Pigs on the ice!

Decided to try Simcoe yesterday as it's been a good ten years since I last fished it. What a bloody mess! I could not get over the amount of garbage and human s**t that was on the ice !. Pretty much a trail of coffee cups, lids, granola bar wrappers all the way out to the whitefish spots. Lots of people leaving their blocking wood scraps, ashtay dumps of butts, etc. I don't remember seeing this a decade ago. Some filthy pigs had crapped right on the ice and left piles of rag in the heaps. We saw seven black plastic bags laying by a hut hole, and made the mistake of tearing one open, thinking it would be dumped fish. Turned out to be an 18" human- cranked log almost as big around as a coke can. I took one look at the size of the thing and told my friend we better start looking for the body, as there's no possible way any human being could have passed that thing without bleeding out! Caught our whitefish and left. What a shame. I now understand why the local municipal government are shutting down the public access to the lake, if what I saw is widespread.

That's a shame, people should have more respect.

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Originally Posted by Fenelon

Decided to try Simcoe yesterday as it's been a good ten years since I last fished it. What a bloody mess! I could not get over the amount of garbage and human s**t that was on the ice !. Pretty much a trail of coffee cups, lids, granola bar wrappers all the way out to the whitefish spots. Lots of people leaving their blocking wood scraps, ashtay dumps of butts, etc. I don't remember seeing this a decade ago. Some filthy pigs had crapped right on the ice and left piles of rag in the heaps. We saw seven black plastic bags laying by a hut hole, and made the mistake of tearing one open, thinking it would be dumped fish. Turned out to be an 18" human- cranked log almost as big around as a coke can. I took one look at the size of the thing and told my friend we better start looking for the body, as there's no possible way any human being could have passed that thing without bleeding out! Caught our whitefish and left. What a shame. I now understand why the local municipal government are shutting down the public access to the lake, if what I saw is widespread.

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Actually I was talking to my foot doctor the other day he is a very nice chap from Mauritius and his wife and him are Muslims. So his daughter is real interested in hunting and so forth and he told me last week she went ice fishing on Simcoe. He kind of sheepishly asked me via his daughter, where do people go to the toilet when they are out on the ice?

I did not have a quick answer except to say, probably at the back of the ice huts. I last went out on Simcoe with an operator about 35 years ago and I got to say things were kept pretty tidy by all involved. But I am not surprised by the lack of respect and garbage dropped, the parenting of this generation leaves a lot to be desired.

Maybe the local municipalities or operators could put in a little infrastructure in the way of bin's and portable toilets' to help alleviate the situation.

the local operators are very nice when it comes to allowing others to use their toilet.
I used to set up close to them [not too close of course] so my girl could use their restroom. for some reason she never wanted to use it again after the first use though hahahaha
now with the ATV its a short ride back to the cottage for her ...

for the most part, ppl are nice and tidy up there, we always take extra garbage bags and clean up on the way if we see anything left behind, but I rarely see such garbage piles described. See them alot more on crownland, specially places like scugog ...

hopefully it was just a couple of drunk none fishermen who decided to drink up on the ice ... id like to think real fisherman have more respect for the lake.

PS: Whitefish are in shallow after gobies. We caught one in 11 feet of water and the other three in 17 feet on a small boulder shoal. Flasher didn't mark any fish deeper than about 21 feet. Used three inch Williams whitefish with pearl on it. No jigging. Just sit on bottom and vibrate lure. A hand held stick works better than any rod. Tried Meegs jig and some brown tubes with no luck.

It’s not just a lake simcoe problem. I’ve seen similar issues of garbage and waste in just about every lake I’ve ice fished. Also not just a winter problem, while summer fishing I see plastic and styrofoam garbage floating about. Same while hiking or hunting crown land, lots of timmies/McDonald’s garbage and beer empties. It’s a horrible mentality of not caring. There’s no respect for the outdoors by some people. I was always taught that if you pack it in, you pack it out when you leave. Not sure what it’s going to take to change this polluting mentality.

Best way if you need to go is 5 gal bucket and a garbage bag do your business and wrap it up drop off in garbage bin . If anybody asks tell him its a brown trout and he can have it if he wants LOL