OhioFisherman

Driving distance was the main reason I stopped fishing with the first bass club I was in, why would you chose lakes the farthest distance away for one day tournaments? Ya, driving from here to New York state for a one day tournament was right on top of my to do list! Note the sarcasm. A difference in the mind set of the younger and older members, the younger ones still seemed to consider themselves indestructible? It's supposed to be fun? not an endurance contest? At the end of a tournament us older guys with families liked to make sure we weren't beat to death and could return safely to our families? Club #2 with the older family guys and their adult kids had a better perspective, schedule the farthest tournaments away as two day events, in mid summer when school was out, and you could also turn them into family vacations at those lakes. Plenty of places for me to fish within an hour or two of home, why knock myself out? If I felt a need to get away and do some serious fishing? A week or two vacation covered it.

There is this area of mostly rocky bottom on Lake Erie here, about 8 miles long, I think the Smallies make their own milk run covering it. Sometimes you could get lucky and hit a spot you had caught them in the past and they would be there, if not you had to make a search. Some days you could pull 15-30 pigs of a spot in a half hour, and then it was like they were never there. Years back a buddy had got a new boat and wanted to try it out badly, so we drove up to Turtle Creek in Oak Harbor to launch, it was almost dark by the time we got in the water and every one else was leaving. The consensus of most seemed to be we wouldn't catch Walleyes on Lake Erie at night, by midnight we were heading back in with our limits. I have fished lakes and ponds that had a very good night bite, on others you would think there were no fish.

http://www.basspro.com/BoatBuckle-RodBuckle-Rod-HoldDown-System-or-Mount-Adapter/product/16002/ http://www.amazon.com/BoatBuckle-F14200-Gunwale-Retractable-Tie-Down/dp/B002IV8JZW

It would seem that the number of Muskie reports on Lake Erie in my general area is up. All seem to be smaller sized fish from what I could see, 12 pounds and under or so? Outside of the Erie Island area and the sheltered bays it was pretty had to find any weed beds in the open waters of the lake, maybe that is changing?

They heard you were coming? My most reliable Muskie action came once I had given up and started bass fishing! LOL The bass may have been the right sized lure for them?

Forage? I recall seeing another guy at a camp in Pointe Au Baril with a 19-20 inch bass that a Muskie had thought was forage! The bass was ripped from it's gill plates back and the Muskie didn't let go until it saw the boat. Just guessing that once they reach a certain size they view everything else as forage? The Georgian Bay has the area and habitat? Also the food supply? Everything from baitfish to Muskie sized baitfish like perch, walleye, bass, and trout? The bass in the California lakes seem to put on some pounds eating trout? Picking the best area to fish for them around 30,000 islands complicates the problem? Not to mention that you had probably better know the area well to avoid busting a prop or lower unit? It's just not the greatest area to be in a hurry in? We were never really prepared to land a huge fish, we saw some big ones and lost them, and then there were the fish that we never saw? Just peeled out line. I don't recall us ever catching a small one, but they had to be there, the back bays seemed like a perfect spawning area. Your call, pick your favorite spot and fish like hell!

Bass are actually a member of the sunfish family so schooling and hunting for food as a group should be no surprise. They school on Lake Erie and other lakes too, and I haven't found it unusual for large mouth bass to school either. I have seen schools of smallies and largemouth herding emerald shiners or golden shiners in inland lakes to trap them against the shore. At the local state park and in ponds here and inland lakes it's not unusual to see a school of largemouth cruising the shore together searching for food. On the Georgian Bay it wasn't unusual either to pick up 4-5 nice largemouth or smallmouth off a spot no bigger than a car, and sometimes it seemed like they schooled together. The largemouth in 15-20 feet of water with the smallies. My first step if I were searching for smallies in an unfamiliar lake would be to look for areas with a broken rock - gravel bottom , if it is on a point with scattered weeds? all the better. A good depth finder helps, if you mark fish near those types of bottom they are usually smallies.

Any electric supply outlet and even home depot or similar places should have heat shrink tubing.

Field and stream could use this report, very well done and the pictures are fantastic.

Big, I am aware of the traffic and tourist travel on 400-69, I went that way for many years myself, I thought the amount of traffic was big 25 years ago! In the overall scheme of things it is a small market, I can't recall ever stopping on the way to a lake or vacation destination to browse a tackle shop, to get the required license for the area? Yes! Which was done at more local to the area store. I don't myself envision hordes of people on a vacation trip stopping along the way, taking time away from their vacations to shop? Those purchases are usually made in advance? as part of the planning for the trip? Or like myself with our past trips to BPS, Cabela's, and Jann's Netcraft in Toledo and Michigan as a winter or early spring tour to prepare and stock up for the season? We have had 3 malls in this area close in the last 10 years or so, it's the 21st century, a lot of what their stores sold was available on line, was there a need for the expense of maintaining a huge store front? A lot of those stores seem to have felt that offering free shipping for purchases over 50-100 bucks on line was cheaper for them in the long run. Like the WalMart in my area, once they eliminated most of the competition? They became a 24/7 superstore. The foot is in the door, business will dictate business decisions?

128,430 (2006) Barrie, Population 2.503 million (2006) Toronto, Population If Barrie wants bigger stores they are going to have to compete? Toronto, ON, Canada 1 h 9 min In current traffic: 1 h 12 min Barrie, ON, Canada Is there a point of building a huge store in a small market?

August? I might be looking for a bit deep water or edges of a flat with deeper water at the end of the edges. in the evening bigger pike might move into feed before dark. It doesn't look like bad water to fish a jig and pig for pike, especially a perch patterned hair jig with a pork or plastic frog trailer. You might also try a swim bait.

I wouldn't have thought a lot that size was possible! LOL It sounds like NYC or LA. My first home had a 50x126 lot and I thought that was small. I guess like parts of this country area seems to dictate pricing? Now this place in Kentucky seems like a nice lot to me! http://www.landandfarm.com/property/CROFTON_RESERVOIR_50_ACRES_PRIVATE_17_ACRE_LAKE-1445438/

bushart, I totally agree on the labor and wages. I don't have a clear idea on the Toronto area and housing prices, but 350-400k can get you a pretty nice shack in a good area here. http://www.homes.com/property/4016-fairway-dr-medina-oh-44256/id-600026365031/

Actually Dave a lot of the former industry in that area has been relocated to China or Mexico, until our labor costs reach the level of theirs I don't see it becoming a problem. The Cuyahoga does provide drainage though for a lot of farm land miles to the south of Cleveland and Akron, if they aren't careful both might face the same issues? http://www.epa.state.oh.us/dsw/tmdl/CuyahogaRiver.aspx

http://www.sustainabletable.org/267/water-quality http://gracelinks.org/789/drinking-water-week-blues-nitrate-pollution-from-coast-to-coast I recall reading an article that Ohio used to pay farmers to leave a buffer zone of undisturbed area around fields that bordered rivers and streams. In that article it said some farmers with the increases prices for soybeans and corn as alternate fuel sources had done away with those areas, it was more profitable to plant than protect.

Consider soft plastics tools, you don't want to leave them at home if you have a job to do. The water exploding when a fish hits a top water lure is cool, but it's not always the best way to fish an area? I have caught far more bass fishing soft plastic lures, even at night. I have never noticed a bass having any difficulty finding a 4 inch plastic worm on a pitch black night, they even seem to find them with the rain hitting the water. I have had many 60 plus bass days fishing soft plastics with a partner, and some days nothing seems to work real well, that is when you try to make each bite count, it may be your last.

I recall going over that bridge many times, it is probably going to be a real shocker for some tourists?

What others have said and confidence and equipment? I liked to fish a soft plastic bait Texas style weightless in lily pads and wood, hard to do with a wacky style an exposed hook. Depending on the size of the bait used a 3/0 - 5/0 hook gave the lure a slow fall, more time in the strike zone? Casting distance was never much of an issue for me, I usually fished out of a boat and always had an electric motor to sneak in closer. Also some specialized tackle, a closed face spinning reel on a flipping stick made for a spinning reel or 7 foot medium heavy action spinning rods that would handle bigger fish in cover. The reel I used would handle 17-20 pound mono very well and it allowed me to flip-pitch-or cast light weight baits easily. There were enough moving parts on a 6-8 inch lizard that I wasn't too concerned about the loss of action from the hook.

When he showed them his rod they reeled?

Lake Simcoe is rumored to have some nice ones, I know Lake Erie does.

I wonder how many people would be so eager to head south if they hadn't of invented air conditioning? Granted that it was my first trip that far south and I was already heat sensitive due to MS, but a couple of hours outside in the morning and late evening was all I could handle. 65-75 always seemed like perfect weather to me, especially out in a boat fishing!

I had the same experience on the G/B, once the gar moved in everything else seemed to move out. It seems odd because they really can't eat too big of another species of fish.

The high here hit 67 degrees F, my kind of weather! I went to Florida once in August, and thought I was in hell! LOL