craigdritchie

Dr. Sal, I wouldn't get too excited just yet. Per the September OFAH memo that Jon referenced, this August three Atlantic salmon were observed in the Credit River. Three. From a stocking of more than 500,000 fish each year. The Credit River Anglers Association reports it recovered 49 Atlantic salmon at its Streetsville fishway in 2008, 75 fish in 2009 and perhaps a total of 200 fish in 2010. Those are returns from annual plants in the neighborhood of 500,000 fish. Over the past three years Ontario has stocked 1.5 million Atlantic salmon in Lake Ontario and to date, we've seen fewer than 400 return. The fact is, we have stocked more than 5.5 million Atlantic salmon into Lake Ontario since 1986. Returns each year amount to a couple of dozen fish. Do you really call that a success story? I don't. It is especially disappointing when one considers what kind of fishery we would have on our hands if we stocked anywhere near the same number of steelhead, or coho. The great coho fishery off the Credit River in the 70s and 80s came from fewer fish than that, and it spawned a huge charter and tackle industry. Why don't we see similar results from all these Atlantic salmon plants? People who defend the Atlantic salmon program say the lousy results are because the fish are stocked as tiny little fry. Well guess what - chinook are also stocked as tiny little fry, and look how they survive. We stock 500,000 Atlantics a year and yet most anglers have never even seen one. We stock the same number of chinook, and they're everywhere. Continued success indeed. I'm not trying to be nasty about it, or stir the pot here, but come on man. As taxpayers and anglers who buy licenses each year, we deserve better.

I earn a living as the Director of Editorial for a large publishing company, where I oversee several different magazines. I sold my first magazine article in 1978 and since then, my work has since appeared in magazines, books and newspapers published on three different continents. I now supervise a staff or editors who fine-tune the work of award-winning writers. By this point in time, I like to think I have a reasonable command of the English language. And still, my own posts on this board (and on my blog) still contain occasional typos. Hey man, it happens. I'm not getting paid for any of this, so I won't lose any sleep over a minor error here and there - by me, or anyone else. But that's a big difference from those "R any of U guyz goin to Brontey 2nite to snag nooks?" posts, where the person writing it isn't even trying to be clear. I find those insulting. The writer was too lazy to make the effort to communicate clearly, and apparently expects me to make the effort to figure it all out. Forget that. Typos happen, and who cares if someone makes a minor grammatical error? When you at least make the effort, it shows a level of respect toward the people who read it. To me, at least, that counts far more than perfect spelling or grammar.

Nope. But it's too much work making a hole big enough to fit the boat in.

My GPS does a wonderful job in the wintertime ...... by showing me the way south to where I can fish in open water.

Kind of an old, forgotten way to do it, and that's too bad because there are days when hardware works quite well. Most know to try a small Flatfish, Kwikfish or Hot Shot now and then, because they work magic for steelhead that are completely turned off the standard roe/pink worm/fly stuff. Little CD3 countdown Rapalas (if you can find them) are also awesome for rainbows in streams. You can drop them back like a Flatfish, or cast and slowly retrieve across deep, slow pools. In bigger water (like off the pier, or wading along a beach) small bass crankbaits work really well at times. Personal favourite are Shad Raps (shallow and deep versions, depending on the day) but original Fat Raps, Bomber Model A, and Norman Little N crankbaits all work well. On days when fish are particularly active, small Rattle Traps can be pretty good. And small Husky Jerks are always worth a try along the lake shore, off the pier, or in the frog water. Sometimes, when nothing else works, they can produce a few fish. It gets boring drifting with a centrepin all the time, so some times it's fun to mix things up a bit.

It depends. How well do you want it to behave?

You can buy all the fish you like without regard to sport fishing limits or seasons (keep the receipts if you're worried about it). And yes, fish markets come up with all sorts of names to make the fish they sell sound more exotic or appealing. Many of the fish are mis-identified (intentionally or otherwise) so I wouldn't take anything at face value. The trick with buying fish is getting the guy behind the counter to lob it to you after you've made your purchase. Don't pick it up off the counter, but have him toss you a short pass. That way, you can truthfully tell people you caught it.

Eat fish from Hamilton harbour? I wouldn't even feed them to my cat.

Nice birds. The pup looks pretty good too!

Ice fishing? I'd rather have a barbed wire enema.

I keep thinking I should spend more time fishing for crappies. I often think about it, but for one reason of another never actually get around to it.

That's what it's all about, isn't it? Sounds like a great weekend. :-)

Ice fishing ...... yech!

My condolences, man. That's rough.

Dave, I (purposefully) never said what lake they flow into .... many of my spots have 12 month seasons for salmon and trout.

Pretty much every creek, stream and ditch flowing into the Great Lakes gets some trout and salmon run up it. In some cases, these can be substantial runs of fish. They can be either wild fish, or strays from other systems, or a combination of both. Despite what we like to think about trout and salmon returning to their stocking sites, a lot of fish do stray and wind up in other rivers. John may have more detailed info on numbers, but I have always understood it to be a pretty significant proportion of the number stocked/hatched. Like, up to half. Over the years I have spent a lot of time exploring places where I just thought fish should be, even though they were never stocked there. And today, some of those locations have become my main fishing spots. The biggest reason is that by not appearing on the stocking lists, these places fly under the radar, and most people never think to fish them. I have one place I've been fishing for about six years now, and I've never seen another person there. There aren't huge runs of fish either, but enough to keep me happy and I have them all to myself. It's awesome. I can show up at noon on a Saturday and know no one has touched them since my last visit. It sure beats lining up at the popular spots with 20,000 of your closest friends every Saturday morning. Clarence - good on you for finding a spot like that. Find some others and keep the info quiet. You'll have great fishing for years to come.

Butt first? So that's what I've been doing wrong ......

Agree. The simplest way to get gunk out of a centrepin is to give it a quick dip. Some amount of sand and grit will always find a way in there, no matter how careful one might be - especially when using reels with lots of porting.

This is news? And wow - that comment from "Jill1" .... me thinks she has some anger management issues! Boy trouble, perhaps?

It just depends how far you want to drive. Conditions were great in Vancouver when I was there earlier this week.

I wondered how long that would take!

A friend of mine had an interesting series of pics show up on his trail camera. Someone must have saw it in the tree and decided to have a little fun, because he wound up with about 30 pictures of someone's nekkid arse.

Okay, that got my blood moving. Really nice pics. Cheers!

Erindale!