Pack in ice fishing trip

[Mad Mountain Mike]

My son-in-law and I decided to go ice fishing for a few days.
Day one found us at times in white out conditions on the 5km pack in.

Once camp was set we got to fishing, it wasn't long and they started hitting.

Nothing better than fresh brook trout out of the lake and into the fire.

That night the sky cleared and the temp dropped below -20. I'd always poked fun at Dayne for that big sleeping bag he packs for sheep hunting but on this trip he had the right gear and I froze my ass off.

The fishing was good on day two as well. The limit on this lake is two each, so we ate fish noon and supper and let all uninjured brookies go so we could keep fishing

 

[Mad Mountain Mike]

Woke up to -5 temps on day 3. After breakfast we pulled our lines and headed up the mountain behind camp to see if we could find some bighorns on their winter range.

We were not long getting into sheep country and 3 hours later we were on a band of bighorns. ( poor photo, I was just holding the camera to the binos)

By now it's 3pm, home day and we're more than 15km from the truck. It was time to head down, tear out camp and pack out to the truck. It was an awesome trip I can't wait to do it again.

 

[BRobertson]

Fantastic trip!!

Thanks for the photos!!

Bob

 

[duchntr]

Cool trip, thanks for sharing

 

[mtnwrunner]

Very cool. Nothing better than brookies.

Randy

 

[G5Archer]

Great pics! Thanks for sharing.

 

[JoshTX]

Cool pics. Thanks for posting.

 

[Justin Crossley]

Badass!

 

[Mad Mountain Mike]

Thanks guys, it absolutely was a fantastic outing. I love the mountains this time of year, nobody else around. I'm glad that my daughter chose a young man interested in this kind of life.

 

[Tony Trietch]

Great trip!

 

[realunlucky]

Hella way to spend some family time. That is some hardcore weather to camp in though

 

[AK Troutbum]

Great trip and pics Mike. Hey, a couple questions for ya. Do several of those sheep have something around their necks (collars)? Also, approx. what was the elevation? I ask because it looks like you guy's are fairly high in elevation and barely have any snow. Is that typical for this time of year? Anyway, I was just curious.

 

[Mad Mountain Mike]

Yes some of the sheep are collared, I'm assuming for research purposes. Though there are still some pretty deep snow drifts in areas a lot of the snow has melted early this year. The media is claiming the earliest spring in years because of El Niño.

 

[ReddingArcher]

That looks like a blast! Gotta love ice fishing.

 

[Schnagelbagel]

Way cool!!! That would be crazy to camp in those temps

 

[Keneboy]

That would be one incredible trip, out of curiosity how thick was the ice? Great pictures and thanks for sharing.

 

[Shrek]

Cool trip ! Thanks for sharing. How did the look like they're faring this winter ?

 

[Mad Mountain Mike]

Keneboy we never did measure the ice but it went to the top of the flighting on the auger before it broke through.

 

[Mad Mountain Mike]

Shrek we had a relatively warm winter with less snow than normal, the sheep looked pretty well fed.

 

[mtnrunner260]

That is awesome and seems like something to put on the to do list.