hi italo I really need your advice as I go for two species of fish that I have not fished before. I want to kill two days fishing for smelt and catfish. I come from St.Catharines ON. Can you suggest places like somewhere in Niagara region for smelt and Dannville for catfish. I’ll have my 14 jon boat so I ll need to launch it somewhere. How heavy a line you use for catfish Also how do people catch smelt nets Where can I buy them on the way I heard the best time is night fishing for smelt. I want to go this week. Thank you and hope to see you sometime
Posted on April 25th, 2011Hi John….I have not heard if the smelt are running yet, I think we are a couple of weeks away from the heavy smelt runs in southern Ontario. My favorite place to catch them near St. Catharine’s is the Queenston, ON boat launch (right at the end of Dumfries St., in Queenston, ON). Pete’s Bait & Tackle on Secord St., in St. Catharine’s should sell smelt nets. The best time to catch the smelt there is at night, but last spring I caught all mine duriing the day (there were just that many!!). The channel cat fishing in the Grand below the Dunnville Dam has been good since March and it will be peaking-out very shortly. The river may be high and dirty from all the heavy rains so fishing conditions won’t be optimal, but you can still catch the channel catfish. You can launch your boat right at the Dunnville, ON boat launch (just south of the Hwy.#3 bridge, behind arena). Just go down-stream from there to before the first bend, anchor your boat anywhere in 5-7′ of water, cast out a bottom-fishing rig (sliding-sinker rig works well), baited with either a chunck of large baitfish (sucker and shad work great), or you can even use a jumbo shrimp. Let it sit on the bottom until you get a pick-up. A good hook size to use is a 1/0 hook. You can use your medium action spinning or baitcasting outfit loaded with 14 lb. monofilament or 30 lb. braid (8 lb. test monofilament diameter)….God bless you, Italo
