Northern Pike fishing on Lac La Biche Lake in Northern Alberta during a Cold Snap in the early days of January 2020.  My brother and I headed out to the lake despite falling temperatures and wind chill that could freeze the most enthusiastic soul.  Despite the cold conditions looked great for fishing.  Clear skies, wind calming throughout the day and a Full moon on the rise.  While most of our big fish have been caught during full moon phases you'll have to see what happens with this day.  No matter how difficult it was to take down, drill holes and repeat we kept doing it till we started marking fish.  Once we found the fish the strangest behaviour was encountered for this lake.  We are used to aggressive feaders in this lake on large baits like anchovies, herring, spoons and swimbaits.  Today... well watch the video and please tell me what we were doing wrong.  We figure the fish were displaced off any type of shallower structure and hidding on deeper water drops and basins.  I'm not even sure if we found them there if they would have been biting.  I let this video so you can see the thought process as we move through a tough day.  I know you're used to seeing lots of fish caught and making it look easy.  I know it makes some people discouraged.  Trust me though we have our tough fishing as well.  We are human and I think this video goes to show there is a lot more at play some days than we probably even realize. 




The Alberta Yellow Perch has taken a major population hit in a lot of lakes across the province.  Not only from the increased angling pressure with the decreased retention availability of other species, but also from increased predation from skyrocketing predatory Walleye numbers.  A lot of lakes have complete reversal of the normal predatory pyramids we see in wild environments.  Most fall walleye index netting shows that Walleye are now the most numberous fish in the lake while prey yellow perch have nearly vanished.  It will not be long before this may cause a collapse of the predatory fish leading to a long road to recovery of any sort of fishery all together.  While this is true there are still a few lakes where good cover exists and perch are able to escape predation and grow to large sizes. Most of these lakes hold some tight lipped customers in small pockets.  Locating an area with fish is often the first part of the struggle.  Once you have located them you have to somehow convice them that your lure is worth the risk. 

While it was freezing cold out on the ice and fish were not moving much we did find a few.  The ones we found did cooperate after a little convincing.  The camera batteries don't last too long when it is this cold outside, so I hope you enjoy this short video out perch fishing with my Brother and Dad.