Fishing Reports
Lake Couchiching
Ice is out - perch are in
Lake Simcoe
Ice out April 4, 2010
Georgian Bay
Ice out
Lake Muskoka
Ice out
Bay of Quinte
Ice out - Walleye in
Lake Nippissing
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2009 Story Archives
by John WhyteA Weekend On The Bay of Quinte by Jason Barnucz
Spring Crappy by Kurt Hehl
Erie Tune-UP by Ryan Hare
Fifty fish days on Simcoe are few and far between for me and I can't help but wonder where all these fish were in August. On the last day of the season late in the afternoon with a setting sun, we pulled up to the ramp and loaded Marks boat for the last this year. There was one other truck in the parking lot. In the spring of the year shortly after ice out I was launching my boat in Smiths Bay near Orillia. There was one tow vehicle and trailer already there and on the water. It belonged to Des Barns, founder of the Ontario B.A.S.S. Federation Nation. On the last day as I hopped in my truck to leave the Barrie launch there was one truck left in the lot. It belonged to Des Barns. Des was off in the middle of the lake somewhere squeezing every last drop of the season and what a great season it was.
Des Barns with a November 30th big fat smallmouth
Mark Kulik with a big smallie caught on a new Strike Zone bait
"50 Bass days on Simcoe"
Lake Erie in November after the Frostbite Open
What a November on Lake Erie! With the Niagara Bassmasters 30 pound challenge and the Frostbite series there was tournament activity every weekend. Erie certainly lived up to its billing as the smallmouth capital of North America producing limits of nice fish for everyone participating. In 2010 the OBFN Provincial Qualifier moves to this incredible fishery and everyone will get a taste of what she has to offer.
The hard water season in the Bay of Quite region is off to a great start thanks to an early cold snap in late December and early January. Ice conditions vary throughout the bay and as is always the case we recommend you contact a local hut operator or tackle shop closest to where you want to access before you head out. With the help of experienced guides from the Quinte Fishing Team, our newest roaming reporter Ashley Rae gives an account of what you can expect from “the Bay” and why Quinte is still the Trophy Walleye capital of the country.
A Cure for the End of Bass Season Blues By Ashley Rae:
My first successful ice fishing trip of the season was on Sunday, January 3, on the Bay of Quinte. I had only been ice fishing about four times in my whole life … and with little success. I set out with local guides Jeff Chisholm, Ryan Shorey and Paul McTaggart from the Quinte Ice Fishing Team; a great group of local guides who knew their stuff. We began at about 6:30am and everything was set up in the dark, and we were ready to go in no time. The bite was slow to start with just few fish for the others being caught early. I was beginning to think this trip would end up like earlier adventures but when my first hit came around 10am my spell was broken and I coached my first walleye through the ice. I was hooked! Not long after my first came another and the bite was on.
We were joined by some more friends of the Quinte Ice Fishing Team and fish were coming up through the ice steadily … with about 20 walleye in total for the day. When you’re out on Quinte and the bite is on, you don’t want to leave. So even after dark we hung in there and I caught three more big walleye after nightfall. My biggest Quinte Eye pulled thru the ice came in at an even10 pounds and needless to say I was very excited!
Ice conditions vary in the bay but there was 8 inches of good ice where we were and I was fishing in about 17 feet of water. The fish were holding down near the bottom and I could see on the flasher that they would follow my lure up and then STRIKE! The power of these trophy walleye thru the ice is something all avid anglers should experience. It was a great feeling and I can definitely tell you I will be out ice fishing again as soon as possible (hopefully next week)! What better way to get over those 'long winter - no bass season' blues! I put together a video of the day here: http://www.youtube.com/ashleymrae
Very special thanks to Jeff, Paul and Ryan of the Quite Ice Fishing Team. For a great day on these trophy waters you can contact the team at www.quinteicefishing.com
The Last Truck in the Parking Lot...continued
On some parts of the lake it was no more than a social gathering, a final time to see old friends and diehards before many disappear for the winter. Nobody keeps fish for any longer than it takes to snap a shot or two and after a while nobody even keeps track of how many were caught. Some days we boated 50 fish and bad days were in the teens. We were also trying some new Strike King baits and some old baits in new colors. I won't spoil the introduction of the baits but only to say "AWSOME".
Mark works countless hours testing baits and has an army of anglers testing in different waters all over the province so I was honored to be included in the program. There are days in late fall when smallies will hit a coke can but there are others that they become very particular and those are the best days to test baits with suttle profile and color differences. I know I have some new tools for next fall.
There's a smile under
that mask.
A Bright Light in the Cold of Winter : by Ryan Hare
After what seemed like a lifetime, the day came that Simcoe finally locked up. I felt like a kid on Christmas when I first got the word. It was early in the week and surely by the time the weekend rolled around I would be able to get out and chase some of the lakes scrappy deepwater predators. I paced the halls of my house thinking about what my approach would be to the first day of the season. When the weekend rolled around I had my game plan and gear ready to go. I hit the ice to find the conditions still a little inconsistent, with 5" of good ice in places and 2.5" within a few meters. As we moved toward the first target area I constantly checked the ice with the spud bar. The ice seemed to be very hard so we kept moving further out with a high degree of caution we finally reached our first spot and started setting up our gear.
The area I was fishing holds large amounts of baitfish early season and in turn attracts good numbers of lake trout. I started in 85 feet of water, set up my graph and dropped my lure to the bottom. The graph was lit up with bait and what appeared to be herring slashing around feeding. It’s been great to watch what we believe is the recovery of the herring in the lake. In the last 3 years there seems to be a dramatic recovery in the number of Cisco or Lake Herring. A healthy population of Cisco would certainly assist in the ongoing recovery of natural trout reproduction.
I bounced my lure about 5ft off bottom a few times and watched my graph as a large streak appeared and headed toward my lure. After a couple cranks of the reel a felt a solid smack and my first laker of the season was hooked. It felt great to be back on the ice catching trout and after a few drag screaming runs I iced a nice fish around 8lbs. Not a bad start to the season and I had a gut feeling that it was going to be a great weekend.
The action was great over the next few hours, my fishing partner and I took a steady pick of Lakers that all seemed to fall in the 5-8 lbs range with only a couple of small fish between 3-4lbs. Something I found interesting was that in spite of the apparent recovery of Cisco, every fish caught was gorged and burping up smelt. After the area started to get crowded the fishing slowed down to a crawl. I pack up my gear and moved out to some deeper water. Once there, we found more aggressive fish that provided some great gear testing fights.
The next day was much the same. We started fishing in about 95 fow and found instant success. To my surprise the average fish was again in the 5-8lbs range with a few fish pushing over 10lbs! Keeping mobile was key to finding active fish. A short move made a huge difference in the amount of fish hooked. Through out the day we beat up on them, catching and releasing many big healthy lake trout. The highlight of my day was hooking a 10 pound fish 10 feet below my hole sight fishing. I thought my heart was going to pound out of my chest when I saw the fish open his huge mouth and inhale the jig, instantly peeling line back down to the bottoms.
When the weekend was all said and done we had iced almost 40 nice healthy Lakers and only a few of the fish came in at 3-4lbs. What a way to start the hard water season.
Every fish was released and swam away to grow bigger and be caught another day. Releasing fish of spawning age is even more important now considering the recent decision by the Ministry of Natural Resources with guidance from the Lake Simcoe Fish Management Zone Council to reduce stocking substantially. These efforts will support natural reproduction.
Tight lines
Parry Sound Wild Lake Trout continued
All of this of course had been discussed on many of the former trips we had made to this area and today we were once again checking out another new location hoping to find one of those thirty pounders. Fred, Mina and myself headed across the ice reading the depth charts looking for an inside turn where the lakers would push schools of bait fish against the vertical wall.
“Hey check that out.” Mina was pointing to the three deer that were island hopping. I had seen this before, after the ice forms deer would move out onto the lake and go from island to island feeding on the new browse that had grown over the summer. Although it was pretty it made me wonder how long the ice had been formed and we drilled a hole to check the depth, we were standing over about 8 inches of ice and that made me feel a lot more secure.
The three of us carried on out of the bay towards the main basin stopping to check the map and to orientate it to the lake. As we rounded the bend we could see a snowmobile off the point but we could see no other anglers. With the harvest season opening the next day we would have the lake to ourselves. We looked around and figured well this must be the place.
I set up each of us on the opposite side of the auger. We discovered years ago that by putting two of us on the manual auger you could drill a hole in half the time with less effort as my power stroke was his weak spot and vice versa. We started cranking and 5 turns later, pop we were through.
Mina looked down “holy cow how much ice do we have?”
I checked. “I’m not sure maybe 3-4 inches but if it can hold up that snowmobile and I’m 75 pounds heavier than you, well I certainly would not sweat it my friend.”
Good point. We drilled 3 more holes and set up. Both Fred and I used fish finders while Mina fished bare. I was running a Cleo tipped with a minnow head while Mina ran a Williams Whitefish and Fred was twitching a white tube jig. Fred was in 45 feet of water, Mina in 55 and I was in 62. I dropped the spoon down and after a couple of minutes, I could see a fish moving towards the spoon I twitched and shook the spoon but soon the laker moved off. Over the next half hour eight more fish would come and look but none seemed interested in hitting. Fred who was only in 45 feet of water had only marked one fish and Fred suffers badly from A.D.D when fishing and he headed out past me and drilled 3 fast holes. One good thing about 3-4 inches of ice, you never feel bad about drilling new holes. I had not hooked a fish either and maybe I was getting happy feet as well I headed over to Fred and as I approached he set the hook.
Good one? I asked but judging by the bend in his rod I knew it was a small fish. He cranked the small one out of the hole but both of us were surprised by the Cisco that came through the hole.
“Hey another new species for us.” We had caught lots of lakers over the years and the odd ling I had even caught the one and only Rock bass which everyone reminds me of on a regular basis. Cisco; however, was not our target species so I grabbed the auger and drilled a new hole. I dropped the green and silver polished Cleo down the hole and watched the spoon fall towards bottom. As it settled a few feet from the bottom, I watched as I jigged it up and down. No lines but the spoon appeared on the screen so when the rod suddenly doubled over from the weight of the large laker I was more than shocked. I checked the screen again but even after the fact the Lowrance was not showing anything but the memory of the spoon. Technology may be good but the weight of the fish on the little rod told me that it’s not fool proof.
Fred and Mina headed over as the big fish would come towards the hole and then power back down again. With the clear ice we could watch him twist and turn below, a far greater show than Peyton Manning or Drew Brees would put on later that afternoon. Fred dropped down on to his knees and slipped on the gloves, one thing about small amounts of ice like we were fishing over it made sliding the head of larger fish into the hole much easier. Fred grabbed the fish and we slipped it from the hole. Mina took pictures as Fred and I popped the hooks from his mouth. A couple of quick pics and the black wild laker was headed back into the depths. We looked at the time and it was shortly after nine in the morning. The three deer walking to the island looked at us looking at them. They headed for the browse and we all headed back to our holes.
Over the next 7 hours we would continue to hook fish with no real slow down. Most of the fish fell into two categories either what we referred to as dinks, small 1-2 pound fish or good fish in the 7-10 pound class. The day would end at an almost even split between the two with 7 dinks and 8 good fish landed. We landed fish that day on spoons, tubes and set lines tipped with live minnows. The only other people we saw for the day were guys who came out to try and re-start the snow machine. Most anglers would not start fishing until the following day when harvest became an option for them.
The wild lake trout of Parry Sound are one of our most valuable angling resources. Treat it well and in return it shall be good to you.
April Smallies continued.....
Pre spawn smallies can be very active as the water temperatures approach 50 degrees. As they start to stage for the spawn the feed bag goes on for about two weeks prior to spawn. In mid April Great Lakes smallmouth start to move shallow and huge schools can be found on the drop offs and shoals before settling into the spawning areas and their minds are on one thing.
This year’s Ontario Bass Federation Provincial Qualifier would be on Niagara/ Erie launching from Chippewa Creek so an early trial run seemed a good idea. We arrived at the launch around 7:30 am, loaded the boat, launched and headed up the river to where it meets the Niagara River. Little did we know the Ice Dam was closed so we turned around, went back down the river, and loaded the boat to head to Crystal Beach.
Promises of a warm windless day held true unless you’re traveling on a just thawed ice cub. With the water temperatures just hitting forty degrees, traveling at 80 km per hour across Lake Erie to the south shore is an enlightening experience. Even with full ice fishing apparel it took a lot of sun and an early fish to take your mind off the cold. At the ramp we were debating whether to change into shorts.
We arrived at our first mark and two casts later we boated our first fish of the year. A smoked and white Strike Zone Slammer on a drop shot was the ticket. A few cast later Bill Walker landed another and that was his first bass ever in April. Bill’s secret colour tube for Erie did the trick. The action wasn’t typical for Erie but it was April and considering water temps in the high 30’s and a dead flat bluebird day, to catch anything was a bonus.
Fish were caught between 25 to 40 FOW and the nine bass in total came on eight different lures including spoons. The bonus of the day was a 15 pound laker. This could become a habit for northern Bassmaster as the gap between ice out and opening just got a lot smaller.
