Garfisher

Just came back from 3rd Year Fish and Wildlife Field Camp, and plenty of ice fishing was to be had at the hunt camp we stayed at for the week. I only fished the main lake, which is stocked with Rainbows and has a small self-sustaining population of Brookies, however other classmates also fished another smaller lake on the property that were stocked with Brookies. Managed to catch 5 Rainbows and a bonus/rare 17" Brookie (totally unexpected considering we only caught one during sampling at fall camp using Fyke nets), and managed to catch the biggest Brook Trout of the week. I held big fish honours for all of 5 minutes with my biggest Rainbow (2nd fish in the pics below, 20.75" long) before my friend caught one that we estimated at approximately 22". All fish were caught on a light power ice rod with 4lb Fireline Crystal, and the lure of choice was a Powerbait Micro Nymph on a 1/8oz Lunker City Fin-S Fish Head (or whatever those jigheads are called).

Lack of Brook Trout is pretty simple to explain. Almost any Algonquin lake that has Smallmouth in it will not have Brook Trout, due to competition with Smallmouth as they are usually more aggressive feeders (I think there are a few lakes that do have both in them still). I know in Smoke Lake there is a good population of Lakers present, as well as plenty of Smallmouths (the largest we netted last fall was around 2lbs or so, however there are probably much larger ones around).

Lack of fish as in a lack of Brook Trout?

I think it's a straight Green Sunfish. Green Sunfish do hybirdize with other sunfish readily (including Bluegill and Pumpkinseed), however I think this one isn't a hybrid because the mouth on it is huge, and if it were hybridized it would have a slightly smaller maw on it.

Some of those males remind me of male pink salmon. Neat looking fish, and well done on the trip

My friend's hut blew into the same area. He ended up taking pics of your hut (along with his), thought the description sounded familiar. Looked like a decent amount of damage done to just the one side. Hopefully shes salvagable, monday is looking like it's supposed to hit around -1ºC, so you may be able to get it out if it continues to warm.

My two friends and I skated a hut down Sturgeon today. Thinnest we found was 6-7" (where we set it), a lot of ice around 8". We didn't venture out toward the middle, but within 100-150m of shore should be perfectly fine along the eastern side (around pleasant point).

Note: a word of advise, skating a hut 2.5-3km and then skating back is a real good work out

What a pig! Approx. 24lbs according to In-Fisherman

Seen a couple good ones myself on the walk home

eeeks and we still dont have GL Trout ... guess I better get ON THAT !!

I'm trying saturday so hopefully we get something. 9.5" gives us the lead I think, but bigger is better

I honestly doubt you would get anything in the river at this time of the year. Your best bet may be to wait until the ice comes unless you have access to a boat. I'm sure you could find some panfish or even the odd bass or muskie on Lake Scugog.

Longnose Gar: 38"

Largemouth Bass: 20.5"/5.3lbs

Smallmouth Bass: 15"

Rock Bass: 7.5"

Pumpkinseed: 6"

Bluegill: 8.5"

Black Crappie: 11"

Yellow Perch: 10.5"

Walleye: 16.5"

Northern Pike: 29.5"

Muskellunge: 27"

Common Carp: approx. 22lbs

Brown Trout: 9"

Rainbow Trout: 16"

Lake Trout: 20"

Splake: 10"

Of those, 3 are new species I've caught (Bluegill, Lake Trout and Splake)

The "consolation" prize

Emerald shiners and other minnow species are on their fall run right now. Might have just been spawning minnows. More likely whatever was chasing around schools of pinheads this time of year would be bluegills or perch. Pike wouldnt waste their energy on 1" minnows unless the pike were 10" long.

They would if they were hungry enough and there was a decent school of them. I've had a couple mid-30" pike hit small (less than 2") spoons while perch fishing in October. However they would just be as happy going after the distracted perch . It's likely there's one or two around

I'm gonna say orange Nice looking jigs you have there

Funniest thing I've seen this fall involved a whiskeyjack. On a little trip to the Spruce Bog in Algonquin while at field camp, we found a couple along the trail (we had already fed some at the parking lot). One of the guys I was with decided to stick his hand out like he had food. One landed on his hand, looked down, looked at him, looked back down, and then bit him in the webbing at the base of his fingers and flew off (that was the entire group reaction who seen it)

http://ctvnewsbarrie.ca/videos/1015/sunday-october-21,-2012-ctvnews@6-webcast

Starts at 9:10 if anyone wants to see the segment.

Muskies have been released in Simcoe since 2005. They are released when they are big enough to be too large for most other fish to eat them (most bass and panfish/walleye). Most of the fish seemed to have avoided the gulls today thanks to the high winds making it tough for the gulls to manoeuvre through the reeds to try to get the ones that stayed near the surface too long (yes I helped stock them today).

That's a PIG!!! Well done on the new PB

Nicely done, looks like a good haul of muskies for your trip

Let's take a crack at this:- People still do use lighter lines to catch fish, some people go out of their way to fish UL for fish. Some fishermen use modern day braids because they like the feel of braid (specifically that you can feel everything going on with your lure. It also depends on what technique they are using though. "Finesse" fishing usually requires lighter lines to present smaller baits, however if you try catching a 4lb bass out of the middle of a thick patch of lily pads using 8lb mono is a definite no-no, the line would snap or you would get wrapped up in the pads by the fish. Thick cover situations usually require 50lb braids because you do need to haul fish out of the cover if it is really thick. However most people I see that casually fish for anything use 6-10lb mono, not 30lb+ braid so that they can simply haul in fish instead of actually fighting them. I will add that my PB bass from earlier this year was caught on 30lb braid on heavy spinning tackle because I did not want the chance to possibly lose a fish due to lily pads nearby. If I had used lighter lines I probably would have had that fish dig down into the pads between me and where it was hooked, however if it was open water I would have much preferred to get it on 8lb test.

- Discretion is required in line choice for catching fish. Fighting fish on light lines does require skill, but using waaaay too light lines will probably require you to tire the fish right out in order to land it. With less hardy fish such as muskies, this stress can kill the fish itself. This also ties into your thought that the invention of braided line was partly responsible for the thought of fighting fish being stressful for the fish. Braid was around long before monofilament, fishermen from the 1500's braided the hairs from the tails of horses to fish with. As technologies improve, mono has been introduced (as well as the modern superlines), however fish and their health when stressed is also a relatively new topic in the scientific community.

- Part of the reason why the thought of bringing fish in quickly is due to our modern view on fishing. Most people catch-and-release, whereas not even 50 years ago most people fished to catch dinner (where captured fish were likely to be killed instead of being released). It's recommended to not fight fish for a long time (that isn't neccessary) because those fish are most likely being released after the fight. Fish that are fought to total exhaustion have a higher chance of dying due to stress and lactic acid build up in muscles (which pretty much any animal can die if they over-exert themselves, people die from running marathons every year), and this would be a large fisheries management issue if everyone fought fish to exhaustion. It makes sense to suggest that fishermen should try to keep fighting to a minimum (or at least not overdo it) if they intend to release fish, however it isn't blatantly said that everyone should haul in fish and that fighting them to any extent is a big no-no.

Considering this is up near Temagami, I would think it is very possible for them to be in water of that depth at that latitude

That is an awesome underwater shot! Reminds me of a certain dock/wharf in a town on Georgian Bay that gets a large run of emeralds in the fall (which the perch go nuts, the pike follow too).

It was probably something that naturally occured (although it may have been accelerated by humans, never know), a sharp increase/decline in water temperature can cause a fish kill. My guess was that either an area of low-oxygenated water moved in and killed those fish, or it was botulism-related (a lot of those fish do eat off bottom where it does occur naturally)