frozen-fire

good job

i've been out a couple of times to the credit and most if not all people chuck spoons. and yes, the fish actually do go after the spoon as i've never seen a fish snagged yet, but then again, i've only been out a few times, so can't say for the rest.

thanks for the reply. if i don't go with a float, could i throw hard baits and spoons? i'm assuming it's not going to be as good as roe.

I just use my LED head lamp as well. Oh BTW, I was at Walmart and all their cleos were on sale. I grabbed a couple of the big ones. I believe they ranged from $1.50 to $3.00.

So, the GF and I may be headed to this park on Friday. We plan to hike most of the trails offered at that park. Now, my question is: Will it be worth our time to check out the creek for migratory fish? I've never fished in this situation before, but would definitely want to try it out. Right now, I'm currently chucking spoons at piers, so not entirely sure how different this will be. Should I fish with a float? I'm spooled with 10lb mono at the moment...perhaps I should go lower, like 8 or 6? Lure/bait of choice would be roe right? Do I have to get into the river with waders, or will walking the shoreline be good enough? Any advice, tips or suggestions via replies or PM's would be greatly appreciated Thanks.

wow...very well said. nice results by the way. did you lose the other two fish due to line breaking? or did they shake it off?

your pictures are amazing... what camera do you use on your outings?

wow... those are some huge salmon...and your PB....now that's a king.

how big of a tank did you have them in?

oh yeah, and AWESOME shot!

that's an osprey alright...and as far as i know, they feed mainly on fish.

awesome job man...

damn...i so want to join you, since i live pretty close as well, but i'll be heading north for some fall crappie to see if they're around.

happy birthday Cliff. you're probably going to end up with another personal best tonight out there!

Amazing!

thanks. the fish was not going to survive. took a while for me to remove the hook from the upper jaw and it was lifeless when i wanted to revive it. it was either to give it away or to throw it back and stink up the shoreline. of course the best option would be to revive it and let it do it's business upstream, but that wasn't likely going to happen in this case. sorry though.

Haven't fished for salmon in 5-6 years, and decided to fight some of these brutes this year. Tried a week ago at Port Hope without any success, so I decided to visit another river mouth. I wake up at 3:30 and get to the destination at about 4:30am. At this point, the rain is coming down hard. I was so disappointed. I walk to the area to be fished and find out that I'm alone. I then see some guy in a yellow rainjacket. i'm relieved now, since this is my first time fishing here, and it was really wet and dark... if anything were to happen, he'd be my only help. The rocks were slippery, but i managed to find a nice spot and start casting. About 10-15 casts later, I get a solid hit very close to shore. At this point, my whole body is shaking as I'm reeling in this fish. The guy in the rainjacket yells something, but i can't hear anything with all the wind and rain in my face. About 7-10 minutes later, after a couple runs, the fish surfaces and I had to climb down to the water and net the fish myself. It's not easy I tell you. I bring the fish up and take some measurements and pics. 33 inches in length and 16lbs8oz. I'm jumping with joy as another fisherman walks up. I offer my fish to him, but he declines it and tells me to give it to the yellow rainjacket guy. I walk over there with my fish and find out he's already landed one... similar size to mine. The three of us start to cast together and a couple casts later, the guy that just came gets a hit and i help him land the nice female. we chatted for a bit and discuss how the fish are really active now and you can clearly see LOTs of fish clearing the water. We continue casting and I get another hit, the fight didn't even last one minute though, as it surfaced and shook my lure out. Then I fish for another hour, before getting another solid hit... I got a little impatient here, and tried to hold the spool as it was going on one of it's runs, but i guess i put too much pressure and it broke off taking my lure with it. I have school the smae morning, so I decide to head home and take a hot shower first. The drive home was not comfortable being completely wet.

It's true... the water is unbelievably low right now. I was warned many times by the people staying at the cottage and the owner. Heard last year was worse though.

Anybody ever try Consecon? It's the lake northwest of West Lake. I've been told the piking is excellent there.

good work mikeymikey!

thanks guys

you bet! we should get out together sometime and chuck some spoons for kings!

that's an excellent photo.

As my earlier thread suggested, I would come back with a report. Thanks to all those who offered their advice. We stayed at a cottage on the southern shore of East Lake. My girlfriend who is currently crazy about canoeing, wanted to go, but we couldn't find any place that had them for rent at this particular lake for some reason. From my research, East Lake is a better lake for canoeing, due to the calmer conditions, whereas West can get choppy quite quickly making it pretty dangerous. So we skipped fishing East and decided to just go for some fishing at West the next day. We ended up hiking one of the trails at Sandbanks provincial park for the day instead. It was amazing having the whole trail to ourselves. The next morning, we unfortunately slept in, and headed out at around noon. I was kinda bummed cause we missed the morning action, but I still wanted to get out there. We drove to the north side of West and rented a boat out of West lake Marina ( http://www.westlakemarina.com/ ). People there were very friendly and quickly got us out on the water. At first, it was quite choppy and I really wasn't feeling it. But I quickly get into the first fish of the day after a couple casts into a bunch of weeds. After releasing the largie, it got quite dark quickly and winds picked up. I feared that it would get really bad, but we waited it out. Fishing sucked the whole time it was really dark with the overcast. It continued like this for what seemed like forever. We kept drifting around looking for bassy structure to no avail. Finally the sun decides to pity us and shows itself! We ended up at a small calm section of the Lake, a nice little bay. Girlfriend soon hooks into a small bass. She even manages some rather large and feisty pumpkinseed as well. This spot seems to be really producing. Lots of hits, and lots of small bass being very acrobatic, jumping and clearing the water while shaking the lures out. I continue to throw out a 3 inch yellow twister tail to try and entice the fish. I'm reeling it in and once at boatside, a very scrappy pike comes from beneath the boat and inhales it. I'm using 8lb mono, and praying that it doesn't cut the line. The pike completely inhaled the grub, but luckily the line was at the corner of the mouth. I have to say, even though the fish wasn't huge, my heart was in my throat. Considering the size of the thing, it even peeled line and gave me two decent runs. This guy definitely had more fight in it than early season Toronto Island pike... I'm so glad I had jawspreaders. Back in the water it goes. After that, it was simply fish after fish. Talk about quantity. I've never fished a lake like this before that had so many bass in it. They were small, but were very willing to bite and had a lot of fight. Nearly all of them cleared the water. It's a pretty effective way for them to get the hook out cause nearly half of the fish that I hooked spit the lure out on a jump. Mixed in with the small fish were some decent ones. At some point, the girlfriend even got bored cause there were so many bass, she wanted something different. We drifted along the shoreline slowing picking out bass after bass and I see something I don't see everyday, a gar pike! It was quite small and got spooked away by my line. Definitely a cool fish... second one I've ever seen. We soon drift to this nice weedy area and my gf gets a decent bass on, I watch her reeling it in like a pro now, and I get a huge tug on mine. I look down to see this gator swimming away with my lure in it's mouth. Second pike of the day. This pike was one to remember though, because it had a bad eye and was severely torn up, sporting a deformed upper jaw as well. I'm thinking that I may get into some piking action here, so afterwards, I start casting a big xrap and big spinnerbaits on my baitcasting setup, but no takers . We continue to land a lot more bass and watch the sun go down in all it's beautiful colours I'm then reeling in my lure and I notice something on it that I can't shake off, so I bring it closer only to see that's it's a fish. I'm not 100% sure, but it appears to be some sort of goby. Perhaps the round goby? I've yet to actually catch one, and have only seen them in hand drawn pictures, but I let it dry up anyways. With the sun continuing to set, we knew that there would only be a couple more casts left. With the low light conditions, i'm hoping for some walleye action, but it was all just bass again. In conclusion, I would have to say that West Lake is full of fish. They were on the smaller side, but there are definitely some decent ones in there. We must've boated about 50 bass for the few hours we were out there, and lost a whole lot more. After docking at the marina, I chatted with a really nice guy who was staying at a cottage there. He's fished the lake for 25 summers and is always impressed with it. The best fish he's pulled out of the lake were a 25 lb northern and a 6.5 lb lmb. I will definitely be returning next summer for sure. Once again, thanks to those who left recommendations and advice in my earlier thread. I'm really getting hooked onto this whole open water fishing thing. This was the first summer I've been out on a boat and after 3 trips (twice to Rice lake and once to West) of having crazy success, shore fishing just doesn't compare. It's a lot more expensive to rent, but it's so much more worth it. Anyone want to give away a free boat? I know that the gf really wants a canoe, so who knows, next summer I'll probably be on the water with my own.

thanks for the replies guys.... i ended up fishing at west lake even though we stayed at east. will post a report shortly.