Rich

Sparrow Lake has both I believe, might be worth checking out.

Thanks everyone, did almost the same rigamaroll today. Except two differences, it was warm as heck , and the fish weren't biting. After 4 hrs, sun started to set, got a little guy. Good enough, plenty more days of pike fishing to come.

Funny you mention that. My dad taught me to drive a boat there when I was 6. Back then there was a lot of unknown about the harbour, suffice to say pike and bass fishing was a little better. You will see others out pike fishing, and those others out "pike" fishing now. And harbour enforcement is stricter, so be careful with your son. But good luck to ya. I know wayyy back when I fished there, we always seemed to get our pike around the Macassa pier... Before it existed. Lol

Missed pike opener due to work, so my opener was yesterday. Loaded up the inflatable and thanked heavens for my LPRCA season pass I bought last week, and headed out in some miserable conditions to try for pike on a pond I have never put the time into getting the boat into. The inflatable made this trek a breeze. Started off with my fav black/orange spinnerbait while Brandon through a bucktail. 8 casts in a 40" class fish hits my spinnerbait, hookset, dangit! My reel is still in winter storage mode, drag loose as hell. Lost the fish. Moving in behind a little island a hammer handle rolls on my bait twice, and before I could spit out that I raised one I look up to see Brandon set hook into a little fish with a big attitude. Barbless hooks saved the day on this one, inhaled the 8" osprey tail, but little effort and it popped out, no blood. From there on out, the pike got finicky. We were having ridiculous numbers of short strikes as the wind picked up and the hail came out. After losing a dozen more fish between us, we were losing hope, and determination, quickly. It seemed the final nail in the casket was when Brandon got called in to work. I had an hour left to land anything but OOS bass. Coming round the bend to take the boat out, the sun cleared things up for 20 minutes. I could see that right near our launch, there was a very shallow gravel shoal with about an 8' deep pit in behind it. No sooner than I said "there HAS to be a pike in there" and tossed my white spinnerbait in (changed up long ago), and sure enough I had my fish just in the nick of time. It was no beast, but I am certainly not complaining about that fish. Overall, considering it was freezing cold, brutally windy, raining, snowing and at times - pea size hailing on us, I expected a skunk. The day was above all expectations, and one heck of a way to kick off pike season.

Kind of like a town or a city or a human life - people come and go.

There is a catchable population of pike in the harbour, for sure.

Only in today's world, when new fans are introduced, they are chastized by older fans as "bandwagon jumpers" Your opinion on a hockey team is completely worthless, whether you've liked them 50 years, or five minutes, so get over it. Hockey really annoys me.

I feel we may be discussing this in the wrong place, lol, but alas , no. I am at work all weekend. My weekend is Monday/Tuesday and you bet toothy critters are on the agenda!

Nope, but my grandfather was an ironworker, in hamilton, who fished bass professionally, then chartered salmon on " The Silver Poppy" afterward. His name was Ken, no siblings close by at that time that I know of, definitely none who fished. I don't know who his partner would have been at the time, but I do recall him being very close with the Leesons. (Bruce and Denny)

I wish pike opener down here was on ice! Lol

You laugh at the musky guys daily ...

Congrats!! I can relate. It took me seven years to catch my first steelhead. Season after season, lots of hookups, never landed one. Thought it would never happen. Lucked out, got one on a fluke, and ever since - have lost two and landed over 100. You'll be into 'em now regularly, i'd bet!

Your boat costs more than your house.

Your story is indeed an inspiration. i have a real good friend who will not come to terms with his alcohol problem. He has three kids and a wife and I see all of them suffer from his addiction, daily. I tried my best to help him out but eventually you have to sit back and hope fate will do the work. So I have essentially refused contact with him until he gets some help. It's sad to have to do that with such a good friend, but I need to get it through his head that his drinking IS a problem, and it is hurting his life.

Every fish you've caught has been dragged in a livewell to 15 min from where you caught it, to take a picture

I always got lots of nice perch, anchoring right in close the the east rock pier at port maitland. A 5 min boat ride, if you putter. As for trolling eyes, try everywhere until you get a bite. Spros and Big O's, white or chartreuse, or drag a worm harness and catch all sorts of stuff all day.

Season's just starting to get good here. Looking forward to 2 months of big cats.

I'd rather go out that way than go anywhere near the evil toronto.. jus sayin

All I heard is you got bait for the next trip inside your fish! BONUS!!

Wellandport has some HUGE carp.

Grass carp eat plankton and algae like asian carp, but dont jump in schools and kill boaters. They really wouldn't be all that bad to have around.. but its never good to introduce a new species to an environment.

You know you're NOT addicted when you can't differentiate competitive tournament fishing from a relaxing, thrilling and incredibly rewarding sport called bass fishing.

Lol no, but quite a few on the Mini King Thanks for the info. I always thought they spawned in much colder water than that. I doubt my 7 fish will have an impact, but it still feels wrong, lol. Meh.

Put a slaying on the slabs yesterday, landed probably 30 in total myself, brought home 7 of the bigger ones and was surprised / saddened to see they were all full of eggs. I thought they spawned much earlier than this! Water temps in the high 50's where I was catching them..

You spend your entire spring flipping bitsy bugs for crappies and WGSF to scratch the itch