Big Kids on Small Lakes!

Well the sudden thaw over the holidays sure put an end to any thoughts of an early ice fishing season for most of Southern Ontario. Lake levels rose, ice all but disappeared, and rivers raged. However there is an upside to all this.

You see, the heavy snow falls during November and December combined with below normal temperatures meant that the lakes did freeze earlier than normal, but it was not good ice. The thaw gave mother nature a chance to start over! January turned out to be a very cold month and now, instead of poor ice that was formed from slush, we have a great base of clear blue ice throughout most of the region.

I needed to pull myself away from the computer for a few hours last week so I accepted an invitation from Outdoors Podcaster and fellow outdoors writer Peter Wood http://www.rippleoutdoors.com to spend a few hours at Pinehurst Lake.

Pinehurst is a small “kettle” lake near Cambridge managed by the GRCA. This was our first time to the lake but a chance meeting with one of the parks managers soon had us headed in the right direction.

Pinehurst is a great place to introduce youngsters to this wonderful Southern Ontario pastime. The lake is small so you don’t need to walk too far to begin fishing. It’s close to Cambridge, Brantford, and Kitchener/Waterloo. Warm-up rooms and washrooms are open, and the entry fee is reasonable.

As an added bonus there are several kilometers of snowshoe trails in the park and you can rent snowshoes on site. Get the kids out and enjoy ice fishing this winter.

Lloyd