singingdog

The folks at Ogopogo resort are a great resource for ice conditions. They keep several huts all season, and keep a good eye on the ice. The folks at Minden Bait and tackle don't know the difference between a pike and a whitefish.

9 hours ago, chris.brock said:

Good to know. How much snow is up there? We are trying to choose a lake for tomorrow.

Really depends on where you are. 10-15 cms, with a crusty base in lots of places. Get very far north and it is deeper.

Have seen folks out on several lakes this week. Talked to one group: 5" of good ice on smaller lakes with no current.

This is usually one of my favorite times of year to fish, especially for big smallies and hungry splake. All ended yesterday when most of the smaller lakes froze bank to bank. Time to wax the skis.

I didn't see that this was a question about the St Lawrence. You can probably discount everything I said, which is about shield lakes, except the part about watching the birds

I usually fish bass right to the end of November. Yes, finding them is where your time is usually spent. The good thing is, once you find them, you will usually catch a bunch of quality fish. A couple of things that I have found over the years:

1. If they are holding somewhere, as opposed to actively feeding, it's a "spot on the spot" scenario. They will be super concentrated on some small, subtle feature. If you can hit them on the nose, they will likely bite. I have had 5-6 large bass off one small weed patch in 18 FOW. But, miss the weed patch by 2' and I won't get bit.

2. Watch the birds! If there are diving ducks/gulls in the shallows feeding don't be afraid to go right into 2-3 FOW and fish fairly aggressively. The bite usually doesn't last long, but can be as hot and heavy as any warm water bite. I usually go after them with flukes or preacher jigs fished fairly fast.

3. Depth matters! If they are in deeper water, IMHO, they won't move up or down much to bite. Read some of the In Fisherman articles on fishing "in space". If they are hugging bottom, it's easy. If they are 10' down, over 30' of water, that's tough. But, if you want easy, fish walleye

Really surprised you couldn't find that in a Google search ?

Big issue up here. Pike have been introduced into several small lakes in Haliburton County: lakes that used to be great smallie/musky lakes. I suspect that carp have been introduced into a few of our lakes/rivers as well. One of my favorite smallie lakes suddenly became impossible to fish without getting bitten off. Ran into some eastern european folks - who were fishing with live perch for bait - that pretty much admitted putting the pike into the lake because "it wasn't good fishing".

One of the lakes with a healthy, reproducing brook trout population has had smallies intrduced into it: lots of lakers and smallies now, very few brookies left.

Loch ness monster

No special rod needed for smaller swimbaits on weighted hooks or jigheads. As stated, a good spinnerbait rod will do the trick. 

Marine Goop: I have patched tons of whitewater gear with it: no issues, much easier than contact cement. 

Long shot, but I'm looking for a telescoping tenkara rod. I have lots of other fly/spin/baitcast gear to trade or buy. 

I wasn't prepared to buy into the ned rig mania, but have become a bit of a convert. Does it outfish 1/2 a senko on any decent jighead? Only if you are fishing it on the bottom, which I rarely do. The big benefit to the Zman plastics is the durability: 20+ fish on one plastic is common if you do a good jog of glueing on the plastic. That makes a huge difference when the rockbass are trying to pull the plastic off of every jig you throw in the water. I prefer other jigheads to the gopher head, but it's tough to find quality hooks on such light heads. I rarely use the TRD, prefer the hula sticks.

I mainly use it as a slow mid-column presentation, or as a river presentation. It catches fish, and not just bass. On a couple of local rivers, I routinely go out with nothing but ned rigs: rainbows, 'eyes, smallies, carp, and musky (biteoffs) all fall for it. This spring, it was one of my best 'eye lures, outfishing any hand-tied jig I tried. Fall smallies: best thing I have ever tried, which is hard to say since I love tieing and fishing hare/hair jigs.

10 hours ago, smitty55 said:

I'm really surprised no one has mentioned hair jigs for smallies. I guess they've been around for too long hehe.  A very versatile year round lure for SMB. I think it would be easy enough to use out of a yak as well

Here's a good read for you Dutch. http://www.in-fisherman.com/bass/catching-smallmouths-with-hair-jigs/

 

Cheers

I used to be a die-hard hair jig fisherman especially in the fall. I often fished all of October and November with nothing but a black bear hair jig. My experience the last few years has been that the Ned rig will generally out fish a hair jig

Surprised that no one has mentioned swimbaits or lipless cranks. If I were fishing deeper, open water those 2 presentations would at the top of my list. 4-5" swimbait on a jighead is great for fishing the entire column, as is a lipless crank. If I am searching for fish, a lipless crank is one of my first choices.

It really depends on the pattern you are tying, and the action you want. You are never going to tie a long streamer pattern - a Clouser for example - with rabbit fur. On the other hand, rabbit moves in the water much easier than even the finest deer hair. I don't see how either could effect the castability significantly.

Cold water + alcohol + no PFDs. That's not tragic, it's nearly inevitable.

28 minutes ago, misfish said:

I,ll bet that moose was looking for some veggies.  Looks like it,s been starving for a bit.

Yep, skinny and a bit unsteady on it's feet. We wondered if it was not well.

3 of us got out for our yearly yakfishing musky opener. Water temps were high (70F), but vegetation growth is slow: very little green yet. We moved/caught a good number of fish both days, but couldn't find the big ones. Curious how other folks did, what worked, where the fish were. Had a close encounter with a skinny moose. 

The rock ledge at the exit of Mountain Lake is great because it acts like a natural dam and keeps the water levels from dropping dramatically like so many other lakes on the Trent system. The downside is that it gets incredibly shallow when lake levels do get low. I have been through there on both boards and yaks when you could have walked across the entire channel. 

I have experimented a fair bit with very thin braid and nanofil. I really thought it would help on back lakes, where being able to throw light lures as far as possible matters. 10 lb braid helps, the right rod helps waaaay more.

Thanks for the correction darkwater. Many of the problems that folks have with braid - wind knots, wrapping guides, hard to tie knots - is due to the very small diameter. 

Don't choose braid by the breaking strength, choose it by the diameter. 10 lb PPro is about the same diameter as 4 lb mono. If you are then tieing on 10-12 lb leaders, the diameter difference can be an issue for knot strength. 

Either a phone with good apps, or a handheld GPS unit will do what you want to do. Battery life is not really an issue, since good power banks for the phone are really cheap and very effective. You don't need cell service for a good smartphone to get good GPS performance. If you are rally remote, take both: backup is always a good thing.

IMHO, you are always going to get better distance with a spinning reel. Feel for the bottom has to do with rod and line choice, virtually nothing to do with reel choice.