Paradise In April/ Lake "O" Browns

Another cross province trek yields yet more spectacular Lake Ontario Brown action.
For the second time in 3 days I found myself driving long distances in search of Brown Trout, this time hitting a completely different part of that big fish tank know as Lake Ontario.

Being one of the nicest days of the year so far , temps reaching the low 20's and the sun bright and high in the sky, water clarity was amazing....I mean amazing!!

The short boat ride to the fishing hole from the inlet was very scenic even though we were dealing with water levels approaching 2.5' below the norm.

You can tell the health of an area based on how much wildlife you see and these waters were full of fish , aquatic animals dotting the shore line and birds everywhere...I knew we were in for some good fishing.

On the lake the scenery was even more impressive with shoreline rock formations thousands of years old and still a slave to nature.

We set up the troll and made several passes on a previously proven break line but the fish were not active or had moved out to deeper water due to the clear, bright sunny day and no wind conditions. We decided to see if changing up our tactics would prove successful for us.

With 2 anglers and 2 lines per angler and planer boards set we were covering approx 200' of water and were running different baits at different depths to see what would work.It wasn't long before we had the first fish in the boat and had switched the other baits to run at that depth

The bite was on and with each pass we were having hits/ losses and hook ups

Great fighting fish and clear water makes for plenty of eye opening action!!

The last one of the day fought the best with plenty of aerobic leaps and powerful runs but was no match for patience and a skilled net man.

What an amazing day of fishing in April....the lake was as perfect as it can get.

Can't wait to get out again!!

Special thanks to Laker John.

Lake Ontario Browns And a New Species To Add To The List

Fresh water fishing has begun with a trip to Lake Ontario for some Browns with some friends. Being that Muskie is still almost 3 months away dipping the line for other species is always an option. What started as a rendezvous at the local beach launch turned out to be an action filled day with lots of laughs and reminising of other outings we've had over the years.

Blue sky day , no wind to start and with 2 lines we were stoked to get into some action. We trolled a spot not to far from down town Toronto that had some pretty interesting scenery on the way to the spot...

My bud Arnaldo was captian for the day in his fine Tracker boat rigged perfectly for the type of fishing we were planning to do.

We trolled mainly in and out of shallow water looking for baitfish hoping the Trout woould be around and feeding.

Arnaldo keeping an attentive eye on the sonar looking for signs of fish and proper depth.

Action started soon and after several hookups and losses we thought we were into a big fish but the line peeled out and snapped, unfortunately this happened twice before we managed this decent Brown which fought well for it's size.

Keeping on the troll we decided to try to get me onto a species I had never caught before and with time winding down we switched over to some different techniques in hopes of hooking up.

It wasn't long befor we were into a few of these size Drum which fought good but were just about as stinky as a fish gets...

All in all a great day (what day fishing isn't??) and worth the almost 9 hr round trip for a day fish...

No matter what you catch....fishing always is a good time !!

Bucktail Madness 2010 inline baits

2010 is going to be long and hard on my casting outfits after the success of 2009. With many big fish released on large inline bucktails I have already begun to stock up for 2010 and the St.Clair Hound by the Dog River Lodge Lure Company is first on my assault list.

These baits are some of the best made inline spinners I have ever seen and run as good as they look.

Burning the tops of weeds or slow retrieving these baits along edges works wonders for either suspended fish or those lurking the weeds for prey. I hope to post many fish pics courtesy of the Hound in 2010 so stay tuned for some Ottawa River muskie action at it's finest.

You can choose just about any color you like.

March 1st update

Wow what a brutal winter for ice fishing and ice is off on most waterbodies already. Hopefully I'll be able to make a trek up into the Calabogie area for some rainbows before all the ice is gone.

Meanwhile visit me at WFN as an official ambassador to WFN for the Eastern Ontarion area.

There will be plenty of boat mod pics to come and when the seasons start to open, lots of fish pics.

2009 closes with a wimper

Well there certainly wasn't much to post about in November of 2009. With unseasonal weather and generally poor conditions only small(under 40") Muskies were boated and we had to work hard for them. Oh well.....there's always ice fishing , which I hope to post some decent pictures and then a long off season. Hopefully 2010 will produce more big muskies!!

HOME AND HOME RESULTS

My bud Kert and I fished pretty hard this weekend. 3 fish caught, 1 lost at boat side and 2 other big fish follow.

Pretty awesome. We managed a 47", 43" and a 32".. man what an awesome day.

2 fish helped Project Noble Beast ...

FIGURE EIGHT DELIGHT

Got out today with my good bud Kert for a day fish on the Upper Ottawa river

After an interesting start that included running out of gas in my buds boat, having to be towed to shore, takeing a cab to the other launch(where the truck was) , driving back to the boat, pulling the boat out of the water to go gas up because the marina was out of gas,,,, we were back on the water set up to cast a weed bed.

A controlled approach gave us the best opportunity to cast the weed bed effectively. Not far into it I had a follow on a Cowgirl. Immediately I went into the figure 8 and the fish followed for at least a minute when it finally inhaled the bait directly under the boat and what a fight. Heavy pulls, headshakes and short runs. This fish wasn't giving up without a fight and completely destroyed my cowgirl. Almost in the net it decided to flip and with hooks in the net already it was a scramble to get it back in the net without losing it. My first figure eight Muskie in many years!!

A fine 47" male that took a couple minutes to recover but still swam off strong. A couple cast later the same thing happened but a couple jumps and it was gone. A smaller fish but still very aggressive.

With the wind dropping and sun beating us we called it a day. A good day for sure!!