The YouTube video you’re about to watch was posted by Aaron Wiebe on Jan. 29, 2019, and at the time of this writing, it’s been viewed nearly 260,000 times in about 75 days. Why is it so popular?
For one, Aaron is well-known in the fishing community, and his Uncut Angling YouTube channel is pushing 185,000 subscribers. More importantly, however, is instead of saturating his multi-species fishing channel with mediocre filler content, he waits until he captures something worthy of posting. The video at the bottom of this page is a perfect example.
Aaron is fishing solo for rainbow trout on a beautiful, clear body of water in Saskatchewan. He loves to sight fish, and to make it more visually exciting for himself and the viewer, he cuts a massive hole through the ice.
If you’re new to ice fishing, you might not understand the tremendous amount of work it takes to set up a scene like the one Aaron features in this video. Cutting a few holes with an ice auger isn’t a tremendous amount of work, but going through the trouble of using an ice saw to “connect the dots,” and then pushing the now-free ice blocks beneath the surface and out of the way is a major task. I know because I do the same thing every winter.
One other note: Assuming you don’t have the Celsius-to-Fahrenheit conversion memorized, he’s doing this winter work in minus 34 degrees Fahrenheit. Cold!
As you’ll see, Aaron finds the perfect depth for sight fishing in ultra-clear water, about 6 feet, and then gets busy with trying to capture all the action on video. The reason some of the scenes are dark is he must keep all the ice shelter windows closed in order to achieve a bright, aquarium-like view of the underwater world. After he lands a fish, however, he opens a window to let in light.
I encourage you to take the time and enjoy all 23 minutes of the video, but I’ll call out a few highlights in case you’re in a rush.
Aaron’s first big rainbow appears at the 9:05 mark. This hen (female) rainbow is gorgeous — and big. She measures 26.5 inches. Be sure to watch as Aaron rigs up a clever camera at the 10:25 mark. This camera technique is something I’ve never seen before in a fishing video, and the footage he gets of a huge buck (male) rainbow is amazing. Finally, you’ll see Aaron use a trick for lighting up the lake bottom after the sun sets. He’s not sure whether the use of a spotlight shining through the ice will bother fish, and he gets his answer at the 15:40 mark.
Aaron closes out the video by diving into equipment details, and I found it interesting. If you don’t ice fish and never plan to, then you can hit “stop” after he releases his third giant rainbow.
There’s a ton of fishing content online these days, and sadly, much of it is boring. But thanks to avid anglers such as Aaron Wiebe, you can still learn some fishing tips and be entertained at the same time.
P.S. If you want to see my favorite open-water Uncut Angling episode, check out this one where Aaron builds a muskie bucktail from a Fidget Spinner toy. I also recommend this video where he builds a northern pike spoon from a metal YouTube play button memento.
