frozen-fire

are these titanium leaders available at a lot of places? didn't think i noticed any while at LB.

thanks guys...appreciate the information.

wow, maybe it is beginners luck at the islands. i'm hooked on pike now after my first outing yesterday!

That's the thing. I was at Le Baron's today and I asked about my setup and what kind of leader I should use. At first, the old asian guy behind the counter started saying things like why the hell i even have 30lb PP on and that i won't be able to catch any fish with that thick of line. He kept saying that I should never be using that heavy of line cause it affects the movement of the lure and also fish will not want to bite. He also stated that the use of this heavy of line will damage my rod and reel. This guy's been at the store for a long time, so I really don't know. I grabbed some seaguar leader material from the rack and proceeded to ask another associate about this subject. He told me to not bother and to just use the regular black steel leaders that sell for 2.99 for a pack of 12. I really don't know what to think. They think that 30 lb is way too heavy and that I should be using 15. Everyone is giving different opinions. I'm currently using the 30lb PP now cause someone who has given me good info before suggested it at BPS.

Thanks for the replies everyone. I am very sorry if I upset anyone by posting the pictures. They have been edited.

Just saw your other thread...15 straight outings skunked has got to suck man. Walking around for me really paid off. I porbably never walked so much in one day in my life. My feet were so messed up. Walked the whole island almost twice and stood for the whole day. i'm pretty out of shape haha.

Thanks for the reply golfisher, what or where is JB?

Oh yeah, also noticed that a lot of pike were seen on the bottom of the canals, motionless and not reacting to anything around. Is there a secret to get them to take the lure? You can really see so many fish cruising the bottom with polarized sunglasses! Lots of HUGE CARP... schools of them. Occasional catfish and big LMB as well.

After the crappie opener on the kawarthas, I've been going often with some pretty good results. After a while, it got kind of repetitive with the slabs, so I decided to try something different. Have never targetted pike before and have never landed one myself, so I decided to give it a try. Yesterday (May 8th) we made our way down to the islands early morning to beat the morning rush hour. We wanted to catch the 6:30 ferry to Ward Island, but unfortunately, the stupid machine at the dock is really screwy and didn't take any of our cash... we will from now on remember to bring change. Ended up missing the first ferry out and ended up getting the next one. Awesome day with nice sunshine and weather. We started walking along the shoreline casting in all directions with little luck. Soon however, my girlfriend gets a big hit, and it quickly slices through the powerpro like nothing, taking the #4 black fury. Perhaps I should be using some kind of leader to save my lures, any insight on this? We keep walking and I end up retrieving my xrap to see something following it. I thought that this would be my first pike ever, but it continued to just watch the lure and bolted for deep water after it got too close to the shore. That was soooo cool. Watching the fish stalk the lure. It had some serious heavy scarring around the head though, I'm assuming from the aggressive mating behaviour. I call my gf, my buddy and his gf over and they continue to cast where I saw this fish. Soon enough, my buddy lands this little one, his first pike. 5 minutes after that, my gf lands her first pike and the biggest fish she's ever caught. She was so happy . At this point, I'm getting pretty confident that I won't get skunked. We keep walking around the shoreline being adventurous, and my buddy hooks into another one, but it shakes the lure out and swims away. We continue to walk around the islands and there is no other fish to be seen for a couple hours. I was starting to feel that I'd be skunked. As we're fishing, we pass by two other anglers who said that they've been getting lots of follows but no takers. Then to my surprise, as I was retrieving my lure, a pike shoots up from a patch of weeds and takes it! YES! My first pike. Man, it felt good to see the fish on and to watch it curving it's body in the water. We continue to walk with the sun beating down on us and we reach this stretch that produced nicely for me. First one Second one Third one. Biggest of the day! was 28.5 inches long and about 5 lbs. 4th and last fish before we called it a day. All in all, I landed 5 pike, gf landed 1 and my buddy got 2 and lost 1 (He also caught a huge OOS largemouth... one of the fatest i've ever seen). I'd say that's pretty good for a first time out targetting a new species. Another shot of CN tower on our way home. Okay, after this trip, I have some questions. I'm using 35lb powerpro on a shimano stradic 2500 on 6'6" shimano compre combo. This sufficient? I'm loving the reel though. I'm not currently using a leader, and wondering if I should. I noticed that in the morning, the fish weren't that aggressive, and only usually had one hook in the corner of their mouths. Later on in the day, the fish really turned on would totally engulf and swallow xrap 10's. I noticed that these fish bleed... A LOT, and quite easily as well. Why is this? Whenever they took it in deep, we had to improvise and use branches as jaw spreaders as I forgot to look into them at BPS or Le Barons. Hahaha. One of the pike bled VERY bad, the ending treble on the xrap caught onto the 3rd gill branch beneath the operculum and it took a while to get it out. It didn't seem to hook into anything, but i'm guessing during the fight, the hook caught onto the gill filaments or the rakers on the other side of the gill arch. They all swam off with a splash, but am unsure of their survival. Is there any way I can avoid the damage done? Don't want to see these cool fish die. Perhaps using barbless will save a lot more fish? My gf got so disgusted with all the blood and didn't want to catch any more cause of this haha. Had so much fun that I'm going to head back down tomorrow. Hope the second time is as good as the first. I'm looking to break 30 inches .

wow...awesome write-up man!

if you wnat to get into more of the crappie, head there earlier. i've had the most success before noon. i've probably been there 3-4 times this year, and the largest one was about 11-11.5 inches, hundreds of smaller ones though. At least we know that the crappie are still there. i'm heading to the bobcaygeon area tomorrow night to try and get into the bigger ones.

amazing shots!

omg...those mainlanders...they arrived right after my gf and i did. i am SO glad they didn't fish beside us. could hear them all the way from where we were. i was hoping for a CO to show up as well. We hauled up a good number of crappie...right at daybreak, they really started to get aggressive. Ended up keeping a dozen bigger ones for the gf's mom. we threw back all the crappie, sunfish and oos bass only to hear people calling us stupid and we should keep all of it. Fishing was great...not as awesome as a couple days ago though. it's starting to slow down already. there are some decent pike i witnessed cruising the shoreline spawning... probably why the fishing sucked after a while haha.

Hmmm.. I went on Friday (yesterday morning) and my buddy and myself both got into crappies on almost every cast. 95% of them were dinks though. Threw them all back but kept a couple of the larger ones (10+ inches). Hope it isn't over yet. Gonna head up there tomorrow morning. Many of the crappie we hauled out had really badly torn fins and skin... didn't see any pike, but we know they're in there.

X2... i'm willing to help the walleye population and kill a crappie or two.

wow... i feel for you.

it's pathetic ebcuase in that spot, there are so many garbage cans... why can't people just take a couple steps to throw the trash in a can, rather then dumping it on the ground or into the water?

I prefer to use white and red tubes...however, my girlfriend uses pink exclusively and does very well herself on occasions. keep trying different colours, and also at different depths as well... you can catch them deep as well as right under the surface, as Row Boat mentioned. This is the advantage of using the slip bobber. If you're gonna go try the canals at keswick...keep your cool, cause your line will get crossed for sure. crazy crowd. I really don't understand the bucketloads of perch and sunfish...

cool pics!

so is this the false spawn or what? aren't they supposed to be more dense than this?

i don't know, but maybe it's just me. last year, i tried the small canals for the first time, and only manage a few each outing, small...like what was said above, 5-6 inches. I throw them back. do the big ones ever come in? i will be trying it out tomorrow morning.

ultralight with small reel, equipped with 4 lb test. My setup includes a slip float... i use 1.5 inch tubes. crappie are usually a hit and miss kind of fish. when they are on, they are on... it's common to catch hundreds at a time, but when there are none, it will seem like a horrible day haha... at least to me.

are they only accessible by boat in scugog? what about for those of us (like me) who don't own a boat? it's true that they are in there... i've landed some big slabs from shore late last summer.

did you end up getting any pike downtown at least? hahaha

How long do you guys think it will take? A few more days? Oh geezz....i'm itching to be catching something...some nice spring slabs would be awesome!