The Thanksgiving Fish n' Smoke

Laura and I went ice fishing on the weekend again. We have been taking advantage of the "mild" weather to go outdoors before it gets too cold outside. We got some snow on the weekend so the ice is finally getting covered in snow.


Steve fishing with Marty's snowmachine in sight. We had the lake to ourselves for most of the time on Monday.


We went to the lake with a good group. Steve, Marty and Ellen, Jay, Bob, Dean and Leah and Laura and myself all made the trip out. I finally thought there was enough snow to take the four wheeler out to the lake. You can see Jay's 3 fish beside the right side of the snowmachine.


Laura taking a picture with the fish I caught. I missed two fish that day and only caught one. Look at the snow "fly" by Laura in the picture. We decided to leave shortly after this picture because the weather was starting to turn worse.


When we got home, a couple of us decided to smoke some of the fish. Here are the fillets soaking in the brine.


Jay and Steve placing the racks on the smoker. Marty shipped up a Little Chief smoker and it is doing a great job.


Jay placing some fillets on the racks. We fit about 6 of the fish on the racks.


I checked on the smoking midway through to make sure everything was going well. We used some cherry, hickory and sugar maple chips. The fish tastes good except for Jay's fish. He removed the skin before smoking and his fish ended up absorbing an insane amount of salt during the soak in the brine.


The Little Chief smoker is inside. Last year, I built an insulated box so we could continue to smoke during the winter. Without the box, the smoker gets too cold and won't smoke the fish properly. I parked the ATV outside and used the inside of the shed to avoid the wind during the smoking.

Finally some fish under that ice!

We went ice fishing again this weekend. The weather was below zero all week but it was still a beautiful day out on the frozen lake. We all had better luck this week and most of us were able to catch some fish.


Last weekend the ice was only about 3-4 inches. Over the week, the ice thickened to 7 inches. We were able to drive our machines on the ice this time. There was also very little snow on the ice so we did a few donuts on the ice on the way to the spot.


Steve fishing in his hole. We were fishing in about 6-7 feet of water. You could see the fish biting your line and there were tons of little fish keeping you busy while the bigger ones were being fussy.


My insulating bed from the ice was a cardboard box and Laura's yoga mat.


Me with my two fish. We spent a lot of time changing holes because the ice is still thin enough to make new holes very easily.


A picture of me trying to find the fish at the bottom. Every once in a while, a fish would swim by your hole. We just kept jigging the whole time.


Larissa making a hole in the ice with the chipper. It still only took about 3 minutes to get through the ice. I am not looking forward to chipping through 3 feet of ice again in a couple of months.


Kim catching her first Arctic fish.


Steve caught the first fish of the day.


A picture of the first fish I have been able to catch in Nunavut. It took a while but it finally happened. I did a little filet action on these puppies and then beer battered and fried them. They were delicious!!! The meat inside was very red.