As he checks in on his clients, resets a fishing line and hooks a minnow on a lure that serves as bait, Mathieu Pigeon, owner of “Fishing Pigeon’s Angling Adventures,” describes himself a fifth-generation guide who has fishing in his blood.
“My great-grandfather owned a lodge as did my father. I started fishing when I was three years old,” says Pigeon whose family was based in the Lake Nipissing area, about four hours northwest of Rockland.
Pigeon DNA, I’m thinking, makes him impervious to the extreme cold like the walleye, sauger, ling, pike and perch that make la rivière des Outaouais home.
It is -20C with a biting wind, but as Pigeon adjusts a windlass tip-up, he nonchalantly plunges his bare hands into the frigid water through a hole in the ice that covers the river a hundred yards from his Rockland home and base of operations.
Waves of snow and ice
Granted, the water below is warmer than the outside temperature above the ice, but as you look east up the river rippling waves of snow called sastrugi are being carved into the expanse of frozen white.
It’s a beautiful sight in the full sunshine even as tears run down my face and my eyelashes freeze; both my tape recorder and cell-phone recorder are frozen within a few minutes and useless.
Pigeon has sketched out a map so that I can see a cross-section of where I’m standing: there’s about eight inches of snow, a crust of several inches and, surprisingly, nearly a foot of slush created by the sun’s rays – even on a piercingly cold day many degrees below zero.
Beyond that, I find it difficult to imagine: there’s anywhere from 18-20 inches of ice covering the 10 or so feet of water in this part of the Outaouais. For most people, including me, the thickness of the ice is paramount, but Pigeon is reassuring and rattles off some measurements.
“You need four inches of clear ice to be able to walk safely across it and eight inches for a snowmobile. You need 12 inches for a vehicle,” Pigeon says. “As we get closer to the main channel, the ice gets thinner. You’ve just got to have your wits about you.”
Pigeon uses a four-foot pole called a spud bar when he checks for safe fishing spots; the term doesn’t have anything to do with potatoes but likely refers to a Swedish or Norwegian word for “spear.”
“The spud bar allows me to poke the ice. If there’s not enough ice, it’s going to poke a hole and then I’ll be able to see that it’s not safe to venture any further,” he says.
We trudge along the ice and snow to visit one his tents, the temporary fishing grounds for first-time ice fisher Martin Duchoumel of Osgoode, Ontario.
“We came to try it and see what it’s all about,” Duchoumel says. “It’s been fun and actually surprisingly warm in the tent.”
Shortly after we spoke, a member of his fishing party pulled up a good-sized walleye that required two hands to hold before releasing it back down the hole into the water.
A mom and her two kids from just outside Rockland sit comfortably and patiently in their cozy tent having now added ice fishing to their summer fishing interests. They’re relaxed with snacks and drinks.
“I set the fishers up to be comfortable in their tents with rods, heat and electronics and some general knowledge,” says Pigeon.
Testing out the icy activity
Inside the tents, it’s quite comfortable with camp chairs, snacks and drinks and a bit of heating – with safety devices that Pigeon monitors closely – along with some special equipment: a transducer that allows you to see below the icy water and gives you an idea, in real time, of how the fish are moving about and how they are reacting to your minnows.
Equipment costs can easily run into the several thousands, Pigeon says, including $500 for a tent and $800 for an ice augur that bores a hole about eight inches in diameter through nearly two feet of ice.
As a guide, he says renting the equipment and drawing on his experience allows people to test if they enjoy the activity before buying the required paraphernalia.
“It’s a way for them to come out and try ice fishing. I get a lot of families who fish but maybe haven’t tried ice fishing. They can consider getting into it and see whether it’s for them.”
Fishers joining Pigeon for an afternoon must procure their own fishing license, and they are also required to follow the rules and regulations for catching and releasing the various species.
When permitted, his customers can take home their catch, and he will clean the fish on request.
Generally, Pigeon spaces his tents about 50 yards apart, but that depends on where you are fishing: there’s a strategy where there’s a bit of deeper water or a bit of shallower water, as it is with any type of fishing. The idea is to be out of the current, he says.
“There are places around Petrie Island where there’s a concentration of fish that’s only about 200 by 300 feet. And then everybody is on top of each other,” he adds.
Anticipating spring fishing season
It has been a banner year for ice fishing with very cold temperatures and good ice, despite milder weather and warmer sunshine this past week: Pigeon says there is “still tons” of ice and that the above-zero thermometer did not significantly reduce ice thickness.
That’s a marked contrast from last year’s poor winter conditions, but Pigeon isn’t worried about what erratic weather means to the activity. Like the sastrugi patterns forming across the Outaouais snow crust, the conditions for outdoor recreation like ice fishing come in waves.
It seems that hope – even in frigid conditions – springs eternal in an ice-fishing tent as the winter season starts to wrap up this month.
“Last year was horrible. We didn’t have much of a winter at all. But it’s going to ramp up next year,” according to Pigeon. “And once the ice is gone, I’m getting ready for lake trout, garpike and carp fishing at the end of April.”
Food writer Andrew Coppolino lives in Rockland. He is the author of “Farm to Table” and co-author of “Cooking with Shakespeare.” Follow him on Instagram @andrewcoppolino.
