castgame

i'm headed up to just west of the park tomorrow to try a little lake for splake. i assumed that the ice would be good up there, but another post on here about russeau has me worried. anybody have any info?

good point! though i think i'd be more worried for my fish than for myself

a friend and i are hitting middle shanty lake this week to try for splake. plan is to snowshoe in, set up camp, fish a day, and then out again. bears should be hibernating, right? or should i still be cautious and set up a hang? also, any info on the fishing in this lake/region would be helpful. it's just west of algonquin.

...or simcoe for lakers...

very interesting report! neat to see a pike in germany. what a prolific fish.

thanks bill. nearly 15lbs, which was good enough for third on that day of the tournament. 110' over 120' if i remember correctly, on a ghostback lyman. just south of the thompson hole if you know the sound, which it sounds like you do.

i made a post like this last year but it never quite panned out. i'm looking to take my good friend out down rigging for the first time, but can't get enough folks together to make a charter worthwhile. if there are any OFC members out there who are heading out on lake ontario with a couple of empty spots in their boat, let me know. my friend's new to fishing but i have plenty of experience rigging for salmon on both lake ontario and georgian bay, so i can help you put more fish in the boat. willing of course to pay for gas, bring a 2-4 (to be responsibly consumed onshore!), leave you with some shiny new spoons, or other interesting trade to make it worth your while. we're both professional cooks, and would be happy to bring along a full cooler with a complete lunch of whatever it is you'd like to eat on the water... steak sandwiches? veal parmigiana? deep dish pizza? please pm me if you're willing. it'd be greatly appreciated. ps sorry mods if this shouldn't be in general discussion. i looked for the 'fishing partners' subforum but it seems to have been removed. me on owen sound last year during the spectacular with a prize-winning chinook

on 6lb?! excellent work. you must've done a hell of a job finessing that thing

simple brines are best. water, sugar, salt. the sugar can be any sugar you like (brown sugar, maple syrup, birch syrup, agave...), and the salt should be coarse and uniodized (pickling, kosher, sea). i agree with Fisherman--don't overdo the brine. let the fish be the focus.

good info, thanks--i'm thinking of hitting the island in a week or two, and it's good to know it'll be ice-free i haven't checked grenadier pond yet, but my guess is that it will still have some ice. it follows the same regs as lake ontario, yeah? no fishing in april? if it's clear by late march, i bet you could get into some very nice pike

so i went down to ontario place and spadina marina today, and though it was a gorgeous day for a lakeside walk, the water was gin and there wasn't a weed or a pike to be seen. i barely even bothered casting. i'm guessing we're a couple weeks early yet?

thanks for the info. i'll chat him up! seriously, who could have a problem with an inconspicuous, conscientious fisherman in a public park? that'd be a shame

is there fishing this time of year in the marina? pike?

thanks!

your poll options don't cover all the bases... i'll probably be going, mostly to score some good deals and take the gf out for a day. she'll get a kick out of it at least. anybody know of admissions coupons or promotions? i don't feel like paying the whole price...

hm, not a good sign i know the park's closed weekdays, but is it patrolled? do people really care if you're there fishing midweek?

has anybody been out the spit for pike yet? i'm thinking of going midweek, but i don't want to make the trek if it's iced in. anybody had any luck in the gta on lake o for pike yet this year?

well i'm not going to have much trouble with that i don't think

lake trout? we'll need something accessible by foot... so no 10k+ snowmobile approaches

yeah, head lake on 45 is the one. reg's seem to say walleye and musky are closed until may and june respectively. so i guess we'll be targeting panfish, unless there's a better body of water to try nearby

so i take it head lake is open for ice fishing this year, and it so happens my friend's got a cottage up there. anybody know anything about the lake at all? i'm suspecting we'll be getting into perch and crappie, maybe walleye? any info at all would be appreciated, thanks

cool artist. named after a wet fly too

i'd rather it be tax dollars spent on relief... there's a lot of money being made off of hispaniola in this world... taxing those reaping those benefits and redirecting it back makes sense to me. i'll probably donate at least something to the relief effort. it does put it in perspective just how incredibly lucky we are to be canadian, doesn't it? it's something i try to remember every day.

headed up to gilford today to do the hardwater thing. haven't been out on the ice in a long time, and never targeting perch. started the day off by stopping in bps to renew outdoor licenses and pick up a little gear. couldn't believe they were entirely out of small jigging raps--there was half a dozen guys just staring at the empty display board, moaning and complaining, which was actually pretty funny. so i picked up a lil foxee and some 4lb fluoro and was off. stopped in at innisfil bait and tackle to get those jigging raps, and the advice from this board was spot on, that guy was friendly and very helpful. he sent us up to the 2nd line with instructions to head about 200m offshore, which we did. now, i don't own an ice auger, so here was my plan: i'd brought a hatchet, and i was just going to bust through some of the old leftover holes from throughout the week. well, you probably know how that ended up. a lot of wandering around looking for traces of old holes with no luck, so i just settle in to hack through the 5"-8" of reported ice. yeah, that was last week--ice is a solid 10" now, and it took me probably 20mins to determine that. of course, as soon as i do break through to the water, my hole fills up and it's nearly impossible to enlarge the opening. so i'm stuck with a hole 14" in diameter, 10" deep, with a 2" aperture at the bottom . so i abandoned that and beelined it to the closest guys i could see on the open ice, a couple of older gentlemen another couple hundred meters off. they kindly let me borrow their auger to drill a few holes nearby--i'm happy to be their neighbour, because they've got a bucket of nice perch including one monster that's over a foot for sure. so finally we're fishing--we're a party of three: one's jigging a tiny grub, i'm jigging my jigging rap tipped with a honey worm, and another's jigging a rattling spoon. half an hour passes with no action, not even a hit. our new friends are on their way out, so they leave us with their minnows, which was a pretty nice thing to do. immediately i switch to a dropshot rig--a size 12 red gamakatsu 10" above a heavy jighead/grub (i figure, why not leave open the possibility of a big guy picking this up off bottom?) this is my first time ever dropshotting, but i've seen the videos and i get the principle. my jighead hits the bottom with a thud and it doesn't take more than thirty seconds before i feel the gentle taptaptap. pause a second, lower the rod tip, and up comes the first perch of the day . i help my partners switch to the same rig, and soon we've got a few on the ice. a live minnow worked best, but i landed a few with a headless minnow too. just needed a little gentle jiggling. three hours total i think, and we managed to land a dozen decent perch. i know these numbers are far from impressive, but i was satisfied with our first outing at this game. next time i'm going to be closer in: we were in 40ish fow, with very little vegetation. the perch moved through, but they weren't really there. looks like i'll be buying an auger