121 fish later.....

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Ice Fishing at Ste. Anne de la Perade

We have just finished the most amazing day. It was our coldest day yet this winter (-22C) all day, but it was beautifully sunny and we headed off for a day of ice fishing at Ste-Anne-de-la-Perade (why do Quebec towns have such huge names??). We arrived at about 11 am. It is supposed to be one of the largest ice fishing areas in the world and I believe it. Claude said he even remembers hearing about it as a kid, but never got to come. The brochure said that there are over 600 rental cabins on the river accomodating up to 4000 people each day and each night! The fish that you fish for is called Poulamon or "petits poissons des chenaux" or Tommycod. We booked a little 4 person cabin for the day and had a blast. The fish are very small, about the length of your hand, with a few that we caught being almost 1 foot. But they are very prolific. They said that 600 million fish move up the river from the St. Lawrence river to spawn each winter. The fishing season is only from Dec 26th to Feb 15. We were very lucky as we didn't realize it was so short and had we waited until we got back from Florida we would have missed out. It is like a whole little town, complete with power, washrooms, food shacks, a shuttel tram, etc. Roughly 100,000 people fish each year and they catch 3-4 million fish!

We were very excited when we caught our first fish and then soon realized that there wouldn't be a shortage of fish caught in the day. In the end we took home 121 fish. Many got away in bringing them up and many others were thrown back because they were just too small. Three times P caught two fish on the line at once. The little cabin was very comfortable. About 10' x 12'. Along one long side is the trench of open water that you fish in. On the other side was a small counter, a wood stove that made the hut roasting hot, and a small couch. A very clean cabin. There are several outfitters on the river. We picked Massicotte and sons from the website as theirs looked very well kept. They were. All the supplies for fishing (lines, hooks and bait are supplied. The fishing lines are a fairly heavy nylon cord with two hooks and a weight on the end. They are all attached along a beam on the roof and you adjust the depth by winding or unwinding them on a pair of nails. Simple but effective. You bait the hook with pork liver or shrimp and lower it to the bottom of the river. Once it touches bottome you bring it up 1 cm. If the bait stays in the water for more than ~5-10 minutes, it turns white and they won't bite at it any more. Even if we didn't hook the fish on the line, the bait would usually be eaten faster than this anyways. The river is affected by the tides, so for the first part of the day the tide was rising and you had to repeatedly check and lower the lines. For the second half the tide was receding so you had to raise the lines so they didn't touch bottom. The whole ice village is designed such that the ice along the edge is somewhat open so that it flexes up and down with the tide, and the whole inner area where the cabins are moves as one big floating block. There are little ramps to get down to the stable part of the ice.

It was like speed fishing. We had up to 8 lines in the water and that kept both of us adults busy full time baiting and taking fish off the hook. Yes, even I, who did not think I would touch the fish or the raw liver was doing both. P's job was to pull them from the water (something we all needed to do). He was very excited to catch the fish but not too keen to touch them. M on the other hand, typically pulled up the lines too early, but was very excited when we did hook one for him and had him pull it up. He was not afraid to touch them at all and at the end he took on the job of carrying them outside, one at a time, to the snow. Once you catch the fish, you toss it in the bucket and after several, take them outside and toss them in the snowbank to freeze. That was my job (until Marc took it over), as I figured Claude was faster at baiting and gets freezing hands so quickly. Plus it gave me a break from tending the lines. It was non stop action and the whole day was way more fun than I expected. Because it was so fast paced, even little M loved the day. He would watch the fish flop around in the bucket or out in the snow with facination. He liked pulling the lines but was a bit vigorous with it! Our biggest worry was that he would step into the water trench or touch the stove so we were constantly on watch.

We took a break just before lunch and went up on shore where they had free bounce tents for the kids. The boys thought it was pretty neat to go in a bounce tent with your snow clothes and boots on. We also visited the Information center where they showed the history of the ice fishing in the area. Then we went back to the cabin for a lunch of hamburger soup that I had brought along in the slow cooker. We fished for about another hour or so, then took another break and went up for pony rides and cotton candy. The boys got tired of waiting for the pony rides in the cold, but were very excited about the cotton candy shack. In french cotton candy is called "barbe de papa" or dad's beard, so the boys thought that was funny. The clowns who did the cotton candy also do a little song after they give out the candy. All of the activities are free, which was impressive. For $100 for the day, it was money well spent. We didn't have time to visit the skating ponds.

Originally we thought the boys would be bored by 3, but they were excited to fish right to the end. Our time in the cabin was up at 5 pm and it was good timing as we ran out of bait about the same time. We packed up and headed out at about 4:45pm. Everyone was very tired but it had been a great, fun day.
Now we have to head, tail and clean 121 fish! From the recipes on line, it takes about 25 fish to make a family meal. An interesting note is that after we got home we discovered that the Ste. Anne river that we were on is the same one that goes past the back of our property! cool.

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Photos

View of our section of the river
Each outfitter has a different color code for his huts. Ours were green trim.

the first fish
The first catch was about average size for the day