Archive for June, 2011

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

http://www.canadian-sportfishing.com/thisweeksepisode.html

Aldo Nava reports that fishing is getting better in Lake Ontario off of Port Dalhousie, ON.  He has been catching Rainbow Trout & Chinook Salmon fishing in 60-120′ of water using downriggers and also wire line with Dipsey Divers.  A variety of spoons have been working well as well as Juhr Jensen Flasher and Rapala Trolling Flies.

If you would like to catch some trophy trout & salmon, you can book a trip with Aldo by going to, www.niagarafishingadventures.com .

Aldo Nava reports that fishing has been good in 60-100′ of water.  Chinook Salmon and Rainbow Trout have been hitting well on spoons fished off downriggers and fishing Dipsey Divers off of wire line.  Best depth has been 40-60′ down.

 

If you would like to book a guided fishing trip with Aldo, you can contact him through, Niagara Fishing Adventures .

James Beaupre and I decided to shoot a trophy Largemouth Bass TV show fishing from Ocean Kayaks today.  To our surprise when we arrived at James favorite “pot-hole” lake, the air temperature was a cool 12C.  Today’s forecast called for 24-25C, and we were both dressed in shorts and a T-shirt.  We quickly put on rain-suits, and headed out.  We both brought our pet dogs to the lake and James Poodle, “Missy” was as ready as we were to go fishing and immediately took a seat in James Kayak.

We headed out and started fishing shorelines casting TriggerX Slow Sinking Plastic worms and flippin’jigs rigged with a TriggerX Craw.  As we had suspected, the bass were not on the shorelines, probably due to the sudden drop in temperature overnight.  We quickly started to fish open-water weedbeds in 7-10′ of water and connected right away with two nice largemouth.  James first fish turned out to be a chunky 4 1/2lb. fish while mine was a respectable 3 lb. fish.

Based on our first two fish James suggested we fish a fast-dropping shoreline that was loaded with submerged timber.  We kept our kayaks in 20-30′ of water and made long casts in towards the timber.  We again connected with some really nice largemouth bass.

We were blessed to finish the TV shoot in about 4-hrs., just as it was starting to warm-up.

My choice of gear for using TriggerX soft-plastic baits today was the Rapala Shift Rods/Reels loaded with 10 lb. test Sufix 832 line.  The top producing TriggerX baits were the Flutter Worms and the Craw.

Massive Lake Erie Fish Kills caused by US Power Generating Stations.

While Lake Erie water quality has been, and should continue to be, the focus of cleanups, pollution isn’t the only threat to the lake’s ecosystem. So are power plants on the U.S. shore and they are killing hundreds of millions of fish each year

For example, FirstEnergy Bay Shore coal plant on the Maumee River near Toledo kills about 46 million adult fish annually, as well as 2.4 billion eggs, larvae and young fish. The plant draws 749 million gallons of water from the Great Lakes system a day. The Maumee is considered to be a biologically productive river and a source of about one-third of the entire walleye population in Lake Erie – which supports the largest freshwater fishery in the world. Closer to Windsor, the Monroe, Mich. coal plant on the western shore of Lake Erie kills more than 25 million fish a year.

In particular, The Bay Shore plant is a multi-million-dollar economic drain. Ohio environmental groups commissioned a study that estimated the cost of depleted fish populations – impacting on commercial and sports fishing – is about $30 million a year. Pumping warm water back into the lake also promotes the growth of bacteria and degrades fish habitats.

Read more: Windsor Star

Pat Pagano & Mike Atkins caught & released over 40-bass fishing 4″ tubes and drop-shot rigs in Lake St. Clair on opening weekend for bass in Ontario.  conditions were good and they were able to weigh-in over 16 lb. of smallmouths in the tournament they were in.  High water levels in the Great Lakes this year should continue to produce great bass fishing in both shallow and deep water!

Noel Gyger reports:

Weather has been cool all week with only a spattering of rain. This is good

as most rivers are now fishable, some only borderline. More rain is predicted for the

weekend, hope it is light. The Skeena River has been dropping since June 19 and is

now fishable. There should be good numbers of Chinook (King) Salmon migrating up

river to spawn in their native waters. Sockeye fishing has started. The Kalum River is

high but in good shape. A few anglers are heading out to try their luck fishing for

Chinook (King) Salmon. The Zymoetz (Copper) River is high but fishable. Chinook

should be coming in. Kitimat River: Fishing for Chinook has been slow. The water is

coming down and some fish are in. In the whole region this is still the best place to fish

for Chinook. Keep the faith, any high tide can still bring in lots of fish. Douglas Channel:

I have reports of Chinook landed “out front” in the bay but it has been slow. Prince

Rupert: I have reports of good Chinook fishing. Bottom fish and Crab have been good

also. Check the full report for details fishing the Chatham Sound area near Prince

Rupert. Meziadin: Marvin Reid reports, that once again this week, the fishing at

Meziadin has been awesome. There has been some excellent Dolly Varden being

landed, along with a few Rainbows. Smithers area: Rainbow Alley: The water is still

really high. Minnow patterns still work. Depending on the time off day you may want to

use a stone fly as well. Lots of fish activity. Other Lakes: Lake fishing is still really good.

Char and Rainbows being caught in good numbers

This week reports came from Mike Herzberg, Almudena Miles, Andreas Handl, Andrew

Rushton, Tracey Hittel, Marvin Reid and Steve Hidber. Thank you to the fishing guides

and others who sent reports and photos. It is very much appreciated!

If you would like to book a guided trip with Noel Gyger, you can contact him at, www.noelgyger.ca .

My friend Moshe Berger who lives in Israel recently made a return trip to Canada to go fishing.  Here is how his trip went.

“We has a great time and caught over 65 Brook Trout and Splake in 4 days fishing at some of the La Reserve Beauchene, Quebec back-lakes.  I had an absolute monster follow my spinner right to the boat but didn’t take.  It was well over 6 pounds. My heart was pounding for quite a while.  My friend Abe caught a Brook Trout that was over 4 pounds in that same lake. There isa picture of that one.  It was strange that we barely caught anything during the last 2 hours of light.

We also went to Oak Lake, north-east of Peterborough, ON for a day of Walleye fishing after the Beauchene trip.  I never fished walleye in the spring before so I took your advice and fished shallow weedy areas right next to deeper water that I normally catch them in the summer.  I had the best walleye day of my life. I caught over 8 walleye from 3 to 4 pounds. My friends caught a few fish combined. I started feeling guilty catching more fish. I wonder if the person driving the boat has an advantage, as he sees the finder has a better idea of the structure?  My friends felt that was the case!

As the weather became more stable and the sun came out at around 2 o’clock, we didn’t get a bite for the rest of the day.  Even the bass stopped biting.  I have never experienced such a shut down like that before. It didn’t matter though as we had incredible action up until then and felt quite satisfied.

I am coming to Toronto this summer and wanted to ask you advice on a bass spot.  A couple of friends and I want to go bass fishing within a 4 hour drive from Toronto. Cheap accommodations or even camping would be fine along with boat rental. I do know of several options I just thought that I would ask you if you can recommend a place with great fishing.”

 

Shalom Moshe,

Glad to hear you had a great trip to Beauchene and caught lot’s of walleye at Oak Lake.  I would suggest you to go Foster’s, campground on the Bay of Quinte and fish for both largemouth & smallmouth bass, walleye and pike.  You can use all kinds of techniques there from crankbaiting, surface lures, spinnerbaits, soft-plastics, etc.  Hope you don’t mind if I brag about your catches on my Blog.

God bless you,

Italo

My Dad Tim Patterson and I travelled up to Norland, ON Friday night in preparation for opening of the bass season 2011 !  We set out somewhat early, we were on the water at 0654 hrs. AM.  We traveled down river out from the government dock, working a few patches of lily pads and along a weed line without success.  We then decided to try around a trusted spot we know for bluegill, off an island in the north end of Shadow Lake.

Shadow Lake presents some awesome depth variations from very shallow to very deep, depending on where you are.  Fishing 16′ or so offshore of the island, in depts ranging from 1 ft. through 45 – 50 ft. and variations in between.  Using my Rapala Avantis bait casting combo, spooled with Rapala Finesse 14 lbs. test mono, I began casting a Rapala Jointed Shad-rap in light beige / silver colour.  This lure produced excellent results on Bass Opener with two nice smallmouth being landed.  One measured 15 3/4″ long and weighed approximately 2 lbs.  We did notice a skin scar which appeared to be fresh as well as a scratch down one side of the smallmouth’s body.  Something big must have bit at him. We did also manage to land a few largemouth on the small side as well as one rock bass and a perch on this shad rap.

Using my Humminbird 141C fish finder, I was able to safely keep in good depts and view the bottom structure with ease.  We shut down the outboard and I utilized my MinnKota Endura 30 lbs. thrust electric.  This MinnKota electric is very quiet and smooth and enabled us to strategically work structure / shoreline around the lake. Weather was medium – heavy overcast with intermittent rain showers throughout the morning.  Our clothes were soaked, everything was wet, but no way could we miss Bass Opening day !!

Best regards;

Ben

The Welland River, ON has been stocked with walleye for a number of years and anglers are enjoying the results.  On the way to Merrit Island today we spotted a couple of anglers fishing off the Aquaduct (where the Welland River goes under the Welland Recreational Canal), and we stopped to talk to the anglers.  Jeff Munroe was kind enough to show-off the nice-size walleye he caught fishing right from shore.  As we talked, another nice bass took his minnow and as he was fighting it we could clearly see another bass trying to get the same bait.  The nice thing about fishing the Aquaduct is that there are so many baitfish that you can catch your own bait by simply using a minnow dip-net and than fishing right off the bridge.  The fishing will be good there all summer long.