MJL

I haven’t been online much the last little while. I was sidelined with some health problems and haven’t been able to get out. According to my friends, I didn’t miss much in terms of action around my local swims in Toronto. It literally went from deep freeze to instant spawn within a few days and the numbers of big hungry fish that usually school up in the shallow bays and flats never really happened. 2009 so far has been my toughest carping season in a long time with numbers averaging 1-4 fish per session along with a fair number of blanks mixed in.

A couple I caught early last month around Toronto while fishing with DSN

Yesterday my dad and I hit up one spot in the Kawarthas to see what the carping action was like. When we got to the swim, we were greeted with strong currents that had 5oz of lead bouncing along bottom. To our surprise Photoz was already there fishing (unfortunately without any luck). We set up in an area of slack water, baited up the swim with corn and a groundbait mix and waited…And waited…

Around 8am, my alarm goes off and I’m into a fish that strips tons of line off the reel. I managed to tease it out of the main current and land it.

One around 23lbs – First fish in almost a month

The ducks really like Photoz’s bait

It was a slow day overall. I think the cold front which passed might’ve had something to do with that. We still had fun fishing with Photoz and chatting with Rodpody who came by to see how things were going. Rodpody even let me have a few samples of the lead sinkers that he makes along with some cow pellets I could try mixing in with my groundbait – Many thanks Ron. In the end, my dad lost 2, I landed 1 and lost 1. Photoz caught a duck that swam into his line and got lassoed – I managed to grab it and unravel it from the line without getting pecked.

Hopefully I’ll be able to get out during the week…Gotta make up for all that time I lost

Well done to the both of you. Dying to get up to a few swims in the Kawarthas. Depending on whether I can get a car, hopefully I can make it up there very soon.

That's a beauty mirror too. Last year I saw 6 decent sized mirrors come from that swim in one day by 2 anglers...There's hope for you Vic. Here's hoping you get a mirror as fat and jiggly as the one I got last year in New York

Great report Beans and CPH. Good to see you got into some. Don't worry too much about the lack of numbers or the string of blanks. For me this season has been one of the toughest in a very long time.

Glad you finally got into them Beans, one of these days I'll have to come try out your "Carp point" swim.

Can you say road trip?

Great story Lorne. I had a similar incident happen. A few years ago I decided to take one special lady angler to a quiet stretch of river for some steelheading. She fished quite a bit…More than any girl I’ve ever met and she was a trooper when it came to the cold and rain. She was new to river fishing though along with wading, rock hopping and felt sole boots.

I hook into a nice fish, engaged the clicker on the centrepin and handed her the rod. She was thrilled to fight her first ever steelhead. Got the palming technique just right within seconds…She was a natural with the pin. The fish runs downstream a bit, around a bend and into a pool where the bank is a fairly steep muddy slope. You might’ve guessed it…Mud and felt don’t mix and she was going in fast…

As she was sliding in, I made the mistake of yelling out, “Save the reel!”...Apparently a very BIG mistake. We left IMMEDIATELY afterward and it was a long and uncomfortable ride home. She was soaked and if it wasn’t for the SPF50 sunscreen I was wearing, she would’ve burned a hole through my head with those “what the hell looks” she gave me every 30 seconds. I’ve never been so afraid for myself and my tackle…

I guess that’s why I’m still single...

<< still can't tie a "carp rig"

 

watched videos...

 

tried tieing em just like the video too

 

can I buy the damn things somewhere ?

 

thanks

Tying hair rigs is super easy

If you can:

1. Thread fishing line through the eye of a hook

2. tie an overhand loop into fishing line

3. Wrap fishing line around a hook 7-15 times

4. Thread fishing line through the eye of a hook again

5. Tie the end of some fishing line to a swivel

If you can do the 5 things above, you can tie a hair rig

I have never seen hair rigs sold for cheaper than what I can make myself.

Hooks:

My favourite are made by Kamasan. Ignoring tax they're $6-$7 a pack and there's 10 in each pack = 70cents a hook

Swivel:

I use generic swivels that are dull in colour. Comes out to $1.95 per pack and there's 12 inside each pack = 16.25 cents per swivel

Hair rig materials

Cheapest I use is mono (comes in 600 yard spools) = .005277 cents per average piece of hook-link material

Most expensive I use is coated braid = Comes out to 18 cents per average piece of material

In total:

Cheapest (mono): $0.86 per rig

Most expensive (coated braid - doubt you'll ever see rigs tied with coated braid in stores): $1.04 per rig

Braid: $0.89 per rig

Fluoro: Price is somewhere in between mono and braid (At least for the fluoro I use)

With that said, I have total confidence in the hooks, swivels and hook-link materials that I use. The hooks and swivels I use aren't the cheapest and there are other suitable alternatives on the market for less $.

Thanks guys and many thanks for the recipes

Looks like a great day out there! Do you think the Browns will still be in the streams come mid July? I really want to add one to my list!

Those browns are the resident ones that live up there all year round (I'm pretty sure). They should be good to go come July.

Some of those forked tails browns are most likely atlantics no?

 

My buddy Dave caught an Atlantic lastweek and until he showed me the tail, I would have sworn it was a brown trout.

Hey Bill, I think there might have been a small fold in the tail which gives it a forked appearance. I checked my salmon/trout ID chart and compared it with the pictures zoomed in. In the pics, the fish have spots on their adipose fin (which apparently Atlantics don't have) and there is some orange colouration on it too which according to a few web-sites is common in browns. Maybe someone more experienced in fish ID can comment?

Yesterday I managed to get the car for the whole day – First time in ages. Was planning to go carp fishing with my dad up in the Kawarthas yesterday but I had a feeling it was going to be a little slow. Decided to break out the ultra-lite tackle instead and go on the hunt for some new trout fishing holes.

Left the house at 5:30am and pretty much toured around farmland and forest areas looking for whatever streams I could find…My GPS wasn’t very reliable on the dirt roads and my maps were a little out of date. I got lost a few times, ended up on a few mud roads leading to nowhere and at one point there were 10 cows surrounding my car

Got to the river at 6:30am, walked upstream with the Panther martin and first cast underneath the log jam coughs up this gem

Another small one with some beautiful markings

Spinners have been my #1 producer for brookies so far

Perhaps the smallest brown I’ve ever caught - It took the biggest spinner I had with me

Getting bigger

Biggest of the day

Love the colours

The last river I hit, I got into some more brookies and I decided to keep my last fish of the day. My first time trying a speck.

Pan fried in butter, it was delicious!

I had a total blast yesterday. I was able to get out from 5:30am to 7:40pm (wanted to fish longer but the tummy wanted something more than granola bars). I managed to scout out 8 streams of which 5 I fished and 4 actually produced trout – Hopefully I’ll get to return to the others streams during the week to try my luck. According to my GPS, I walked approximately 14.74 km yesterday through some serious shrubbery along the rivers – At least there weren’t too many bugs.

Fishing was also a lot tougher than my 2 previous outings for trout. Seems the string of crazy weather we’ve been getting might’ve put them off the bite a little. They were really hunkered down into some serious log jams – Lost a lot of tackle in the process. In the afternoon I had to stop into one tackle shop to replenish my supply of spinners (My wallet got raped in the process - $5 each for a panther martin?! I was desperate and bought a few anyway). In total I landed a couple dozen small brookies, a dozen browns and a few giant chub. Gawd, this trout fishing is addictive!

Hope you enjoyed

That's beautiful: The scenery, the fish, maybe not so much the furry topless angler

Well done on those specks

Awesome job Ryan! Great pics too. Beauty fish all-around.

Loved the report Mike. Your daughter's a real trooper for getting out in that weather. That's a beautiful spot you've got there...Mmmm walleye

Mind-blowing report Moosebunk :worthy

Beautiful pics too. One day I'll make the pilgrimage north. Thanks for sharing

I grew up fishing the Rouge marsh as a kid. Caught my very first fish there (yellow perch). I've caught carp, bullheads, smallies, pike, rock bass, yellow perch, pumpkinseed sunfish, steelhead, white perch, smelt and suckers there in the past. Seen other anglers catch the odd sheephead there too. Haven't fished it much for about 10yrs - I usually only fish it once a year for carp now. The fishing (at least IMO) seemed to go downhill with all the development and habitat restoration projects that have been going on down there. Also can get quite crowded down there now as most anglers are limited to the east side of the park - The rest of the marsh (at least where I used to fish) now has small fences in the water to protect the marsh plants from waterfowl and carp (I'm assuming). Also lots of snags around so bring spare terminal tackle. They close the gate at the entrance at night which kinda sucks too. My dad and I used to have our best carp fishing sessions there at night when most people went home.

Bring the bug spray during summer and dial 9-1 and have the finger on 1 so you can press it again...It's not exactly the safest place to be alone at night.

Running up? Probably not

Dropping back - Most definitely

With the rain we've had the last few days I wouldn't be surprised if the main river is flowing high and dirty right now. It will probably be like that for a few more days depending on which parts of the river you go to

Thanks for posting this Kickingfrog

I remember when I was kid, I'd play around with lures in my aquarium and listen to them rattle. Even wore the stethoscope that came in my Playschool doctor's toy set and pressed the diaphragm piece on the glass. Mepps Aglia has been my go-to spinner for steelhead since I started fishing for them - Really cool to hear what they sound like.

That's awesome Jamie! Fantastic pics and report. WTG

Generally speaking, there really is no best time to catching trout. It really depends on what species you’re targeting, how far you’re willing to drive away from home to fish, whether you have a boat or not and whether or not you’re willing to brave the elements while searching for them.

In winter, you can catch steelhead (migratory rainbow trout) in the rivers when they’re open and relatively free of ice – many rivers have an open year round section where you can legally fish for them before the official trout season opens. You can ice fish the lower stretches and estuaries of rivers for steelhead too provided the ice is safe enough to fish on (I've only done this twice in my life so I can’t help you very much on this). You can ice fish for brook trout and lake trout in lakes that have a season for them (if there are any nearby).

In spring, before the trout season opener, you can fish for steelhead in the year-round sections of rivers while they're running upstream to spawn. When temps warm up just enough, lake-run browns cruise close to harbours and piers and a few swim up the rivers along with the steelhead. On opening day of trout season, rivers from the headwaters down to the mouth are fair game (provided they aren’t sanctuaries or on private property). You can fish for the resident browns and brookies in the upper stretches of the rivers after opener. The resident fish stay up in the upper stretches year round but the season (when you can fish for them) in most cases goes from the end of April to the end of September. If you can find a lake with brook trout in it, that's another option too (contact the ministry for a stocking list for your area and see if any trout have been stocked nearby)

In summer when the migratory rainbows have returned to Lake Ontario, you can fish for them in the deep blue if you have a boat suitable enough for big water – Hire a charter boat for the day if you don’t have your own. You can also fish for Lakers out there too. Find a section of stream in the headwaters of nearby rivers and hunt down the resident brook and brown trout (sometimes also resident rainbows if they're around) - I haven't done much fishing for the residents but I heard it can get a little tougher to get them as the season progresses.

In fall when the season on the resident trout closes, you can fish for the fall runs of steelhead and lake-run brown trout which migrate upstream from Lake Ontario (usually after the salmon run up). The browns spawn in the fall and usually head back to the lake when winter comes around (some stay through till spring though). Steelhead will hold in the river throughout the winter till spring when they spawn. I also used to see the odd laker come into the rivers too, along with the steelhead & browns but haven’t seen any for quite some time in my local rivers…Usually caught out of season though.

Some guys I know only fish for trout throughout the year and nothing else. 4 seasons of pretty good trout fishing is possible.

Hope this helps

That gorge is quite the hike (to say the least).

If my ashes don't make it to the Skeena river in BC, I hope the Fed-ex guy can make the hike down the gorge to deliver my ashes there

Sounds like a great day!! I gotta say the more and more I read about float fishing the more interested I get. I did recently buy a 8'6" heavy casting rod with a level wind reel to use on the rivers up here, but I don't think it'll compare to the center pinning you guys go. Thanks for sharing the report, they're always pleasant to read!

8’6” is a little short for float fishing some of the bigger rivers but it’s certainly do-able for small to medium sized ones in BC. The average size float rods most guys run out west is 10’6” - 11’3” and many times they’re fishing much bigger rivers than what we fish here with our 13-15’ rods. A baitcaster has the same option of free spooling that a centrepin has and you can probably achieve the same amount of control too by trotting the spool with your thumb or adjusting the free-spool tension knob on the reel – Ask Spiel, he runs a baitcaster for his float fishing now.

Your set-up sounds like it would work well for tossing spoons (and other lures) and bottom bouncing rivers which can also be deadly for steelhead/salmon (many times even more deadly than float fishing). I’ve got an 8’6” Shimano baitcaster myself (older Shimano Convergence 8-17lb) and I’ve hooked a fair number of fish with it tossing hardware. I say go for it

Pack the steelhead gears already.... carp are calling for ya! But those are nice fish too ;-)

I accidently forgot to pack one of my float rods in storage Depending on the conditions, my dad and I might be making a trip for carp during the weekend...Not exactly sure where or when though.

That's awesome! I've noticed over the last few years a fair number of browns hanging around the piers and harbours with the pike while I'm fishing for carp...Never thought to go back with lures to get them.LOL

Beauty catch Mark

The pics turned out great. The black & white has a nostalgic look to it. Beauty fish!

Like you, I didn't know rainbows could jump eye-level till one of them almost took my head off this spring

Great pics stout fellow...Simply stunning...Great photography there

Looked like a good day anyways. Live on the river so PM me if you need advice on the lakers. They seem to hold in certain areas and if your a few feet off its a tough go.

Thanks NJ for that. I'll give you a shout if I'm heading down that way. A few places I fished on Sunday I had a bunch of snotty green sludge collecting on my hook and split shots. I've never seen it before. Is this normal? I've fished the Niagara in early may for steelhead and July-Sept for carp and I've never encountered anything like that before.

Great report and pics Mike

You're going to have to get a grip on that steelhead cravings of yours :lol: J/K

Excellent job Mike!!! doesn't get any better than that

Jacques

I was craving lakers...Honestly

At least with the warming temps, the carp should be stirring in my local swims in better numbers. Not to forget the seasonal mini-skirt 'hatch' which should be upon us very soon...That should take my mind off of steel as well...Already saw a small run of them down in the gorge - No wonder I missed some of the hits.

Over the weekend, my family decided they wanted to go over to Buffalo, NY to do some shopping which for me means only one thing…It’s the perfect opportunity to head out to one of the most beautiful and scenic rivers this province has to offer . The usual plan involves my family dropping me off at the Niagara river in the morning, crossing the border and then picking me up in the afternoon/evening when they’re done shopping.

I’ve fished the Niagara 4 times for carp and 2 times for steelhead. I’m still learning my way through all that water. Figured the water was probably still too cold for carp – I brought my steelheading gear with me instead. I’ve only caught one laker before – By accident out of the Ganny – I really wanted to catch another one.

Saturday night I fiddled around with some floats to see how much weight each one will take. For comparison, the floats on the far left of the pic are the ones I use for 98% of my float fishing for steel. Certainly a big difference.

I also popped into the local tackle shop to pick up some big split shots, hooks and a small variety of soft-plastic minnow baits in a few sizes and colours.

Sunday morning at 5am, I stuff: my waders, wading boots, lunch, snacks, water bottle, sunscreen, minnow net + small bucket and a map of the Niagara gorge into my hiking pack and I rig up my float set-up.

My family dropped me off at the river at 9am and left me there. The Niagara is certainly a lot different than just about every other river I fish for steelhead. Tried a few different areas and stretches without luck. I walked quite a bit and the heel of my wading boot fell off. No fish were hooked in the morning. I also tried catching my own minnows but even though there were hundreds swimming by the shore, I only managed to catch 2 in a dozen or so netting attempts – They’re quick buggers . (both of them subsequently fell off my hook on the cast)

Stopped at one spot that looked promising. Stuck a plastic minnow on the hook and a few drifts later, I get something that bull-dogs around and stays deep for 7 minutes…Laker? Carp?

Not quite…Can’t be disappointed with some steel. Beauty hen around 9lbs.

Biggest one of the day – Perhaps the biggest hen I’ve caught so far this year. She was a handful on the bank. Also caught her on a soft-plastic minnow bait.

In the afternoon, I hiked around the whirlpool before I had to leave. The scenery is just gorgeous and I don’t think I will ever get used to how beautiful it is.

One day I’ll take a ride up there…Perhaps when I get over my fear of heights

Managed to catch a few steelhead (lost a few too) and landed 1 OOS smallie around 3lbs. All but one of the fish I got into yesterday hit the plastic minnows I brought with me - one fish I lost hit a big pink worm. Spoke with a few other anglers and the action was also a bit slow for them too. Also ran into another OFC member on his way down to the river – Josh, it was nice meeting you.

Lakers were nowhere to be seen. I’ve been told they come into the river to feed on the minnows. I tried lures (like kwikfish and big unweighted spinners) and various minnow imitations + spawn sacks + whatever baits I use for steelhead but just couldn’t get one on nor did I see anyone else catch one. My family picked me up at 6pm. Was tired and a little sore from my trek down by the river (and especially back up to the road) but it was well worth it…Still tired and sore today...Anyone up for giving me a massage? No rough hands please

Hope you enjoyed

Wicked report Mike. That pike Jason got is massive! Beauty fish all-around

Beauty laker Tony. Congrats to you and the missus

Amazing report and pics! All that hard work getting into those lakes looks like it paid off. Beauty specks. One day I'll try my hand at one of those trips.

Can't get a freezer more environmentally friendly than that

Cooler beside the door

 

Thanks for sharing