a large lake, it's-

Drew (17:05.023)
Yup.

Andrew (17:22.276)
It's especially on the trout grounds and whatnot. If you're not in the Bay or something like that or between the islands, it can be a hard lake to actually freeze over to get access to the areas you wanna be on.

Drew (17:32.896)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Now.

Andrew (17:34.892)
So yeah, there's a few different issues that are kind of pressure or hitting that.

Jesse (17:35.074)
bought a

Jesse (17:38.582)
I was gonna say I bought an extension for one of my augers a few years ago. I haven't had to use it. Literally like, again, we fish Simcoe, mostly for perch and stuff. But back in the day, we had to use, we had an auger with an extension because we had just a power drill, like a DeWalt drill with our auger. And you know, you could get through maybe 24 inches ice with that, but then you'd be hitting the drill. So we bought an extension so we could, we'd be drilling over 30 inches.

Drew (17:38.716)
Yeah.

Drew (17:45.909)
Love you.

Jesse (18:06.55)
But the last five years, I haven't had to use the extension. In the areas we're fishing, there's literally not more than 24 inches ice ever. It's just, yeah.

Drew (18:09.448)
Yeah, yeah.

Drew (18:15.143)
It's wild. It saddens me big time.

Andrew (18:18.132)
So, yeah, so you're saying that you've...

Jesse (18:21.142)
Know who it makes happy though. It makes happy people with a fear of ice Because slowly it's just melting. I Was gonna say before we go into the next question. Do you want to do the first question there Andrew? I think my writing I messed it up

Drew (18:25.211)
Yes, yes, that's right.

Andrew (18:25.38)
Hahaha

Andrew (18:33.484)
I was actually just getting into that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So with the amount of stuff that you've gone fishing in a few different areas, so tell us a bit about yourself. So you do guiding, right? So.

Drew (18:47.039)
Just, yeah, so this is the second year now, yeah. Year two, yeah, just started.

Andrew (18:50.513)
Nice.

Andrew (18:54.318)
So what's your company name then, your guiding name?

Drew (18:57.331)
DC Hooked Guiding.

Andrew (19:00.16)
Fantastic. And do you primarily, are there any lakes you primarily go on that you guide on?

Drew (19:06.495)
Generally it's going to be Lake Simcoe and Koochiching and then Lake Joseph as well is one of my big ones too. If you want to chase big lake trout, that's what I recommend honestly is Lake Joseph. That's my opinion. But if you book in with me and you say no I want Lake Simcoe then we go to Lake Simcoe right. But generally those two bodies of water yeah.

Andrew (19:20.611)
Mm-hmm.

Andrew (19:28.544)
Fantastic. And how would someone contact you then? If you're looking to get some guiding services, we'll make sure we get you plugged for sure.

Drew (19:37.243)
Yeah, well the best ways right now is basically my Instagram that's at DCHookedGuiding. The same with my Facebook is DCHookedGuiding and my phone number is linked to both as well. So you could call and text anything you want to do. You can email. It's there as well. Yeah.

Jesse (19:54.206)
And we'll link everything down in the show notes if you're listening to this funny story. I actually entered a giveaway for, uh, you had a Lake trout, a kayak Lake trout, uh, giveaway and I randomly, I saw it and normally cause you know, we're, we're a slightly bigger account, so we don't really generally enter giveaways. Cause I'm like, you know what? I want someone else to win. I always feel like guilty winning a giveaway, but for some reason, the day before, like that day when you're like last two hours to enter, I was like, Oh, what the heck? I want to catch a Lake trout. So I entered.

Drew (20:03.089)
Yeah, yeah.

Drew (20:14.14)
Right.

Jesse (20:22.838)
And it turns out that I won and I was like so happy. And you were just like, it has to be this specific day. And it turns out that was the day my buddy got married or it was either his bachelor party or his wedding. And I was like, I can't go. If I go, I'm gonna be a huge wiener. And I was like trying to think in my head, I was like, how can I spin this to get out of this bachelor party? But yeah, I couldn't go. And I was so mad. I was like, the one time I win something. Yeah.

Drew (20:24.423)
I pulled your name. Yeah, I pulled your name.

Drew (20:32.231)
Yes.

Andrew (20:36.968)
Hahaha.

Drew (20:37.642)
Yeah.

Drew (20:50.724)
One time.

Andrew (20:51.948)
Hehehehe

Jesse (20:53.29)
But I've been following your Instagram for a while. And I know people like you are very humble, but I'll toot your horn a bit right now. This guy hammers fish. Like you're looking to fish, ice fishing we're talking about, but also kayak fishing for lake trout, like jigging for lake trout, giant lake trout, and not just like one. Like I'm watching you, you're out on one of those lakes and just, oh, this is fish 12 today, and just these big, beautiful lake trout.

Drew (21:11.655)
Yeah, my favorite.

Jesse (21:22.078)
And I'm like, you know what, that's an experience. I had the pleasure of fishing with another guide last year and it was a fantastic day. And I was like, I learned so much. And just the experience itself was amazing. I was like, next year, I was like to my wife, I'm booking with this guy 100%. This is before we even decided to do the podcast. So I'm not just being a butt kisser right now. But I was like, dude, I was like, I wanna catch like a legit lake trout in a kayak or like up doing that. So.

Drew (21:22.205)
Yeah.

Drew (21:43.711)
No, no.

Andrew (21:44.087)
Hehe

Drew (21:49.095)
Yeah.

Jesse (21:51.55)
You look through Drew's Instagram and it's big jumbo perch, big whitefish, lake trout, just insane fishing. You're an absolute hammer. Yeah.

Drew (21:59.915)
Thank you, thank you. Yeah, yeah. I love it, man. I live, that's what I live for, man. I just, I love to fish. I love it.

Andrew (22:08.616)
That's awesome. And part of the big thing going with the guide, like Jesse said, when he went with him last year, it's not about really what you catch that day is you're getting your value from the information you can, you can get from, from guys like yourself.

Drew (22:21.895)
100%. And I've told that to actually a couple of my clients. I said, yeah, you're paying, I'm going to bring you out and you're going to hopefully catch fish. Well, you should, but you, but you're paying for the knowledge. Like you're taking home a lot of knowledge that you can apply the next time that you're out on the water. Right. So that's a big thing too.

Andrew (22:30.322)
Mm-hmm.

Andrew (22:39.9)
Yeah, like you're essentially as a someone who would be there with a guide, you're taking that guides, like you've been fishing, you've been guiding for a couple of years, but you're able to be a guide because you have all these years of experience, like decade over a decade of experience fishing these lakes. So all that's condensed now into this, like one little visitor, like, look, let me show you everything I can do. And that's, that's what we're going to be kind of picking your brain on a bit right now. Is

Drew (22:53.911)
Yeah, so much so much time on the water, buddy.

Drew (23:01.78)
Yes.

Andrew (23:07.048)
So people are gonna hear a little bit of what you have to offer. Just enough of a sampling so that we can learn something now, and then hopefully they'll wanna learn more from you and give you a call in a little bit too.

Drew (23:16.915)
Hopefully, yeah, I hope so.

Jesse (23:19.026)
Yeah. And again, we'll leave the link down below. If you're interested in anyone, just click the link. It'll take you to his Instagram. You can check out some of his fish pictures at least and, you know, maybe whet your appetite for the 2024 fishing season, either ice fishing or, you know, fishing open water. So.

Andrew (23:33.44)
Yeah. So what is involved in getting started? If you, someone has never gone ice fishing before, um, you know, maybe they're open water fishermen, but what would you recommend that is gear or equipment that they need to get in order to have a successful day ice fishing?

Drew (23:52.071)
Well, the basics, right? You're gonna need a hand auger. A hand auger is important to have, obviously, for making holes. You're gonna need a rod, a rod and reel. You can go to Walmart even, honestly, for 20 bucks. You can get a rod and a reel for 20 bucks there. You're gonna need some tackle. And again, if you're on a budget, you can go to Walmart and you can get a tackle pack for 10 bucks, right? So you got your hand auger, you got your, Andrew's laughing, he's like, I have a whole stash of those.

Andrew (24:20.674)
Hehe

Drew (24:21.971)
You got your hand auger, you got your rod, you got your tackle. You probably want to grab a bucket. It's pretty important. It's great because you can put your stuff like inside the bucket as you walk out and then you can use the bucket as your seat as well. Obviously. Um, you know, that's pretty like the basics. That's like no graph, no huts. And I would say like before you even decide to even walk on the ice, you want to buy some picks, you want to buy a spud bar, you want the proper clothing.

Andrew (24:40.704)
Mm-hmm.

Drew (24:51.635)
and take it from experience, you want the proper clothing, trust me. Don't skimp out, don't go to Giant Tiger and spend like the 30 bucks on a coat, because I have gone through On Simcoe twice in my life and one time was pretty sketchy, like it was bad, it was very bad. So I learned my lesson. So yeah, you want your ice picks, you want your proper clothing, you want your spud bar. Your spud bar is probably your best friend on the ice.

I'm not kidding. The spud bar is your best buddy on the ice. It's very important.

Andrew (25:25.94)
For anyone who doesn't know what a spud bar is, it's essentially like a straight, heavy crowbar. And you're just, you're picking up the ice in front of you as you walk just to make sure that if that bar goes through, that means it's unsafe ice. So you're just testing the ground in front of you to make sure that it is good. So if you go one, go ahead, Jesse.

Drew (25:39.079)
Yep. Rocker. Yup.

Jesse (25:47.662)
I was just gonna say, so that's the basics. And say, again, we don't have a lot of time on this podcast, unfortunately, maybe we'll have to do a part two one day. But if you were gonna get into electronics, this is probably where Andrew's gonna go. Yeah, so like, yeah, what would be the first step for you, general purpose?

Andrew (26:01.408)
It's exactly where I was going. I was like, what would be that first thing that you would recommend?

Drew (26:10.643)
like the first like sonar I would buy maybe.

Jesse (26:13.706)
Yeah, because I know like people are like, oh, should I get a camera? Should I get a flash or should I just use a, you know, 2D, you know?

Drew (26:21.667)
Well again, if you're on a budget you can buy a Hummingbird Piranha Max for $150, right? That comes with the transducer and everything. You could buy the Garmin Striker 4, I believe? I think those are on for two and change. Those are great units. Those are great units. They read perfectly, they read your line perfectly, they mark fish perfectly. Those are probably somewhere like the lower end, but still work well units, right? That I would say. Yeah.

Jesse (26:32.646)
I have that, yep. They're great. Yep.

Jesse (26:50.93)
One thing that we found is we did have the Striker 4, the little ice bundle, which honestly we've been using for what, almost 10 years now, things great. I'd say the one thing that really we enjoyed getting probably about four or five years ago was a little underwater camera, mostly using it for perch fishing because this particular camera, it only has a 30 foot cord. Some of the more expensive ones have like 90 foot cords. But for perch fishing, we found that you can get a fairly inexpensive camera.

Andrew (26:50.976)
Fantastic.

Drew (27:08.393)
Right.

Drew (27:15.879)
Yeah.

Jesse (27:20.566)
we would just walk around, look for, you know, the normal spots we go for jumbos, drill a hole, drop the camera down, swivel it around, be like, there's nothing here, and then just keep walking, drop it down. You'd land sometimes right near, you know, a whole pot of them swimming around, you just start fishing. So the camera for us was fantastic, but.

Drew (27:34.591)
Yup.

Andrew (27:35.584)
Clearwater Lake the camera's awesome You can see the strike too. It's exciting to see the strike. You know you'll see oh like Yeah, he's got the minnow, but it doesn't have the hook yet And he's way to you know you're not preemptively setting the hook so you're landing way more fish too if it's like a light bite It's it's a blast

Drew (27:38.323)
Yeah, for sure, for sure. That too, yeah, you can see when they eat it.

Jesse (27:51.862)
That being said, I did use the camera on Nipissing and that particular week we went, the water was not clear. And I dropped the camera down, like just thinking, oh, I'm gonna be able to see all these walleye down there. You couldn't see three inches in front of the camera. So really, if you're looking to get a camera, my advice would be make sure you're fishing a lake that has some clarity to it. So.

Drew (27:51.939)
Yeah.

Drew (28:11.591)
Yeah, yeah, for sure.

Andrew (28:11.988)
Yep.

So we're going to get into a few different species specific, you know, techniques and lures that you would recommend. We'll see how many we can get through, but starting off with perch, something that I love. I'm real excited for perch this year. So what would you recommend for techniques that someone should learn? And maybe some of the top lures you'd recommend for, uh, for going for, for jumbos.

Drew (28:37.831)
Yeah, sure. So first and foremost, I really have never used live bait. Like I don't, I don't use live bait. I don't, never actually. Um, so like if you're someone again, who's just starting off and you're perch fishing and you want to locate these fish, me, I like the mud bottoms, like the sand flats, the basins, if you will, right? Those deep troughs that are just mud and sand on the bottom because

Huge schools of perch, they're just gonna roam these basins, they're gonna roam these mud flats, and they're eating bugs and blood worms and whatever, right? So, look, that's what I would start at, is I would start, me, I like the 20 to 30 foot range, mud bottom and dirt bottom. As far as baits go, I mean, I'm a jig and wrap guy all day long. I love these little jig and wraps. I think this is a number three, Rapala.

Jesse (29:27.263)
Yeah.

Andrew (29:29.004)
Thanks for watching!

Drew (29:33.467)
It's just a matter of you hit bottom and me, I bring them up off bottom two inches off bottom, like just enough and I snap it once and pause. And those big fat lazy jumbos, they will crush you on the pause. It's very important you pause for two to three seconds. That's how I like to do it on the perch end. I like to just use jigging wraps, man. I'll be honest. Sometimes if they're being like...

Andrew (29:42.54)
Thanks for watching!

Andrew (29:50.486)
Hmm.

Drew (30:00.691)
Weird, I'll use a slab grabber maybe, maybe a dinner bell, something like that. But the jig and wrap, man, I recommend, like everybody ties on a number three jig and wrap and tries that out for sure.

Andrew (30:14.536)
I know that there was a time. Yeah. Jess, Jesse is more successful than myself. I do have a couple. I, it should become more regular in use for me. Absolutely. But the slab grabber is one that I mean, there's, there've been a couple times when you're sitting on top of a school of perch and you drop it down. It's like, you can't, you can't even, it doesn't hit bottom before you got another one on. Jesse and I had a run. It was like, it was like an one hour on top of this school. It has come in by and we couldn't get our lines back in the water fast enough. It was just perch after perch. Like it's so cool.

Jesse (30:14.742)
That's actually one of my favorites.

Drew (30:29.663)
and

Drew (30:35.539)
Yeah.

Drew (30:44.08)
That's the best man. That is the best is when they're under you for so long and you just, and they stay there and you're just one after the other. Yep.

Andrew (30:49.788)
Yeah. So that's like, I'm, yeah, like I said, I'm excited for Perch just cause when you can get those times, it just is, is it's so fun to have, you know, I know I'm going to have next hour of insane insanity.

Drew (31:02.555)
Especially when you have like, yeah, light line, light rods. I mean, it's, it is really fun. A big jumbo on the end. Yeah. You can't beat it, man.

Andrew (31:11.24)
Yeah.

Jesse (31:14.014)
Yeah. And one thing, just to elaborate a bit about the jigging rap, because they catch everything, it's a classic, like you catch almost anything on a jigging rap.

Drew (31:21.071)
Oh yeah, I mean, oh yeah, like if there's pike around, they're gonna smash it. If there's pike around, if there's crappie around, they're gonna hammer it, right? I mean, yeah, you catch a lot of fish on a jigging rap, not just perch, but because we're speaking about perch, that's generally what I'm jigging. 99% of my day out there is just a number three jigging rap. Love it.

Andrew (31:34.197)
Mm-hmm.

Jesse (31:41.086)
And what I think one of the awesome things too, about the jigging rap is like Andrew said, sometimes you just gotta get your lure down quick because you wanna keep this fish and they might be starting to lose interest and a jigging rap sinks like a bullet and some other spoons or little tungsten they slowly flutter down or the tungsten slowly going down and the jigging rap's just like boom, right to the bottom. Yeah.

Drew (31:49.292)
Yes.

Drew (31:53.246)
It's like a rock.

Drew (32:01.48)
Yup. It's all fast. It's fast and yeah, like that pod, they will stay as long as you just drop it down, drop it down, drop it down. They won't go anywhere, man. They will eventually because like, but it's such an effective lure for sure.

Jesse (32:16.222)
Yeah. So again, we're going to link all of the recommended lures. So if you're interested in buying any of these, we'll just put some links down to some local tackle shops. You can support one that's close to you. And definitely check that out. Because I know a lot of people are like, oh, man, link below the lures. I want to buy the ones you're talking about. But definitely the jigger app is one. Yeah. I actually just bought two of them at the ice fishing show. I had heard so many people have really good success with them and.

Andrew (32:16.571)
Awesome.

Andrew (32:33.901)
Hehehehe.

Drew (32:34.079)
What's a dinner belt?

Jesse (32:43.486)
I have so many ice fishing jigs and stuff. I'm like, oh, I don't need any new ones. But I was looking at them. Actually, we met the guy from Guggen Squad. What was his name, Alex Perrick? He was there, we met him. It was actually a funny story, because Andrew's not really, he doesn't keep up with all the fishing politics kind of stuff. So I was like, oh, there's Alex Perrick. And he's like, who? I was like, the guy from the Guggen Squad. And he's like, oh. I was like, go take a picture with him. He's like, oh, hi.

Andrew (32:51.732)
Mm-hmm.

Drew (32:52.915)
Oh, Alex Perrick was there. Yeah, yeah, I saw him there. I know. Yeah.

Andrew (33:11.348)
Hahaha.

Jesse (33:12.762)
and they just bonded over the fact that they both had mustaches. It was pretty funny. But he had no idea who he was, which is even better.

Drew (33:16.08)
Oh yeah, the stash crew.

Andrew (33:20.957)
Jesse pulls up a video, he's like, this is him, like, dude catches musky.

Jesse (33:25.227)
Yeah.

Drew (33:25.387)
Yeah.

Jesse (33:27.622)
Anyway, oh yeah, so definitely. So what's the next fish, Andrew?

Andrew (33:31.376)
I want to hear about Lake Trout.

Jesse (33:33.862)
your specialty.

Drew (33:34.084)
Oh, my favorite, my favorite.

Andrew (33:35.44)
My s- I hope you're talking to Drew and not Andrew saying, your specialty. It's like, I've got a handful in my time.

Jesse (33:40.012)
I definitely was.

Drew (33:46.195)
lake trout. So lake trout baits, where do you start? There's so many amazing baits for lake trout. Let's just go with the ones that I use on a regular basis. My top three lake trout baits that come with me every outing. Starting with number three is gonna be your like the obvious the paddle tail swim bait. I got this on the Kailin's one ounce jig head. This thing destroys lake trout. It doesn't matter what lake you're on, you drop this down.

great bait. Number two is gonna have to be the tube. Well, it's probably my favorite bait in general is the tube. That's a True North bait tube actually. That's their new six inch. This thing's a beast, a magnum. I can't wait to use this, but the tube jig's unbelievable. And honestly, I caught some. Yeah, yeah, they do. And I've

Andrew (34:34.657)
We saw those at the ice fishing show. They look good.

Jesse (34:38.858)
And that has the stinger hook too on it, right?

Andrew (34:40.416)
Yeah.

Drew (34:41.759)
They do, they, yeah, they've got the, yeah, it's right there, just a smaller one. My favorite bait, honestly, guys, the one I catch all my PBs, all the trout you've ever seen me hold is the vertical tube, I make these myself. It's my favorite way, it's my favorite bait, it's unbelievable. Catches monsters, monster Lakers, yeah, yeah. So those are my three favorite baits.

Jesse (34:47.095)
Nice.

Andrew (34:55.38)
Hmm.

Andrew (35:00.285)
That's cool.

Jesse (35:06.215)
That looks like a bait that I used for musky, but just like the small size. You could probably use this. I've heard of guys using big musky tubes, like not this big, maybe like the seven inch ones for Lake Trout.

Drew (35:10.487)
Oh nice! Oh yeah.

Drew (35:19.911)
Yeah, so I have a buddy of mine, he rips big bondy baits and he crushes them on bondy baits. It's wild, man. Wild.

Andrew (35:31.4)
That's awesome.

Jesse (35:31.566)
So it looks like most of the baits you had are white. Does that seem to be the best overall color?

Drew (35:35.327)
I am, I'm a sucker for white. I'm a sucker for white, yeah, yeah. So most of my tubes, it's either white or white and chartreuse a lot of times, but mainly all white is my go-to. They see it well in the water column. You know, it's just the OG bait is just a white tube, right? And then even hair jigs, like hair jigs are so effective on lake trout. You can't go wrong with a good hair jig.

Andrew (35:36.168)
white and soft plastics.

Andrew (36:03.532)
Hmm. That's awesome.

Drew (36:05.407)
Ahem.

Jesse (36:05.538)
So when you're fishing these baits, can you describe to us like the basic technique? Say you get to a spot you're fishing, you drill a hole, what are you gonna do?

Drew (36:15.571)
I'm going to drop down, so say hypothetically if I'm in like 70 feet of water, I'm going to hang my bait minimum 20 feet off bottom. And I'm going to hang it there. You can choose to either, you can call them, climb it up and down the water as much as you want if you want because they cruise everywhere. They cruise all over the water. It's crazy. You can do that. You can just leave your rod hanging and do nothing and play on your phone and have one rise off the bottom and chase you.

Andrew (36:25.129)
Wow.

Drew (36:45.171)
And that you could just jig, you could just hang out in your hut and jig the tube until you have a chaser, right? That's what I do. I just, half of mine, I'm not even on the rod. I'm just hanging out. I'm just hanging out in the hut. I'm on my phone, blah, blah. And then you look at the graph and there's a chaser. You grab your rod and you just burn it away. And they absolutely clobber it. It's fascinating, man. It's wild, yeah. So I just, yeah.

Andrew (37:05.452)
Hmm. So as, as soon as, sorry, as soon as you see like a trout coming up on the graph or on the flash or whatever, you just start, you try and get the bait away from it essentially.

Drew (37:16.939)
Yeah, so you wanna make them wanna chase. So like you don't just grab your rod and just burn the bait away. You don't just rifle it off because chances are they're just gonna turn back down to bottom. You wanna get them to chase. So me, as soon as I have a chaser on the graph, I'm lifting up my rod slow like this. I'm bringing it up slow. I'm not even reeling, I'm just lifting up the bait. And she will tell you right away, she's either gonna hit the jets.

or she's gonna just go back down. Nine times out of 10, as you raise your rod tip, she's gonna start to scream up. Then you start to burn it. The faster you go, the faster she goes. So it's wild, yeah, it's wild.

Andrew (37:56.816)
That's awesome.

Jesse (37:59.394)
That's when your heart starts pounding.

Drew (38:01.931)
Oh man, especially in the kayak. It's such an adrenaline rush, man. Wild, yeah.

Andrew (38:08.556)
Is catching them a little off topic from ice fishing, but it's catching them in the kayak, like it's the exact same technique that you're doing when you're on the ice.

Drew (38:15.835)
I do the exact same thing. I literally, I chill on my way point and I vertical jig all day long. Yeah. That's all I do. Yeah, man.

Andrew (38:21.261)
That's so cool. That is so cool.

Jesse (38:24.898)
So you talked a little bit about perch locations. So you're looking for mud sand flats and 20 to 30 foot or something like that. When it comes to lake trout, just overall, because mostly you're gonna be fishing obviously deeper water for lake trout generally. What are you looking for? Say you go to a lake and you have Navionics because most people can get that. If you're just getting into the sport, what are you kind of looking for?

Drew (38:33.415)
Yeah, yeah.

Drew (38:54.603)
As soon as you open Navionics on a new lake and you want to trout fish, you're gonna want to focus on main lake reefs, or huge main lake shoals. Any kind of shoal or reef, it's pretty much a go-to, at least to start off. That's what I'd recommend, man. I don't want to give too much away, but if you're starting off and you want to hunt down a trout, you're gonna want to be near like a reef, a shoal.

Like even a hump, it could be like the slightest hump, but just any kind of structure, to be honest, right? It's very important.

Andrew (39:32.3)
Because I know for myself, like I had heard before of, if you're going for lake trout or deep water fish, you wanna fish the deepest hole in the lake. Is that, like, is that true in every case? Or you go to a lake, they have, yeah, there's a 70 foot hole there, there's a 50 foot hole there, and a 45 foot hole over there. Are most of the trout gonna be at a 70 foot hole, or are they gonna be in those other, you know, maybe not as deep, but still deeper sections of the lake or nearby them?

Drew (39:59.755)
So that's the beautiful thing about the winter time is when those temperatures hit down in the low 30s, just like they are now, the beautiful thing is lake trout, they go everywhere they want. They can be in 20 feet of water, they can be in 120 feet of water. So in the winter, like again, you could be on the side of a reef in 70 feet of water and the top of the reef tops out at like 30 feet.

There could be monsters on 30 feet of water because like the thermocline is really not there, right? I mean, the temperature is the same everywhere now. So no, like they won't all be caught. Like they're not all freaking deep. Some are shallow, some are deep. They're cruising everywhere, right? They're cruising everywhere. Whereas the summertime, yeah, like if you go to like Semco, for example, in the summer, it's pretty obvious where you're heading, right? So yeah, no, they're pretty scattered. They're pretty scattered. Yeah.

Andrew (40:32.17)
Mm-hmm.

That was last week's fishing fact.

Andrew (40:52.343)
Mm-hmm. Hmph.

Jesse (40:57.698)
So knowing that information, someone, I guess the kind of advice would be find these main lake areas, structured areas, and then just start fishing. And hopefully the fish will swim around that area because they could be anywhere, like you said. That was actually Andrew's interesting fishing fact last week. He was talking about how the temperature of the lake becomes the same. So the fish, they like cold water, but the whole lake's cold, so they can go wherever the heck they want.

Andrew (41:24.886)
And it's all oxygenated.

Drew (41:25.18)
That's the beautiful part about it. Yeah.

Jesse (41:27.346)
Yeah, so you find a good spot, a spot that looks fishy on the map and just start fishing. That's a good tip.

Drew (41:32.039)
Yeah.

Andrew (41:34.636)
So the next species is whitefish.

Jesse (41:34.858)
What's the next, uh...

Jesse (41:38.648)
Ooh.

Drew (41:39.371)
The Homer Simpson of Lake Simcoe, little white fish. Oh man, ugly and dumb. And I'm using Lake Simcoe as my examples because that's my home lake. I guide off that lake. But there's two types of white fish. Yeah, because-

Andrew (41:41.433)
Hahaha

Jesse (41:43.202)
Your cucumber.

Andrew (41:46.882)
Hehehehe

Andrew (41:55.1)
It's a good base point too, because if people are looking to do it, there's so many hot runners. It is accessible even if they don't want to go on their own. There's so accessible to be able to just rent something to go out. So that's a really good base point to talk about.

Drew (42:06.483)
100% Yeah The thing with whitefish as well is in my opinion. There's two types of whitefish There's the deep water whitefish and you've got the shallow water whitefish and I'm talking in the wintertime Me I don't know if I've ever even targeted them deep I catch all my whitefish and 20 to 30 feet of water pretty shallow Dude I look down the hole you can look down the hole and you watch them they come in on

Andrew (42:26.816)
That blows my mind.

Drew (42:34.475)
It's pretty wild, it's pretty shallow. Location for whitefish, if again, I find it's a lot easier shallow water. So much easier, you find the right bottom. It's all about the bottom. You wanna find the gobies, you wanna find the right bottom, right? The cobblestone bottom, generally the same as lake trout, man. You wanna find those humps, shoals, reefs, just anywhere that these whitefish are going to slide up on in the morning and just mow down, right?

Stuff like that, yeah.

Andrew (43:06.7)
That's awesome. Because when people said...

Jesse (43:07.195)
and for baits for whitefish.

Drew (43:11.211)
for baits.

Andrew (43:12.008)
Yeah, that's okay.

Jesse (43:12.578)
Sorry, Andrew. I just cut Andrew off.

Drew (43:16.295)
You know, pretty much going to talk about the two most talked about. You go with the Meigs jig. The Meigs jig is probably one of the best baits to use on Lake Senko, incredible bait. My favorite bait is the vibrato. Love this bait. It's an incredible bait. I got mine. I think I got like $500, $500 worth of these things.

and they're all in the same one. I buy them in the 14 gram. I find it's the perfect weight and it's the perfect size for them to slurp it up.

Jesse (43:52.254)
I caught a pretty nice berbet on Vibrateo on Lake Nipissing and it was the first time I had ever used one because I heard so many good things about them and I dropped it down the hole and I started, you know, you feel, and all of a sudden this thing just came up and smoked it and I was like, oh, thought it was a huge pike, it came up, it was a berbet. But yeah.

Drew (43:55.871)
Yeah.

Drew (44:02.718)
Yeah.

Drew (44:11.931)
Nice. Yeah, they love it too. The dirty burbs. Yeah.

Andrew (44:16.876)
That's awesome.

Jesse (44:17.73)
So whitefish, they seem like whenever you see people talking about whitefish, it seems like especially on like Simcoe for instance, it's a popular lake for whitefish, that they are very light biters generally. Like say you're fishing the meags, the technique to feeling the bites, it's not as easy as maybe someone might think it is.

Drew (44:39.229)
Yeah.

Yeah, like it's not like you're not gonna expect every time like a big knock on your rod tip, you know what I mean? The cool thing with whitefish is when you're working the bottom on these fish, as soon as they grab the bait, so as you're tapping, you're gonna get a slack line. So it's not a bite, it's like a slack line. It's like, it's almost like, it's super weird. And you just know that she has it in her mouth and you gotta really set it quick, but it comes in time like.

They're not as easy as you think they are to just walk out and crush whitefish. There is lots of technique to doing it. And yeah, like... The Homer Simpson of Lake Semco.

Andrew (45:26.279)
So, it went.

Jesse (45:26.686)
Are you someone that keeps whitefish to eat or more of a catch and release guy? Yeah?

Drew (45:31.427)
Yes, I'm mainly the catch and release guy, but for the children at home here, I'll bring some home from time to time. Yeah, absolutely.

Andrew (45:41.568)
We're sharing a brain cell, Jesse, because I was going to ask that. And I was going to ask, how do you like to prepare whitefish? Yeah, like you personally, how do you like it cooked?

Jesse (45:42.187)
Nice.

Drew (45:50.183)
Me? I just pan fry it, I batter it, and pan fry it. A very simple.

Andrew (45:57.328)
Oh good. I thought you were going to say rare. And I was like, beer grill style.

Drew (46:01.439)
I just rip the meat right off and eat it man, like a man.

Jesse (46:07.429)
There's still some whitefish scales in his beard from last year. I've heard from several people, I've never had it myself, but I've heard that whitefish is like a delicacy. It's very good. So maybe this winter I'll try it myself if I can master the meags.

Drew (46:09.812)
Oh yeah.

Drew (46:19.199)
They are very good.

Drew (46:25.932)
Just make sure though that you bleed them out. Like it's better to bleed them out because if you don't bleed them out and then you get that blood line in them, they can be really fishy, like really fishy. If you slit their throat and you bleed them out properly, they take, they're just, they're delicious.

Andrew (46:40.2)
That's, that was my experience. Cause I had a guy, we went ice fishing and he caught, we caught one lake. We caught, we were going for lake trout. He caught one white fish and so he's like, yeah, we fish is good. We're going to keep it. And he cooked it for me and it, it just didn't taste good. And it kind of turned me off. So I, I have heard since like it's amazing meat night. I couldn't understand it because the one experience I had this guy, he caught it, just threw it on the ice outside and that was it. That's how he dispatched that fish.

Drew (47:07.603)
Yeah.

Andrew (47:08.68)
And that makes sense in that that's the issue. Cause yeah, I've noticed that with, with any fish, as soon as you can, like you knock them out, you slide the throat or you cut the gills and you get that blood out, the meat inside is so much cleaner every single time on anything that I've that I will harvest. Yeah.

Drew (47:19.358)
Yeah.

It's way better. Way better. Yep. 100%.

Jesse (47:26.774)
The last thing you want on a beautiful, cold water, fresh ice fishing fish is for it to not taste good. We're not huge fish eaters ourselves, but when we go ice fishing, we always like to keep some perch or whatever we can catch because that's generally the best time of the year that the fish taste the best. Definitely bleeding them is a big thing for any kind of fish you catch throughout the year, but definitely for whitefish too. Yeah.

Andrew (47:33.708)
I'm sorry.

Drew (47:34.013)
Yeah.

Drew (47:45.124)
Bath time, yep.

Yeah.

Drew (47:52.648)
Yeah.

Andrew (47:53.024)
So I have another species that, that if you, if you can speak on it, do you ever take people out and target pike? Cause pike, pike to the ice is something that I, I've been fascinated with for a long time, but I, any tips you have on targeting pike to the ice is.

Drew (48:05.401)
Yeah.

Oh man.

Drew (48:11.567)
Oh yeah, like me personally, I go to Kuchichang and I drill a hole in, it seems to be like the 14 to 15 foot range that you can still see the bottom, but you're on the weed line. You wanna find that weed line, it's very important, right? As soon as you find your weed out there, yeah. Yeah.

Andrew (48:26.976)
So they're still like growing green weeds still, like they're still growing because they still have enough light. Okay.

Drew (48:32.344)
You're still gonna see a lot of weeds and crap. They might all be dead, but they're still down there. Soon as you find that edge of weeds to the sand there, you sit there and you look down your hole even, man, and you just rip big spoons. That's what I do. I love to rip big spoons. And man, I site fish them on Kuchichang. They come in under my hole and pairs of twos and stuff. It's wild. They're fighting over it. You know, it's...

Andrew (48:54.005)
Yeah, because they, I know they like, they get excited because they're, they're getting like under the ice. They've spawned under the ice before. Like they, like the cold temperature, people don't realize like, because we catch a bunch of hammer handles in the summer when they're fishing bass, people don't realize that the big pike, like actual northern pike, they, I think they love cold water. And I'd say they're probably, yeah.

Drew (49:02.091)
Yeah.

Drew (49:13.939)
Dude they are so aggressive They're aggressive in the winter. I've seen it. I sight fished them and like it's crazy man. How how aggressive they actually are? Yeah

Andrew (49:23.732)
That's awesome.

Jesse (49:24.578)
Some of the biggest pike I've caught have been through the ice on Cook's Bay. And most of the time it's when I'm perch fishing. Like we had the video camera underneath where we were fishing and I had caught a pretty decent pike the day, like the week before. So I went back and I actually set up a tip up with some dead bait. And then I was jigging in for perch. And I was like, oh, if a pike swims by, cause they swim by all the time, you'll see a big pike just swim by. I was like, hopefully he'll grab that dead bait.

Drew (49:28.905)
Yep.

Jesse (49:51.862)
but I'm fishing in this, I saw this big pike swim by and he swam and I was like, oh, he's gonna grab that, you know, that chub or whatever dead bait I had. And he just swam right up to my little one-inch spoon and just smoked it. I was like, what? Got this huge pike over 36 inch long on, you know, three pound floor carbon leader and a little tiny little tungsten jig. But they're fun to catch. And I think a lot of people like Andrew said is just like, they don't really think of fishing for them, but they're...

Drew (50:04.215)
Oh yeah, yup.

Drew (50:11.115)
It's a little tungsten.

Jesse (50:20.81)
Fantastic to fish for.

Drew (50:22.207)
They are fun, absolutely.

Andrew (50:25.6)
So we have some, some of the listener questions as well. Oh, sorry. I'm, I'm jumping ahead before we get to that. One more question for you from our list of things is you've already shown yourself as very knowledgeable. I'm impressed. I hope all of our listeners are too, but what are some things that if you could go back in time and tell your younger self, uh, things that you wish that you knew or things that you would recommend to anyone starting out that this is the first thing you should learn or.

or any tips like that you would recommend for someone just kind of starting out. Get them on a better footing than you or I had when we started.

Drew (51:06.751)
Hmm.

Oh, it's a tough one.

Drew (51:14.175)
Starting out, eh? Just starting out.

Andrew (51:16.212)
Get, get good boots. That's my tip. You said before about getting the right clothing. Get, get good boots. The first thing to take you off that ice is frozen toes.

Drew (51:20.863)
the right clothing it's... 100% you're so right like and I can't stress enough about the proper clothing thing like I've been out there on minus 30 minus 40 days with 50k winds blowing I'm telling you it's worth it to spend the extra money on the proper boots the proper socks the proper coat everything like that Stuff that I like if I could tell myself back then if I could go back

Andrew (51:26.056)
Hahaha

Drew (51:50.371)
I would have told myself that exact stuff right there. Buy yourself picks, buy yourself a spud bar, and buy yourself some proper clothing. Would probably be the biggest thing I would have told myself back then, man. You know, I got lucky. Oh, it's the number one. It's the number one thing. There's no fish is worth anybody's life at the end of the day. Some of us and me like.

Andrew (52:02.06)
Cool, like safety is the best thing, or the most important thing, be like, look.

Drew (52:14.791)
Like I'm a diehard. I do crazy things. I was on two inches of ice like two days ago, man, with like open water right beside me. I love the sport, but like safety is just number one. Number one, for sure.

Andrew (52:28.305)
for sure.

Drew (52:29.801)
Yeah.

Jesse (52:30.926)
So I do have, like Andrew mentioned, I do have a lot of questions. We did post a poll on Instagram. So if you don't follow us on Instagram, make sure you check us out at Average Ontario Anglers. Every so often before we record a podcast, we'll put up a question. It'll be like, ask us anything. And I said, what questions do you want to ask Drew on this podcast? And we actually got about 45 or 50 questions. So we won't have time to read all of these, but I'm gonna...

I'm gonna try to read the ones that we didn't cover already because a lot of these are questions that we kind of already, you already talked about. So we're gonna talk and what we like to do with these questions is answer them in 30 seconds or less. I know me and Andrew oftentimes we learned our lesson. We'll talk on a question, just rant on it for like 20 minutes and be like, well, now we're over time. So.

Drew (53:14.539)
Oh yeah. Ha ha ha.

Andrew (53:17.34)
Jesse Cherry picks these questions and I'll tell you this much. Uh, I would not be surprised if Wes start asked the question that Jesse picks. That's, that's all I'm going to say. He always seems to get picked by Jesse. It's like he's playing favorites or something.

Jesse (53:26.954)
Wes?

No, he didn't actually ask. West from Wambates, yeah. So here's a question. This was actually a common question. Carson Lockhart says, when's the lake gonna freeze? And he's probably talking about Simcoe. When do you think?

Drew (53:44.815)
Oh, Sanico, I think late January, I think she'll be good to go. As long as the temperatures that I'm seeing right now, I'm seeing like minus 19 overnights with the wind chill, if they proceed like that, I would say late January. Yeah.

Jesse (54:02.474)
Nice. Better.

Drew (54:03.507)
Maybe even sooner, it could be sooner, like walkable ice. Again, if you have a spud bar and you have ice picks, maybe it could be sooner, but, you know, late January, I think, unfortunately.

Jesse (54:16.394)
Yeah, another person asked this question. This is hiker9596. He says, how far do you have to travel for safe ice? Right now.

Drew (54:26.259)
Right now, I found some safe ice up in the Nipissing area about two weeks ago, but it was two to three inches. So that's about a three hour drive from Barrie North. And that ice is green. Yeah, yeah.

Andrew (54:40.454)
and the temperature has climbed as well in the past couple of weeks.

Jesse (54:46.342)
And if you're listening to this right now, this episode we're talking is gonna be released January 14th. So we're actually recording this now at the beginning of January. So these timeframes may be a little bit off, but we'll do our best. Elizabeth asked this question. She says, do you recommend flotation suits? Like a float suit.

Drew (54:58.026)
Yeah.

Drew (55:06.219)
100%. I mean, if you can afford to, yeah, like if you can afford to buy one, 100%, I wouldn't even tell you twice. I'd say buy it. Yeah.

Jesse (55:07.391)
Is that something?

Jesse (55:14.91)
Yeah, I actually bought one. My wife actually bought me one two years ago. She forced me to buy one. I was happy, because she had the fear of me falling in. So I said to her, well, you can buy me a nice suit. I know they are expensive. They're not cheap. But if you spend, you know, six, seven, $800, and it ends up saving your life, that's not a lot of money at all.

Drew (55:20.543)
Good for her.

Yeah.

Drew (55:34.291)
It's worth- no, nope.

Jesse (55:37.166)
All right, we have another question.

Andrew (55:37.244)
It's on my list of things to buy. In the meantime, because I haven't milked before and I just quick question for you, Drew. Uh, I have worn a life jacket underneath my, um, underneath my coat is that now it, it provides flotation, but it doesn't have the same like waterproofness and it's not a dry suit anyways, but

Drew (55:49.661)
Right.

Drew (55:55.891)
you're gonna get you're gonna get cold and frozen a lot faster I think if yeah I think like yeah like it'll keep you upright and stuff which is great but I think you're gonna get a lot colder a lot quicker yeah

Andrew (56:02.609)
Mm-hmm.

Jesse (56:11.842)
So I catch dinks ask this question. He says, when's the best part of winter to catch the Mondos, Mondos or the big fish, I guess. Early ice.

Drew (56:20.061)
on early ice.

On early ice, if you can be one of the first guys out there, like me generally, I'm one of the first dudes every year on Cooch-a-ching. I usually spud out on two to two and a half inches. If you can get out there before the crowds hit, you can get onto some beautiful perch, some big beautiful perch, it's crazy.

Jesse (56:39.778)
Hmm. But also, like you said, make sure you have a spud bar when you do that. And maybe a float suit. All right. Our buddy at the morning voice he says how important is a shelter when getting started ice fishing?

Drew (56:44.135)
Yeah, safety.

Drew (56:55.539)
It depends on your daily temperature if you're a guy who doesn't mind cold weather if you can chill on a bucket and Minus 20 or 25 that's great But if you're someone who's not huge on cold, it's pretty important to spend the 250 bucks Canadian tire on a little rapala two-man high or something, right?

Jesse (57:14.538)
Yeah, we found we did that a long time. We did the whole bucket, sit on a bucket kind of deal. And most of the time, unless it's freezing cold, you can usually survive, no problem. But we did find after getting a little hut and a heater inside of it, especially, it does make a big difference as to how long you can be comfortable, which being uncomfortable is the main thing that sends you home, is you get cold and your toes get cold. So if again,

Drew (57:24.455)
Yeah.

Drew (57:29.481)
Yeah.

Drew (57:37.507)
Exactly. Yep.

Jesse (57:40.726)
Like I say to people, buy if you can afford it or if you can save up for next year and save a few bucks every month to get a hut, I would recommend it. It is nice to have. Here's another one from that Maltese guy. He said, for ice, if you had to pick either an underwater camera or a live scope, which would you pick and why?

Drew (57:49.119)
Yeah.

Drew (58:03.335)
I pick underwater camera and I use it for lake trout because honestly I would want to watch them eat and I want to see what they're doing. I want to see the direction they're coming from. And I know you can do all that on the live scope too, but the underwater camera I feel like just watching her swim right under your hole like that and being able to watch it is just incredible. It's incredible.

Jesse (58:29.15)
Yeah. And I think there is a slight price difference between a, an underwater camera and live scope, you know, the live scope ice bundle is about it's well over three grand. I think it's like almost four grand and you can get a decent underwater camera for about four or 500 bucks. So I mean.

Drew (58:33.924)
Oh yeah, oh yeah.

Drew (58:41.446)
It's.

Andrew (58:45.204)
The other thing too is live scope. There's more and more talk about it actually, spooking fish if it's targeted right at them. And the odd thing is to have an underwater camera and put it down. I have never seen a fish become shy of a camera. In fact, the bigger ones will approach it. Like, yeah, a camera will not deter anything. And there's a lot of talk that live scope may deter some fish. So just from that point, maybe the camera too.

Drew (58:45.457)
Yeah.

Drew (59:02.739)
They come right up to it. They come right up to it, man.

Jesse (59:04.215)
Yeah.

Drew (59:10.823)
Yeah, yeah, 100%.

Jesse (59:15.17)
Here's another good question.

Jesse (59:19.398)
Lipripper19, he says, he's having a hard time finding winter crappy in the Quartha area. Any suggestions for early ice locations? Like what kind of areas should you look for?

Drew (59:32.307)
At this time of year now you want to look for basins man. You want to look like if you open up your local lake And you see there's one spot on your lake That's got a 30 foot bowl in it a basin in it the chances are the crappies are gonna be just piled up in that basin because again, they're They're looking for like just bugs and Lerva and blood worms and just stupid things like that So they relate to those basins to the mud bottom the buggy bottom, right? So look for basins

Jesse (01:00:01.83)
I actually was just watching that, I don't know if you saw that new uncut angling YouTube video that just came out where he was doing.

Drew (01:00:09.507)
I saw the first five minutes it was posted. He's one of my favorite human beings.

Jesse (01:00:15.398)
Yeah, so they were just talking about finding crappy and Aaron said the same thing. He's like, find the deep basin. And Andrew, if you didn't watch it, actually someone asked a question. They said, thoughts on the uncut angling's newest video. Basically what happened was angling buzz, which is like the Linder brothers in them. They did a video basically saying, if you catch crappy in deep water, like we're talking like 40 feet of water, if you bring them up, they're going to die. So you might as well just keep all of them. That's basically what they were saying.

Drew (01:00:19.892)
the deep.

Jesse (01:00:44.61)
So what Aaron Weeb did on Uncut Angling is he did a test with LiveScope and he caught a bunch of crappie in like 40 feet of water. And then he did a proper quick release and watched them swim all the way back down on his LiveScope. Yeah. Because the other people, their testing involved drilling a big hole in the ice and putting basically a big cage, like a chain live wall that went all the way down and they throw the crappie in and be like, oh, they didn't swim down.

Drew (01:00:56.531)
They all went back down, all 12 of them. They all went back down.

Drew (01:01:13.436)
Yeah.

Jesse (01:01:13.558)
But the testing was kind of flawed because crappie don't swim straight down. They kind of go on an angle and the crappie were just like hitting the side of the net and just floating back up and all dying. So my thought is on that video, the testing was a bit flawed as, as a lot of scientific testing is like, it's hard to get a very accurate, you know, they're like, Oh, all the fish died, like 98% of them died. And in his test, they all survived or did so far when he saw them swim down. Who knows what happened after that. But.

Andrew (01:01:22.84)
Mm.

Drew (01:01:23.707)
Yeah.

Jesse (01:01:44.626)
It's good to see Aaron, he's such a talented angler. And when he talks, we listen. And it's good to have someone that's, you know, they're giving us information or something to think about. That's the way I feel about that video. We shouldn't believe everything we see initially, even if it's from so-called, you know, fishing industry standard people. Not us at all, angling buzz. Those guys are awesome though. But yeah, those.

Drew (01:01:57.379)
Yeah.

Andrew (01:02:09.928)
Well, that's how people realize that we just regurgitate what we hear from other people. We're not really smart at all. We're average.

Drew (01:02:16.5)
Hahaha

Jesse (01:02:16.534)
Yeah.

Hey, we never claim to be good. We're called average Ontario anglers. Anyway, those are the main questions. A lot of the other ones, like I said, we kind of covered in this discussion. And I was saying to Drew, when we first started this podcast, today when we were just about to press record, I was like, man, it seems like not a lot of information because I kind of had an outline I sent to him, but I'm like, it's gonna fill up fast. And right now we're over an hour right now. So it's crazy, yeah.

Drew (01:02:45.215)
Are we really?

Jesse (01:02:47.974)
Isn't that crazy? Isn't it crazy that, you know, just talking about fishing is, you know, time just flies when you do it, right? But we really appreciate you coming on because, again, like Andrew said, we, we don't have a ton like we've been ice fishing for years, but like we don't have a ton of experience doing it. So it's always great. And to learn from someone who does it all the time, like we're not proud, like we're not going to be like, oh,

Andrew (01:02:53.772)
Hehehe

Drew (01:02:54.507)
It does man, it does.

Jesse (01:03:14.486)
We can't learn from other people. I think a lot of anglers do that. They kind of get their back up and they're like, I don't need to learn from someone else, but we're happy and I know a lot of our listeners, it's the same thing. It's great, it's great education, especially when guys like you are like, listen, I'll share with you what I know and I'm gonna help you catch fish. Cause I know if someone is just getting into ice fishing and they listen to this podcast, they will have learned many things, guaranteed. They're gonna go away from this, yeah.

Andrew (01:03:42.028)
Mm-hmm.

Drew (01:03:43.555)
I hope so.

Jesse (01:03:43.714)
So again, we're gonna link Drew's Instagram account which also has links to his guiding services well down in the show notes. And if you do happen to book something with Drew, just make sure you let him know that you heard about him on our podcast. So it makes us look like we're awesome. Ha ha ha.

Drew (01:04:00.789)
Yeah.

You guys are awesome.

Andrew (01:04:04.458)
That way he'll agree to come back. He'll be like, I guess a couple came, I'll throw those guys a bone again.

Jesse (01:04:12.126)
Yeah. And if you did enjoy this.

Drew (01:04:14.07)
No thank you guys so much. I appreciate you guys having me on the show honestly it's such an honour man to be sitting here with you guys right now and chatting about this. This is great. Thank you very much. Absolutely.

Andrew (01:04:23.264)
Thanks for your wisdom.

Jesse (01:04:25.366)
Yeah. And again, as always, everything will be down in the show notes. And if you did, again, like I said, if you did enjoy this episode, send us a message and say you enjoyed it. And we'll do similar episodes like this. But as well, if you enjoy this to send Drew a message and just say thanks for the information for his time as well, because we're definitely not paying him. He's just doing this because he's a nice guy. Delete delete. So I know Andrew has some like housekeeping right now.

Andrew (01:04:43.669)
Mm-hmm.

Drew (01:04:47.519)
Wait, I'm not getting paid?

Andrew (01:04:47.869)
haha

Drew (01:04:51.051)
I'm sorry.

Andrew (01:04:55.124)
Yeah, I know you can, everyone can zone out for the next five minutes. I'm just kidding. It won't be that long, but we, uh, we want to say a big thank you to all our, you know, followers or subscribers and especially to our Patreon members. Uh, we have, we mentioned in the last episode that this year we are going to be having a bunch more awesome giveaways for this year. The difference is the giveaways will only be for our Patreon members.

Jesse (01:04:55.575)
Boring.

Andrew (01:05:20.756)
We talked about it before. It's if you don't want Patreon is a quick Google search is not a problem. Jesse also has a link to it right below the video or below the podcast you're listening to and that is your way that you can actually then be automatically entered into every single giveaway that we're doing. So the we're going to have a few Jesse already has some of them lined up and I'm not going to spoil anything but they're good.

Jesse (01:05:45.714)
Yeah, they're actually really good this year. Yeah.

Andrew (01:05:47.772)
So yeah, cause last year, you know, they weren't, no, I'm just kidding. Last year was awesome. He has an amazing one. So we have some, we have some returning. We have some new ones. So make sure that you are applicable for that by joining the Patreon if you are able to do so. If not, we love getting feedback. We love getting some ratings. We love getting reviews, whatever you'd like to do. And as always, you can reach us at Average Ontario Anglers on Instagram. Uh, on, on you can find us anywhere with that. You can always shoot us out.

Jesse (01:05:51.89)
No, last year was awesome. Yeah.

Andrew (01:06:17.452)
on our private accounts if you want to talk to us as well. There's a aoe- and Jesse's as well, which is.

Jesse (01:06:26.269)
the underscore real underscore Jesse.

Andrew (01:06:28.54)
Yeah, because AOHS was probably taken. Someone's holding it hostage. So we want to thank everyone for listening again. And before we sign off, we have the quote of the week, which is going to be handled by Drew. So you're going to finish that off for us, Drew. What's the, what's the quote of the week?

Jesse (01:06:31.71)
Yeah, no, it wasn't.

Jesse (01:06:44.526)
Oh.

Drew (01:06:49.067)
quarter of the week.

Drew (01:06:52.884)
Quarter of the week. Bring your spud bar wherever you go.

Andrew (01:06:57.842)
Excellent.

All right.

Jesse (01:07:00.802)
That's what mine was gonna be. Ha ha

Drew (01:07:04.32)
I couldn't think of anything man you guys put me on the spot there.

Andrew (01:07:06.76)
Yeah, we always forget to. All right. Thanks again and we'll see you next time.

Jesse (01:07:08.215)
the plan.