Rich

It took me 3 years to catch my first! Now, I always catch at least one on my musky trips. Now I just need to work on getting a big one....

Indeed the water had a bit of a stain. Visibility was still probably 3 feet, but this pond is usually crystal clear. Probably the recent high winds we've had stirred it up.

Awesome man! Glad to see the bigguns are still in there. I beat it to death last year and only caught dinks. Obviously you got da skills! Congrats!

Nice one, looks like he has some battle scars on his tail too. Maybe he PO'd "Omega Musky"

Great report! Nice bass and the bullhead on a spinnerbait, who'da thunk? As for that guy, unfortunately there's one (or more) on every lake. On musky opener these guys were buried back in the slop near a point we were fishing. We moved up to the point and casted musky spinnerbaits and these "musky guys" (tossing grass frogs and plastic worms) motored up in between us and the point we were fishing angrily, which probably spooked every fish for miles. Like, they drove right up where we were casting. I overheard them talking about how we were so inconsiderate to "nab the spot they were going to fish". Sorry I don't read minds! I chucked a 2 oz spinnerbait about 5 inches from their boat and they nearly jumped out of their seats. LOL (obviously not the right thing to do.. but man they were rude. And I could have done a lot worse)

Not for a couple of years, but yeah definitely some big ones lurking there. There are some other ponds around with some real giants. I know at the Delhi reservoir I saw one that looked about 7 pounds just sunning himself by the dam. Gotta love them trout eating bass!

I have a feeling that if this was released by the government on purpose, they would have done it years ago on Hamilton Harbour rather than building a million dollar "carp trap" on Desjardins canal.

Nice work. How'd the largies taste? I haven't kept any for a couple years. Last I kept from the bay were very muddy tasting. I kept a couple this opener was well, just 1 pounders. They're in the freezer. I don't like to keep the big ones to try and keep good genetics in the bay. I've noticed in the last 10 years the winning weights have gone WAY down. Used to be 6 - 7 lbs was the winning largie. I have a feeling people keeping bigger genetic fish is one of the reasons for this. Glad to see you weren't keeping any monsters either. I hope others will follow suit so we can get some real beasts out there again.

Hit a semi-local pond up today and managed two half decent largies. One fell to a buzzbait and one to a tube jig. Lots of fun.

There was no need to be rude with me. I was just debating your information, considering you posted no source with it the first time. I didn't debate that there were people coming from overseas to fish the carp. I just debated that it earned more money than ALL other ones COMBINED. I used to live in downtown Peterborough. I walked by the infamous carp spots daily, and occasionally fished them. I did usually see 1-2 anglers in each spot. Some days I saw none. But I tell ya, I bet my life savings next time I hit a kawartha lake for a week, I'll see other bass, panfish and musky anglers EVERY SINGLE DAY. They all spend money to get to those fish, some on a daily basis. Since they aren't just staying for a month, they do it about 6 months out of the year. There's a heck of a lot of anglers who already live here and fish the kawarthas 6 months out of the year. I'm sorry if my own facts from first-hand experience somehow offended you. Oh yeah, and I subscribe to several magazines. I've never seen articles or information regarding the tourism industry in the kawartha lakes area as it pertains to carp angling.

My bass opener tradition for the last decade has been to fish the big opening day derby on Long Point Bay. I really wanted Sugarpacket to experience this, but we were having babysitter troubles for Splenda so things looked bleak for her coming out. She ended up sitting on the phone literally all night and never got a wink of sleep - but she ended up finding a sitter and was able to get out for opener as well. Sleded and I packed up the Filth Hound and Sugarpacket took her "Bubble Up Hound" on it's maiden voyage. I'll let her tell her opener report. So Sleded and I get on the water to just awesome bass weather, little bits of rain (post-storms) and cloudy weather with a real good chop. I love fishing largemouth on days like that. We headed to the flats and began to toss spinnerbaits. Sleded connected first with a hammer handle pike that tossed the hook. I had a small MUSKY strike my spinnerbait and head to the depths, no doubt in my mind it was a musky. This is our first encounter on LPB this year with a musky. It was only small, less than 40 inches. Anywho I was next to connect with a nice pike. Not sure on the weight or length just wanted to get it back in quick but safely and hunt for a big bass. Was a nice surprise but not what I was looking for. After connecting with several more pike and only one small largemouth we decided we must be fishing too deep and headed closer to shore where the weed tops just barely go under the surface. Things were just amazing here. Bass after bass after bass, we stopped counting after 30. All 1 - 2 pounds though unfortunately. A couple double headers thrown in the mix too. I ended up putting one a tad over 2 lbs in the livewell just so I had an entry for the derby. When I brought it in at noon I was in 7th place - but I knew that wouldn't last. We kept trying but as the sun came out and the wind got brutal we lost fishing spots and bites slowed down. WGSF did once again make an appearance though! The wind was so bad at one point it picked up our precious Country Coffee blueberry fritters and tossed them overboard. We cried over the loss. After the derby was over with at 4pm we spent an hour around the docks at a marina catching some nice bluegills to take home. There were some real beauts in there but I only took home a half dozen. All in all, a great bass opener. Lots of action - even though they weren't big fish it was just fun to get out and do some bass fishing. I think with all those pike we were nailing my next trip out may be for something toothier. Hope everyone else had a good opener!

Sorry Photoz, I agree with most of what you say - but I had to laugh at this "fact" If anything, panfish bring in more tourist dollars. Mostly from the hundreds if not thousands of Americans who come up and fill their baskets. They rent cottages, hotel rooms, pay launch fees or dockage, buy bait... the list goes on. The few UK tourists that go to Peterborough and area are nothing in comparison. And let's face it - 10lb bag of maize = $3. 2 dozen worms = $3 10lb bag of maize lasts a year. 2 dozen worms lasts 2 hours.. if ya stretch em out. Nevermind minnows and leeches!

My dad got one as a present at my uncle's wedding. It's sweet!

What needs to be looked into sometimes as well is the contest itself. I'm not pointing any fingers as it may be coincidence - but I found it odd that ALL of the firemen's kids (run by the volunteer firefighters) at the Port Dover perch derby for a couple years won a daily "random draw" prize. Could it have been coincidence? Absolutely. I was just a little suspicious. I think some investigation should go into these things as well.

They drain the reservoir every year. Because of that, the fishing tends to lack. Fished it a couple years ago and caught nothing in 4 hours, then some workers from the conservation area pointed us towards Valens after informing us about them draining the lake annually.

What I'm having trouble understanding is how the infection to these carp is travelling UPSTREAM, rather than down into Lake Ontario. It started in the lower kawarthas and moved up from what I understand... ? It obviously can't be a water-born disease. Perhaps it has something more to do with birds?

Awesome stuff, some real beefy carp! Congrats to Bly on the new PB!

Well there was certainly no shortage of mosquitoes in the kawartha area last year or this year!

Yup, nothing there. Nothing at all.

Why isn't anyone jumping all over the guys who run big boats? They use considerably more fuel than my 14 foot tinnie. And let's face it, a lot of those guys with big boats - don't need the big boat. Outboards and inboards pollute the air AND water. Do you criticize a guy for running a 22 foot boat?

My guess is that an adult is considerably large... I didn't see any carp during my kawartha musky trip. Usually at that time of year, they're spawning everywhere. We didn't see a single one. Now, my thought was that it was just too early due to the late spring. The water was freezing after all. But - they spawned here in April. Just found it odd.

When I read this I was in complete shock. I would have never thought he would do something like that. That's all I'm gonna say.

Indeed, LPB has it all. I don't know why I didn't mention that. Pike and bass til your arms fall off, not hard to locate either. You'll just have to contend with quite a bit of boat traffic here.

Yet another Erie musky, awesome to see. I've been hearing reports of, and seeing from buddies at work pics of, a lot more muskies being caught out this way in the last couple of years. Great to see. Nice pike too!