007

Hey Cliff - some fantastic fish there - puts most of the ones I've caught in the 'minnow' category. Congrats to Bly too for catching the big ones! Great pics , thanks for sharing. 007

Wow - what a great catch. Those are some big walleyes. 007

Hi everyone, Well the time has come for me to say farewell. My time in Toronto & Canada is up and I will be returning home to London, England in a week or so. The rods and tackle are all packed and my Canadian fishing adventures are over…. Well at least for now. Who knows I might be back in the future! I have had a thoroughly enjoyable time on this side of the pond. In the almost three years that we have been here my wife and I have been lucky enough to explore many beautiful places in Ontario, as well as a few in Quebec, Alberta and B.C. You are truly blessed to call this beautiful country home – take good care of it. The same goes for the fishing – you don’t know how lucky you are to have such an amazing and varied fishing resource with so much free access to good fishing spots. So to the fishing…. Here is a long "summary" of my fishing and outdoors adventures. Pour yourself a coffee, take a seat, and sit back and enjoy (I hope) the longest report you'll see for a while. Lots of pics too! 2005 My fishing adventures started in August 2005. We had been here for 6 months when we were lucky enough to be invited to someone’s house near Uxbridge in Southern Ontario. The person hosting the party had an old farm pond on their land and I noticed some kids with outrageously large red and white floats (I was soon informed by a 5 year old that they were in fact ‘bobbers’) with thick line and huge hooks. So I stood and watched a while, intrigued to see what fish they would catch. Part of me couldn’t believe they could actually catch anything with such gear – the last time I had been fishing was at least 10 years ago in England where we had to use fine tackle and finesse fishing techniques to get bites from even the smallest fish. What fish would be stupid or should I say greedy enough to take a worm on such a big hook and not spit the bait once it felt the huge red and white ball dragging behind it!? I was soon to be introduced to the fish we all know and love - the Largemouth Bass! Much to my surprise I watched this kid’s bobber move sideways and it wasn’t long before he was reeling in a feisty little green fish. The kid then handed me the rod and left. Ok I thought this could be fun for a few minutes so I picked up the 4ft rod with spincast reel and cast a worm out. It wasn’t long before I caught my first Canadian fish – a small largemouth bass. My passion for angling was rekindled! About a month later, we spent a long weekend in Algonquin Provincial Park – going for walks, canoeing and taking photographs. One day when the weather wasn’t great we visited the Portage Store at Canoe Lake and I noticed some ‘cheap’ fishing gear (cheap in quality if not price!). This was my chance to do some real fishing. So I enquired about the fishing laws and was told that I could get a licence in the nearby MNR office. So we filled out our Outdoors card and fishing licence forms, bought a Shakespeare rod and reel combo for myself and a kid’s spincast combo for my wife (she loves how easy it is to cast at the release of a button), some hooks, weights etc and a box of worms. For the next few hours we had a blast, catching perch and a beautiful coloured fish – we soon learned was a pumpkinseed sunfish. There was no turning back now – I was hooked on fishing again. It wasn’t long before I was out at the weekends in the fall of 2005 fishing my local spots on the Toronto Islands for LM bass, pike, perch and sunfish. That year was a short fishing season for me but I did manage to catch the smallest pike I’ve ever seen with my first ever lure and a few decent bass including one that must have been close to if not over 5lbs (unfortunately I had no scales at the time). Though I have lived in big cities like London, England and now Toronto, I wouldn’t say I’m a city person and love to explore wilderness areas and be part of nature. Therefore whenever we could we found the time to rent a car and drive up to Algonquin Park. On one of half a dozen trips we have made I decided to try my hand at trout fishing - catching my first ever trout a brook Trout from the Oxtongue River just before the close of season. We also enjoyed getting up close and personal with some of those big ‘friendly’ moose up there and would spend hours driving HWY 60 or walking the trails in search of the beasts and when we found one we would watch in awe from a safe distance – with the camera shutter working in overdrive. 2006 My 2006 fishing season didn’t start until May or June, but boy was I ready for it. A chance visit to Vaughan Mills had introduced me to the delights of Bass Pro Shops and needless to say my credit card took a serious beating on more than one occasion! I was now ready for all that Ontario could offer in fishing – armed with a couple of rod and reel combos, a net and a fine selection of rapalas and mepps lures. Can you believe it – before I came to Canada I had never even used a lure before! The season started off with a bang catching mainly small pike at the Toronto Islands. Unfortunately my most productive pike fishing trip ended with me in hospital with a treble impaled in my hand, but the thing that annoyed me most was that I didn’t get a picture of the biggest pike I had caught because of the accident! It was in the summer of 2006 that I became a member of OFC. After lurking for a while I had a chance encounter with the “pike specialists” Mepps and Jon at the Toronto Islands and decided to join the forum. Thanks for the nudge guys. Here are some highlights of my fishing in 2006 in photos. Fishin’ the Islands Pike caught using my ‘lucky lure’ – a Rapala Rattlin’ Bass A surprise Bullhead Catfish caught using a lure! An 8lb Common Carp - my biggest fish ever (well until this year) My first Smallies – caught at Rockport along the St Lawrence River – what a fun fish to catch, I just wish I had caught some big ones. While fishing one evening I also had a small musky hit my mepps lure right in front of me, but it somehow spit the hook – oh well you’ve got to have a “the one that got away” story! Back to the Islands for some fall pike action….and a surprise salmon though I lost it shortly after the photo was taken! 2007 So to this year… At the start of the 2007 season I decided to challenge myself to catch as many different fish species in Ontario in the year as possible. This was inspired by a UK Fishing TV show called “The Great Rod Race” where two pro-anglers caught a specimen fish of every fish species in the British Isles in a 1 month period of travelling and fishing all over the country. Well we haven’t travelled all of Ontario (it’s a big place!) but we were successful in seeing as much of it as possible and managed to catch a few different fish species along the way. I would have liked to catch a few more bigger fish during the year and I failed to catch a few sort after species – musky, salmon and steelhead spring to mind but I had fun on my “Quest”. The final tally for the year was 20 species…. Northern Pike, Walleye, Smallmouth Bass, Largemouth Bass, Black Crappie, Common Carp, Yellow Perch, White Perch, White Sucker, Brown Bullhead, Pumpkinseed Sunfish, Bluegill, Rock Bass, Bowfin, Common Shiner, Golden Shiner, Creek Chub, Lake Chub, Fallfish and Round Goby (plus Brook Trout caught the year before and the Chinook I lost). Maybe someone from OFC can take up the challenge next year and catch a few more than I did? How about it Ccmtcanada and Bly or perhaps Tbayboy or Big Bass Rich or MJL could be likely candidates? We thoroughly enjoyed this year as we travelled all over Ontario in pursuit of wilderness, wildlife, peace and tranquillity and of course… fishing! The highlights would have to be getting up close and personal with a big bull moose while camping in Algonquin, hiking in the quartz and granite hills of Killarney, Canoeing at Silent Lake, taking a float plane ride over Georgian Bay, the view from Bon Echo rock and catching a glimpse of a black bear. The fishing highlights were catching my biggest fish ever – a 15lb carp, hooking quite a few largemouth bass of almost 5lbs in the City almost in the shadow of the CN Tower, seeing my wife’s smile when she caught smallie after smallie at Silent Lake and out-fished me, fishing with an expert - Aaron Shirley – on his boat at Restoule and the surreal experience of standing on ice over 15ft of water 1km from shore fishing through a small hole in the ice in a snow storm on Cooks Bay, Lake Simcoe with SUVs driving past! Here are some of the highlights in pics from the year…. My first ever Ice Fishing Trip – on Cook’s Bay, Lake Simcoe. It was incredibly cold – no fishing hut to protect me from the -20 degrees wind-chill and snow squalls – but what an experience: Sucker Fishing on the Humber River in Toronto: In order to see more of Ontario’s wilderness we booked about 6 weekend camping trips in Provincial Parks all over the province. The first camping trip ever with my wife was in early summer to our favourite park – Algonquin. Though the fishing and weather could have been better we had a good time – I caught some huge rock bass, had my first shore lunch and spent a wonderful hour at dusk watching a beaver go about its business: Whenever there was a free weekend I was out sampling the best of Toronto’s urban fishing opportunities – Grenadier Pond for Bluegills and my first White Perch, and Toronto Islands for some summer Bass and Carp Fishing – including my Personal Best Carp and biggest fish ever – all 15lbs of it oh and plus the smallest Bowfin ever caught on rod and line!: Lake Restoule – was a lovely small park but the fishing was tough. I did manage to catch lots of the world’s greatest spots fish including what must be a candidate for the smallest rock bass caught on rod and line? Can you see a trend developing here – I caught a lot of small fish this year. But of course this was to be expected as over half the time I was fishing the way I was taught as a child in England – with a float and a worm, which no fish however big or small can resist. These tactics also increased my chances of catching different species for my quest. At Restoule I bumped into Aaron Shirley who very kindly offered to take me out on his boat and show me how to fish for muskies and smallmouth bass. No muskies were caught and I lost the only smallie to bite my lure but it was a great experience for me – as it was my first time fishing from a boat. The next weekend away was to Silent Lake for Camping, Canoeing and Fishing. A truly beautiful little park, best explored by canoe with lots of smallmouth bass, though I couldn’t find the big ones: In August I managed to fulfil my childhood dream of taking a flight in a floatplane – which was totally awesome. The flight over Georgian Bay out of Parry Sound over the thirty thousand islands was absolutely fantastic: In September we went stayed at Pigeon Lake. This was a pure fishing trip and was my last attempt at knocking a few species off my quest list. Here’s a few pics of my multiple species bonanza including my first ever walleye, my biggest Crappie, but unfortunately no musky: I ended up spending most of the fall fishing for largemouth bass down at the Toronto Islands – best time of year to fish there as there are fewer people, fewer boats, less weed and bigger fish! I had some really good trips and worked out the perfect pattern at a couple of spots for catching some lunkers… hawgs and other strange words I’ve picked up to describe big fish! Here’s a few of the 4-5lbers I caught: And finally my recent Perchin’ trip in Barrie where I caught more fish in a single day than ever before – over 70 perch in about 4 hours of fishing. What a way to end the adventure. Thanks for taking the time to read the report. I know it was a bit long but hopefully enjoyed reading about my fishing adventures and all my reports over the last couple of years – someone had to show you all those small fish!! Hopefully I have positively contributed to what is an exceptional board – full of great people with lots of knowledge to share. My hat goes off to the admin crew for the great job they do. Thanks to all of those who have inspired me and consistently given me words of support and encouragement – such as MJL, dsn, ccmtcanada, and SNAG to name a few. My only regret is that I didn’t get chance to meet and fish with you and others on the board. Though I won’t be in Ontario, I’m sure I will be back on-line once I am settled in England to check out all your fishing reports. Hopefully, I will also be able to post a few fishing reports from England and show you some pics of some different fish species – that even Cliff (ccmtcanada) and BLY can’t catch!! And who knows I might be back for a Canadian Fishing holiday one year. Goodbye for now and take care. Gavin (a.k.a 007)

Thanks for the kind words guys - makes the effort of posting worthwhile. I will hopefully post my mammoth "3-year summary" report tonight - did you know that the limit of pictures per single post is 50?! You might want to pour a good cup of coffee before you start to read it! Cliff - LOL They really were hungry and given the chance they enjoyed a good nibble on my thumb - I have the teeth marks to prove it - the little devils! Rich - I hear you about the stunted fish but I thought that mainly applied to small bodies of water not big ones like Simcoe? It would be nice to think that there's a few 3-4lbers out there somewhere eating all the dinks! SNAG - Have you forgotten all those "International" posts from the shirtless wonder that is Greencoachdog! I will definitely do my best to get out and fish back home and try to post some reports from England. Damn you TBayboy - now I'll have to think of another first post from across the pond! 007

Just tried the test again 3 times - scored 17/20, 15/20 and 19/20. I knew there was a reason for catching all those small fish (chubs, shiners and minnows) during the year! Taking the test is a good way of learning about a few unusual species. 007

Check-out my report!

Hi all, Well I've finally thawed out and got the use of my fingers back from spending most of Saturday fishing up at the Barrie marina on Lake Simcoe in the freezing cold, so here's my report. My fishing bud from work wanted to go fishing with me one last time before I headed back home across the pond. We considered our shore fishing options for a fun-packed day of fishing and came up with a very short list - Barrie marina. We had fished it last Decemebr so we knew what to expect - non-stop perchin' fun. Fishing the marina is not the best fishing experience if you like nature and solitude (like I generally wish for) but if you want to have some fun, catch fish and avoid the skunk then its worth trying at least once. The day started out early for me as I had to head down to Union Station to catch the bus to Newmarket where I would be picked up for the drive to Barrie. Once in Barrie, we visited the Simcoe Bait and Tackle shop to get some minnows and some advice. We cruised along the lakeshore and found that people were fishing a number of different spots along the shoreline and there were even a few boats out fishing the bay too. We decided not to fish from the pontoons in the marina as only a few were open and they were quite crowded plus (as misfish & others had warned in another post) they looked very icy and treacherous - I didn't want to go for a swim with the fish! Instead we chose to fish from the breakwall into the marina, which was also a lot less crowded. We started fishing at about 10.15am and had not caught a single fish by 11am and were beginning to question our choice of spot to fish, especially as a few people were catching perch from the pontoons. The difficulty was we had started fishing with rods that we had set up the night before for fishing from the docks - fairly light tackle with short rods and fixed floats. Problem was - from where we were, we needed to be able to cast against the strong SW wind and get our tackle down deep for the perch. So a change of tackle was required, and sure enough as soon we changed to longer rods and heavier floats with more depth - fishing at about 8ft in about 9-10ft of water - we struck gold or should I say green with black stripes! My first fish of the day... I started out by fishing with small minnows hooked on small jigheads below a float. The fishing started off slowly with mainly fish in the 7-8 inch size bracket. But the action was enough to keep us warm and it's always a pleasure to catch perch - with their positive bites and scrappy fight. They are also some of the most attractive coloured fish out there.... Afer a while we got into a groove and were pulling out fish every cast using minnows as bait and the size of fish was increasing to on average 9-10 inches. Here's a few of the bigger ones... My fishing partner Alex and I decided to add a little competitive edge to the fishing - so we started counting the catch to see who could get to 50 first! After a couple of hours I reached 30 fish, so decided to change baits to see what else the perch would hit. I had some left over worms from fall bass fishing so cut those in half and fished those on the jighead and sure enough the perch kept biting. Typically you hear that worms catch smaller perch than minnows but this didn't seem to happen as I still caught a few 9-10 inch fish with them. I then tried some berkeley curly-tail grubs and minnows, which I did also get bites on but few hook-ups - maybe the size of these baits was the issue, as they were bigger than the small live minnows we had. The other reason for using the alternative baits was because putting my hand in a bucket of cold water to get a minnow after virtually every two fish caught (every few minutes) was really causing my hand problems - it was going purple with frostbite! Once I reached the 50 fish mark I decided to put the rod down, have a snack and walk around to warm up. As I was taking a few pictures of the area I noticed a long brown furry creature hopping around the rocks on the breakwall about 5m away from me. As I watched it, it went for a swim - diving down and swimming underwater for about a minute or two. The funny thing was you could see a line of bubbles on the surface as it swam. So I got the camera ready and followed the bubbles until it came back on shore and I snapped a shot of him - pity the camera's autofocus didn't get a sharp image - but as you can see the furry creature was a large mink. I've seen a few while fishing this year in Toronto but had never seen one go for a swim before but I have since read it is quite common as they will eat fish, frogs as well as their favourite muskrats. After I had warmed up a bit I went back to fishing and it wasn't long before I had caught over 70 perch. All fish were released unharmed - much to the surprise of those with buckets and nets who didn't seem to be catching as many as us from across the docks! Most people were keeping the fish they caught but for us it was all about the pleasure of one last day fishing together. It was funny to see the strange looks we got for being so excited about catching perch after perch and releasing every one, even the bigger ones - most of the guys there didn't look like they were enjoying the fishing experience but were simply there to suffer for the end result - a bucket full of fish. Each to their own I suppose. I do still have my concerns about the sustainability of such harvesting but only time will tell if the limits are appropriate and I can't help thinking how big the perch could grow in Simcoe if more were released. Imagine the fun if you caught half as many fish but they were twice the size! Here's a few more close-up shots of Perca Flavescens or Yellow Perch... Well after catching about 150 perch between us and many of a respectable if not 'jumbo' size the sun began to set on probably my last fishing trip in Ontario for a long while. What a day - certainly worth freezing for! Hope you enjoyed the read. 007 p.s. Look out for my post summarising my almost 3 years of Canadian fishing adventures coming soon to a screen near you!

Nice looking fish you caught there - that's great for an hour and a half of fishing! 007

Beautiful fish and pics. Thanks for sharing what looked like a fantastic day's fishing. 007

I know the feeling Weeds - I haven't done very well catching pike in T.O this year - had much better luck last year. Hope you have better luck next time. 007

Photoz posted this the other day and I took the test - got 17/20 first time up, though there were some lucky guesses. I'm gonna try again soon to see if it was beginner's luck!

Did you head out to Barrie for some perchin Ontariocarper? Me and my bud were there on the lake-side of the marina - caught lots of perch - full report to come later tonight or tomorrow. 007

Hey dsn- is that rod good enough for carp - what line strength is it suited for? What length - when extended?

Nice ice shots dsn! I guess those carp would have been fair game for us the other day when we had planned to go fishing - before the white stuff started falling from the sky and the water got that hard coating! Was pretty disappointed that I didn't go out fishing on my day-off but it was a shocker of a day weather-wise. Good to know there are still some pike around, though I don't think I will get chance to fish for them now - running out of time :-( Glad you caught a fish and got some nice photos for the album. Was that caught with your telescopic Shimano rod you mentioned the other day? I would be interested to know more about the rod. 007

Great link. How well did you do on the test Photoz? I managed 17 out of 20! I was amazed I did that well cos I've only been fishing on this side of the pond for a few years and there were quite a few hard ones in there - lesser known species and I can't say I'm that good at remembering what families they belong to either - had a few lucky guesses too. 007

Thanks guys.... So from the advice so far I guess I need to dress up warm with some shoulder pads on and fight for a spot to catch some small perch in the freezing cold - the true Canadian fishing experience - can't wait! Anyone been down there this week? I presume the marinas aren't frozen? Cheers 007

Hey all, This saturday a friend of mine has asked me to fish the shorelines and marinas of Barrie on Lake Simcoe with him for perch and maybe some pike. This will be my last chance to go fishing in Canada this year, so hopefully I can have a few fun packed hours of catching fish - no matter what size they are. Has anyone been fishing there? Are there any perch in the marinas - any jumbos.. or maybe some pike? Is the marina open or iced up? Any other good spots to try? Any other tips would be appreciated. Thanks 007

Snypa - the shot was taken back in early July 2005. My first impression was that it was FHRic. Not sure how often he is on the board these days so he may not have seen it - perhaps I should PM him and send him the images. The water has been so low this summer - last time I went past the pond you wouldn't need waders to be where he is standing, just some regular boots! 007

Hey weeds I use a 7ft Medium-Heavy BPS Tourney Special for casting lures for pike - caught a few small ones with it without any problems and also caught carp to 15lbs with it. I'm hoping to give it a spin tomorrow along the TO waterfront/islands tomorrow - fingers crossed. 007

Watch out Cliff's nightly reports are back - PB pike today, PB steelhead tomorrow and a surprise fish the next day..... I can't wait for the next installment. Congrats on the PB - she's a beauty! 007

Hi all. I was just looking through some of my photos from my three years in Toronto and found some I had taken of a fisherman/angler wading in Trout Pond on the Toronto Islands fishing lures for pike in July 2005. This was before my passion for angling had been rekindled, otherwise I might have been out there fishing with him! I'm just curious - is this one of my fellow OFNcers?? Could it be FHR - Fish head Ric? I saw him in a post once wearing waders and a floppy hat! Any thoughts. Cheers 007

Sweet lookin' late season bass. Congrats. 007

Great photos. Good on you for getting out there for some late season bassin'. 007

That's pretty cool! Thanks for sharing it with us. 007