New year's bass fishing on ice

New year's 2026. Woke up to a lot more snow than forecast. High winds and blowing snow forced me to cancel my plans of fishing flag lines for pike near Montreal I headed up North solo instead, as my kids didn't want to attempt fishing out in the open in -25 wind chill.

I got to my spot mid morning, ground temperature was a balmy -18C.

Nearly half hour trekk on foot to my spot, towing the gear sled. Wearing that many layers, it takes very little time to heat up. It's crucial to avoid getting your underlayers sweaty, to avoid freezing later. As such, I remove most layers for the walk. Sometime, there is only one way to cool off.

I got started fishing not far from where I left off last week with Zev. Didn't take long to start catching bass. 

Action was a bit more sporadic than last week, but I managed to catch a few nice bass up to 16.5 inches.

They were nailing those rattlebaits pretty aggressively. Mini Rattle n vibe from Yozuri, and Rapala Rap V blade tipped with mealworms did the trick again.

I made an effort to stay away from perch in deeper water. Despite some very nice ones in the lake, most are infested with worms. The few I did catch, completely swallowed my lures, and in these very cold temps, the delay in getting them released is likely to kill them after the release. 

Day ended up with decent results, 18 largemouth bass, and 5 perch in about 5 hours of jigging. Left around sunset.

Happy 2026!