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Inner City Eyes
It was december 24 1984 and we were coming out of a week in the deep freeze with temparatures in the mid minus 20s. A warm front was moving in and along with it some snow. The Rideau canal and Dows lake were frozen but had not open for skating yet. The NCC workers were making the ice ready, so I knew that the ice here was safe. I had been driving by on my way to work all week dreaming of the ice fishing season ahead.
The night before I had purchased bait and was ready for my first outing of this season, but I wasn't ready for what was about to happen on this trip. I arrived at about 9:30 AM and proceeded to make my way across the ice to an area that the workers had not disturbed by ploughing or drilling holes. After I made my holes, I set the tip ups and waited for some action, fortunatly it didn't take long.
I was only in 4 feet of water so I figured that the likely catch would be perch. When the first tip up went down and I set the hook, a 2lb smallmouth came up out of the hole. I was shocked because I had never caught a smally in the winter before. For the next two hours the tip ups were busy but then all of a sudden it stopped. By this time I had landed eleven Bass in the two to four lb. range and only had eight live minnows left.
About fifteen minutes after the bite stopped it started snowing and for the next long while nothing was happening. I was just about to light a cigarette when out of the corner of my eye I thought I seen one of the tip ups move so I started to walk toward the line and at the same time the tip up was slowly moving in the direction of a strike. I took hold of the line pinching it between two fingers and set the hook. The fish was heavy and after catching so many Bass in the morning I knew this was a Pike or a really big Walleye and as I proceeded to pull it through the hole my thoughts were confirmed as a six pound Walleye was lying beside the tip up. As I was pulling this fish through the hole the other tip up was seeing action. By the time I was able to get to it, it was almost all the way down so all that was left to do was set the hook. As I eased the second fish through the hole I could see it was larger than the first one. The weather was getting worse so I decided to head out. After all I did have a good day at the lake already and it was Christmas Eve.
I try to get to Dows lake every year now to see if I can't beat my own personal record of an eight lbs. four ounces Walleye. Its so close people just assume its polluted and not much good for fishing but I still remember the fishing tournaments on this stretch of water in the early to late 1960's where a whopping 36lb. Muskie was caught through the ice. Its a great place to have fun right in your own back yard.
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