Jim Logan and Shannon Tierney-Addis booked upstate New York guide Ryan Lorensen for two days of ice fishing, plus a day of river steelhead trout fishing in late January.
The first day of fishing was excellent, with the anglers catching panfish while jigging, plus largemouth bass and pike on live shiners using tip-ups. One of the bass caught by Logan weighed 5 pounds, a huge fish for the Jefferson County area located not far from the Canadian border.
“We catch and release everything except some panfish to eat,” guide Lorensen told Wired2fish. “That first day we had some great action, but it was way below freezing weather, with lots of snow on the lake, too.”
A Different Spot Produces Bigger Fish
For the second day of their ice fishing guided trip, Lorensen took New Yorkers Logan and Shannon to a different part of the lake that he says offers better fishing for big fish.
“About 11 a.m. we were taking a break because it was windy and 15 degrees below zero,” said the 38-year-old guide from Volney, New York. “We were in a warm ice shanty, and our tip-ups with live shiners were spread out over a wide area. We had a tip-up go off signaling a fish was on, and Jim took off for that one about 100 yards from us.
“As he left for that fish, another tip-up went off near our shanty and Shannon went for that closer one.”
Lorensen said the reel below the nearby tip-up was spinning wildly when Shannon got to it near their ice shanty. She set the hook by pulling on the fishing line and knew immediately it was a huge fish. She battled it for about 10 minutes and several times Lorensen and Shannon thought the fish was gone as it made strong runs against the little tip-up reel.
“She got it under our hole in the ice and I saw it was a muskie,” Lorensen explained. “When I went to grab the fish, it went nuts and took off on another run.”
Shannon brought the fish back to the ice hole, and Lorensen could see the muskie was now tangled in the line. The fish ripped off another run against the ice reel, Shannon battled it back, and miraculously the muskie was no longer wrapped in the 15-pound-test braided line.
“I was stunned to see the fish free of her line,” he said. “I was able to get its head in the 8-inch diameter hole and pulled it up onto the ice.”
They quickly measured the 41-inch muskie, took a few photos of Shannon holding her prized and beautifully colored fish, then they released it back through the ice. Lorensen thinks the muskie weighed 16 or 17 pounds.
Cold Weather Trout
The following day the trio of anglers headed off for a cold and snowy day of steelhead fishing on the Salmon River near Altmar, New York. By backtrolling and float fishing from Lorensen’s boat, they had a banner trout fishing day.
“We landed five fish,” said Lorensen. “The three biggest measured 32, 31 and 28 inches long.”
Even with six years of full-time guiding to his credit, Lorensen was well pleased about how his three-day trip with Shannon and Logan turned out.
“They didn’t say anything about getting replica mounts of their fish, even the tiger muskie,” Lorensen said. “But they got plenty of winter fishing photographs, and Jim is coming back soon for more steelhead fishing.”
