EC1

that's awful late in the year to see them in spawning colours! Good stuff!

Wrong time of year to hunt crappies there bud. Spring and fall to figure which part of the lake they're on. Walleye are always going to be in trouble if there's crappies and nothing can be done. Best of luck! Hope you have a water chart of the lake and it'll save you a ton of time.

Island Marina, Port Perry have very nice launches with a fee. Goreskis and West Shore Marina I don't know the details to. Caesarea is a good launch as well without a fee, but parking can be difficult on weekends. Weekdays shouldn't be a problem for the road side parking. Depends more on which side you'd want to be fishing - Running 20k in the boat to save the launch fees might not be worth it. Viewlake is an option if you've got a smaller boat.

No personal experience, but if it's anything like the lakes close to Wilberforce, I can say a few general things: Bass are stupid - Senkos, tubes, dropshots, topwaters, crankbaits are all productive. Size wise, you'll have to see for yourself. Fish as deep as 30FOW, although you should be able to get most of your action in less than 15. Points, humps, weedbeds all work - it just depends on what you find. Lake trout will come up to very shallow water (Less than 20FOW) to feed right at dawn and dusk - that window seems very small. Afterwards, try jigging in the deep. Blade baits work, or even a dropshot plastic on a jighead has been productive for me. I don't know how to troll so hopefully someone else can help you.

Love seeing the northern ON crappie reports! thanks for sharing!

Quite possibly the easiest rod in anyone's arsenal. Casting or spinning doesnt matter, as long as it's not too fast for treble hooks. Don't worry about even going down to an M because they are coming up to take it and won't be able to drag your line down to the zebra mussels. So... M / MH doesn't matter either. Sensitivity doesn't matter. Glass / Graphite doesn't matter. Length is a personal preference, and depends on how far/accurate you need to cast. 6'6 would be my ideal. Mono / Braid w. mono leader / straight braid comes down to personal preference. Reel: any reel will do as long as you've got a good drag to let big smallies pull line. Don't let people sell you that you need the ultra high end rod to do this. Get yourself a rod that works for you, and one that you enjoy fishing. It could be a high end rod, but you're getting it for your pleasure and that's all. The wal-mart 30 dollar specials are nearly as capable. (Just don't use the reel that comes with it) The best topwater fishermen just have the patience and believe that there is a fish looking up at your bait every cast.

You need a bait license to hold more than a small amount - which was why my family hasn't bought a pound of leeches in a while. http://www.ontario.ca/document/2015-ontario-fishing-regulations-summary (Page 10) But I'm sure if you can find it - good for you, because leeches by the dozen are way too expensive.

I'd probably go for the more fun baits to start the year - Frogs, horizontal baits, and save the senkos for when you can't seem to get them to bite

Interesting. Well this isn't a big positive or negative thing I suppose. Most importantly are the fish staying alive and keeping the ecosystem in balance. As to pressured fish, ask the 6-8lb simcoe smallies how many tubes they've seen over their lifetime.

Amazing! May I ask how many ling you guys caught, and how many do you expect to catch on an average day?

Good to hear the eyes aren't going to be in trouble after those alarming pictures seen at the dams. Did anyone here go pick baits from the ground when the water was low?

"What's your pattern?" You'll very quickly realise that the better fishermen know way more details than others. This also offers you the most opportunity to learn for yourself, and finding areas for yourself. But of course, take words from other fishermen with a grain of salt. I don't think many people will be willing to share all these details with some random person at the launch. Also, the definition of "a good day fishing" varies tremendously from person to person.

Big thumbs up! Nice mix of crappies in there! Good numbers too! Any 16's in the mix?

Surprised you fellow fish lovers aren't opposed to the aquarium. I've never been, but I do hear that there are lots of very impressive areas there. Keep in mind that these fish are probably replaced regularly. Are we really wasting fish's lives by putting them on display and killing them slowly? All the while someone in an office is profitting from these animals' lives?

Having been a walker since I've started ice fishing 5 or 6 years ago, the last couple have been the absolute worst for walking. Walking a km or two in 2 feet of snow has me stopping for a break practically every 20m. It got me to researching a bunch of snowshoes, and I was wondering if anyone has any experience with snowshoes and how much easier it makes walking. It seems that for walking on fresh powder, you'll need the high end snowshoes that are meant for all-terrain, but those things are pretty pricey. About what price point are we getting to the law of diminishing returns? Let's discuss

Good fishing! How was the snow out there?

From watching the videos, my understanding is that this finally caught on to the Japanese jerkbaits in terms of that side to side roll or "shiver" at the end of a twitch. I'm not too sure I buy the entire it'll slowly shimmy down as it sinks deal because it'll need to shrink pretty fast and that defeats the purpose of a suspending jerkbait. At $10, I guess it's cheaper than a pointer.

There are certain lakes where the maps are slightly "off". The GPS might say you're 100m away from shore but in reality it may be half of that. Not a big problem, just use the numbers as a reference to the contours in a lake

Got the exact same thing going on for my right thumb this year. Polysporin seemed to do the trick for me - just remember to apply it as soon as the crack forms. Just so happens that it'll heal for me throughout the week, and the next time I go ice fishing it opens up again.

Wow, thanks everyone for sharing the info and pictures! It seems that the whitefish have seemed to change the most in recent times, especially the past few years. Looking forward to making my trip out to simcoe this week!

http://www.timeonthewater.ca/simcoe_winter_access.html Here's the access points, pick a spot, and look for parking nearby. There should be some, but not a lot of it, if you want to park close to the water. Follow signs!

Since I know so many of you gentlemen are older than me on the forum, I'd like to hear some stories about this lake. Was the water much dirtier before the zebra mussels came? What exactly was the fish population like back in the day? Was there a heavy cisco population that crashed only due to overharvest? Were smallmouth much smaller before the introduction of gobies? Were perch always this popular in the past? Was smelting a popular and easy thing at one point? Did anyone experience the crappie boom? (When they first establish in a lake and grow huge before fishermen figure it out and fish them down) Was there ever a burbot culling event thinking that it would help the lake trout population? Walleye and muskie were fished out, was this before the last couple of generation's time? Feel free to share anything you'd like! What has changed, what's gotten better, and what's worse than ever? If you could give me an approximate decade, that would be fantastic. Trying to learn a little bit of history about this huge piece of water.

If we are talking about a deep water bite, I usually just give up once it gets dark. Bites in the weeds however, don't start until the sun starts to set.

Are they really that easy to catch!?

Only way I'm familiar with fixings is contacting Marcum via email and then getting a Return Authorization #. Then you send it back to them in the states, MN or WI can't remember. Will run you about $30 in shipping and 2 weeks downtime.