Big Ed’s Fishing Ventures

Great morning of ice fishing today! We bought the trip on groupon at an extra discount. Well worth it for the first time doing ice fishing. George was our guide, we were booked in for the 9.30am tour and were instructed to meet at his house at 9.15am which was conveniently right next to the lake.
Tip: when giving big ed’s a contact number, use one that will have signal in Dillion — not a T-​mobile number. George had tried to call me but I never got it. Not sure why he was calling but we were there on time after a coffee at the place right around the corner (see my review for the pour house)
We pulled up at his house and he gave us a waiver form to fill out, told us that the car in front was filling out theirs too and that the lake is a street over, next thing you know he’s getting in his car and driving away, so like good little people we just followed. When we arrived he told us that there was another two people already on the ice and that we would share the tent with them. It’s 4 people to a tent and the other car that was in front of us had 4 people in it so they shared a tent.
The tents were great, inside was 4 camping chairs and 4 ice holes maybe 8 inches round. He set us up, explained the technique and off we went. He was very knowledgeable and hands on, checked on us regularly and made sure we were all doing well.
It was such a beautiful day that he drilled a few extra holes outside and we moved out to fish in the sun. We fished till about 12.30pm (3 hours, same as what we were told by the shop when we rang to book), he’d started packing up the things people weren’t using prior to us finishing because there was no afternoon tour today.
The fish were biting but not very active today. I caught a tiny one and so did a few other people. I asked George about the fish but he said that there’s a million different reasons why they might not be active today.

We had a great time with George! Made sure everyone caught some fish and were well instructed. Would do this again!

A good experience, George went out of his way to make sure everyone was comfortable and caught fish! Dude is very passionate about what he does and is a very likable guy. My Kid loved just being able to step into a warm fishing hut have a nice chair to sit in and poles ready to go. In fact we enjoyed it so much I just booked again for when our other two kids come to town next month!

Had a great time! George was awesome. Genuinely good guy who was knowledgable and friendly, and went above and beyond to make sure we had a good time and caught lots of fish.

We had a great trip! Caught fish, had a great time in our warm tent, and our guide George made sure we had plenty of fish to take home for dinner!

Friendly guide but otherwise disappointed. Very little tackle, short on gear, fish finder only worked half the time, no floor on ice shack so our 5 year old was cold sitting on a bucket, no knife for cleaning fish, expensive, not educational, limited places to fish. For $ 300 we could have augured our own holes.