Commercial Ice Fishing in Canada
It is interesting to see the different flavors of people. For example, I’m quite happy if my house is at least 75°F and get cold very quickly if I step outside to “chilly weather.” Then there’s my son who spent a month and a half in Canada this past November/December. The weather outside would down to -22°F some days and it didn’t bother him a bit!
He went there to learn how to commercial ice fish. My sister-in-law’s family has a commercial fishing operation that operates in both the summer and winter.
A view of the frozen lake with an island right in the middle where you see the trees.
This picture shows where the ice has cracked and is sticking 5 feet in the air. When it cracks it sounds like thunder. Seth figures it is caused by movement in the ice.
Now this is an interesting contraption.
It is called a bombardier. The bombardier is a car with tracks on the back and skis on the front, the predecessor to the modern day snowmobile.
To be able to drop the nets into the water, they first drilled into the ice with augers, then dropped the nets into the water leaving them for an average of 4 days. With both Seth and his boss lifting nets, they would get about 1,000 pounds of fish per day.
I can’t believe the variety of fish they were able to catch. Some of them were:
pike
red-fin mullet
mullet 
walleye/pickerel 
sauger
(The sauger is very similar to the pickerel. Some of the differences are the sauger has black spots on its dorsal fin, the pickerel has a white tip on its tail and skin on its cheeks whereas the sauger has scales. The sauger can range in color from gold to black – this one happens to be very mottled. Saugers are smaller when mature than pickerels.)
The air bladder of the fish. This is what helps the fish float in the water. 
They then had to dress the fish and that is what this video is all about. 🙂
I found all this so interesting. I hope you do, too. 🙂
Elisabeth
6 Comments
Lily
Looks very similar to life in Wisconsin although, we do not drive bombardiers. I still don’t like to hear the ice crack and groan, especially when I’m on it. And no matter how many times we’ve stood around a fire on the ice, I’m still leery of falling through! (Guess that’s because I’m not a true Northerner.)
Lucille
That one I never could understand. How can they make a fire on ice and it not effect the ice?
Lily
Lol! My sentiments exactly…but the way my husband explains it is that when you have 12 to 14″ of ice, the fire does not produce enough heat to melt it. If the top layer of ice melts, it creates water, which will puddle…(Clear as mud, eh?!)
BILL
I am 60 years old,and retired from truck driving.You’s bring back many memories of when I went ice fishing for crappies.There is nothing like the taste of crappies,caught through the ice.they melt in your mouth,and to me,taste better than lobster.
FishWad
Really a very nice experience I have loved the fish pictures !
Canada is a good deal for fishing ..
Cheers
Brian
mike
I’ve always found the idea of ice fishing interesting. I myself live in Florida and mostly saltwater fish. I’m definitely going to have to book an ice fishing trip someday. Great article by the way!