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Mike the Pike - Great report. Thanks for sharing so many photos. Tony B - out of interest where did you get the info/drawings of the fish species? - I'm always looking for good sources of info for the different fish species in Ontario. Cheers 007

Better luck next time MJL. Nice action shot of casting. 007

Congratulations on a great day and report. Gotta get back out there soon. 007

Great pictures of some fish I've never even heard of! Thanks for sharing. Now show us some more LOL Cheers 007

Congratulations guys on some nice fish. Don't worry Bitsmith, you're not alone - I'm still skunked for pike down at the islands this year though I haven't been out there for a while. Good luck for next time. 007

Hey snog, if they did indeed restrict fishing at the locations on the Islands mentioned - that would be the end of most of my best fishing spots! Though during July and August Hanlans to Trout Pond is pretty much a no go as there are so many boats moored in the way of prime LM bass fishing water. Perhaps us shore anglers should complain about all those boats preventing us from fishing public areas! Can't resist..... How can the residents of the Islands complain about litter and mess - have you seen most of their front gardens, they're like junkyards! LOL Edit... Just remembered, while I was down at the islands this winter I saw a number of old rusty kitchen appliances that local kids had found lying around and had decided to drop onto the ice from the bridge at Wards Island (now presumably on the bottom of the channel) - perhaps a real indicator of how much the locals care about their environment down there! That said there is a problem with litter caused by anglers in the GTA - but my guess is these are casual anglers and the kind of people who probably litter regardless of whether they are fishing or not in which case its a wider education issue.

Thanks guys - now you've got me even more worried! I've already bought it so will no doubt give it a go (close to shore on small lake and with a PFD on), learn my lesson and then regret spending the $150+tax! LOL

Terry. That looks similar to the one bought without the fancy colurs scheme. They look quite sturdy and have three different air chambers but I'm a bit nervous about it - may be I should stick close to shore and be very careful with lures. How do those guys who fish from inflatable 'tubes' manage? 007

Morning everyone, I have a number of camping trips planned this year - first being this weekend in Algonquin - and was hoping to use a small 4 person Coleman inflatable boat for some fishing rather than renting a canoe. It seems to be quite sturdy but am a little apprehensive about how safe it is - I can just picture me getting hooks in it and it puncturing with me in the middle of a lake! (I will definitely be wearing a PFD) Has anyone fished from an inflatable boat before? Is it safe? Any tips? Thanks 007

Congratulations on the pike. Nice fish. Lure of choice - Xrap or Husky Jerk? Still trying for my first of the season from the islands - need all the help I can get LOL. Thanks for sharing. 007

Fantastic report. Thanks for sharing. Now you've got me all excited for my forthcoming camping trip to Algonquin. Just hope the weather and fishing stays as good as that for us and those bugs stay away. Thanks and good luck with the tv show. 007

Congratulations on your PB carp Victor - Great report and some great big fish. What was the bait of choice? Corn or boilies? Cheers 007

Wow! Congratulations on a successful Spring - you got some beauties there. Very jealous! 007

Nice fish ehg. Could that be the largest pike caught at the Islands this season so far. Will have to get out there again soon. 007

Thanks for the comments guys. Kerry - Thanks for the tip on holding those bullheads. 007

Hi all. Just a quick report. Went fishing with a friend yesterday afternoon. The plan was to hit one of his local lakes that has a large small-medium carp population so that I could catch my first carp of the year and knock it off the list of Ontario fish that I'm trying to catch this year. Well after a few hours without a bite we changed from corn to worm, and not long later we hooked into some pumpkinseedfish close to shore. Not the biggest fish to catch but another species off the year's list and you can't beat these fish for colours and some good old fashioned fishing fun. That's when my friend decided to let his young boy have a go and sure enough it wasn't long before he had caught his first ever fish - the excitement on his face was priceless. We then moved in search of some carp action. We found a shallow bay that clearly contained a number of fish feeding. So I cast to what I hoped to be a carp on the bottom stirring up the mud but hooked into one of these small bullhead catfish. This was the first of many to come, and we both caught double figures of these small scrappy guys. This is probably the smallest bullhead ever caught! Though not as ugly as their bigger T.O cousins that I caught earlier in the week - they certainly need to be handled with care. As i was unhooking one of them the fish moved and I felt something slice my finger. One of the sharp bony spikes on its pectoral fins had left a bloody mess. Never had that problem before with the bigger ones I have caught but will use gloves in future on these slimey devils regardless of size. With time runnng out before we were due to leave and at a time when we had pretty much given up hope of catching the intended target species, my friend calls to me to get the net as he has hooked a carp. So I gladly net his first carp of the year - only probably a 3-4 pounder, but a nice way to end the day. So I'm still chasing that elusive first carp of the year but managed to catch my fourth species of the year (Perch, Sucker, Bullhead, pumpkinseedfish). Can't wait to catch some serious fish though down at the T.O Islands (pike and carp) soon or maybe some trout in Algonquin next weekend. 007

Congratulations on catching so many large pike. Nice photos too. 007

Well done ehg. Some nice little brook trout. I'm really looking forward to catching a few of those in some streams soon - such good fun. Thanks for sharing 007

GBay, Compared to the 'cats' that dsn caught a few weeks ago these were pretty good looking LOL The other thing that puts me off them is when you handle them they quite often make a weird grunting sound!!

Hi everyone. Last night I picked up a copy of the new Guide to Eating Ontario Sport Fish for 2007-08 and noticed that there was a new bit of text at the beginning of the book (after the bit about encouraging people not to eat Muskies). It was regarding the American eel, the guide says that due to dwindling populations the Ontario Government has increased protection for them by banning recereational eel angling. If you catch one it MUST by law be released back in to the water from where it came. Just thought you all should be aware of this change (as I'm not sure the regs mention anything), though I doubt many people target them anyway. In fact I don't think I have seen any reports or photos of people catching eels while I've been an OFNCer in the last 2 years. Has anyone out there caught one before? Any photos? 007

Great report... really whet my appetite for my camping trip to Algonquin next weekend! 007

Thanks Irishfield. No matter how many times I go to the islands I can't help myself, I have to take a picture of that skyline. I must have hundreds from the two years I've lived here - every season, time of day, different angles. It drives my wife crazy, cos I gotta show them all to her LOL. Got some good photos the other evening - better results than the fishing! LOL

Just thought I would share a quick report of my Tuesday evening fishing trip to the T.O Islands. It's a bit late.. but better late than never. So, a friend and I went down to the islands after work not with the aim of catching pike but carp. We set our rods up with floats and corn and waited. Sure enough about 5 carp showed up to eat the corn we had thrown in. But then they simply disappeared, but then the floats started to move and bob. My friend hooked something but lost it. I figured it could have been a bullhead so I put a worm on the hook and sure enough a minute later I bring in a fat bullhead. Couple of minutes later another one - I thought I would do a dsn and take some action shots as I brought it in. With about an hour of daylight left and no sign of carp anymore we decided to join the bandwagon and put the xraps or mepps on and fish for some toothy green monsters. Didn't have much luck though. I managed to snag my line on a rock and lose a 'hot steel' xrap. Then having set up my gear again hooked what I presume was a fair sized pike - fish on, but as it took off into the depths the aglia spinner came flying back at me - fish off! I then realised that I hadn't reset my drag after trying to free the snagged lure - so as soon as the pike took off there was no give and the hooks pulled free. Devastated. Decided to cut my losses and take some photos of the peaceful evening scenes. So not the most successful evening fishing but nice to be down there without the crowds, and more importantly another fish off my great Ontario fish quest list. Three down (Perch, White Sucker, Bullhead) just another 30+ species to go by the end of the year! 007

Hey great report again. Some really nice fish you got there. That Bowfin is huge. Your girlfriend certainly knows how to catch some good fish. I wish I could get my wife to even hold a sunfish let alone something prehistoric like that! LOL I wish I wasn't working and had time to be down at the islands every day. Thanks for posting. Cheers 007

I'm generally in favour of anything that gives people the confidence to post good reports with unaltered photos but also protects our fishing resources/opportunities - which makes this debate so hard to resolve as with the internet I'm not sure how you can do this without making it a closed community, which is not such a good thing for growth. However, I noticed a number of people have suggested that restricting viewing photos would reduce the number of people viewing OFC, however one could argue that if members knew that their images would be seen by only other members (which we assume to be good caring anglers) then may be there would be even more reports and photos for us all to enjoy (as members who don't post reports may feel more comfortable to do so). That would be a tradeoff between number of people viewing and quality of reports. Depending on what the post count number was, if someone was really interested in learning and contributing to OFC then they would become members and post so that they could also enjoy the images. Unfortunately my guess is the post count would have to be quite high (20-30) to deter the majority of lazy lurkers. The one thing that does strike me about this debate is - hopefully it will educate some folk out there that other anglers will not tolerate their abuse of our sport, fish and locations. Have a good day everyone. 007