Report: Sean vs Scugog

tbayboy · August 14, 2007

First off thanks to all the people who replied to my queries about a boat rental for Scugog on Saturday. I'd love to say that it went great but ... well lets just start with report shall we

Saturday - Patrick and Sean and a crappy motor

PatrickG and I had been talking about going muskie hunting for a few weeks now and after my success the week before with Mikeh we decided to go for it. Off I went to BPS to buy $50 worth of muskie lures (2 cranks, one bucktail/spinner) and I was set. Saturday AM we hooked up and headed out to Goreski's to pick up our 14' 9.9hp tinny. I knew it meant it would it take a while to get to the spots I wanted to try but it was the closest rental and they'd let us keep the boat til 8:30 so we figured we'd be fine.

First problem: We show up at 10am and they're putting up a bunch of tents, seats and .. oh no .. a weigh in station. Yep, its a tournament day. Dang - we know that means that all the pads will be camped until the tournament was over (we planned on doing pad based bass first) but oh well, we're here so lets go.

Second problem: The girl working the marina hops in our boat and tests the motor - won't start. Hmm ok, she hops into the next one and it starts up right away. I should have taken that as a sign but we were eager to go so off we went.

We got out of the channel and hit the first mound of weeds. After a couple jiggles Patrick got the motor trimmed up so we putted along til we found some open water and then he dropped it down and off we went. The boat didn't seem very fast though but we were stopping at every group of pads we saw so I didn't think much of it. We worked along the shore without much luck and discusses where to go. We realized that the boat being so slow meant our plan of flying all over the place wasn't such a good idea so we picked a spot I knew and off we went - at a crawl.

Third problem: The trim busted - the motor just refused to lift . It was like it was never meant to and eventually we gave up (though all day Patrick would wack at it to the point where I expected the thing to fall of the end).

Fourth problem: The motor won't go 100% if there's been any weed anywhere near it. I guess it's an overheating protection feature or something but even after clearing the prop it would chug along at 50% or so. Eventually we realized that if you shut down the motor and restarted then you'd be back to full power... at least until you got another weed near it (you try avoiding all weeds on Scogug - ugh).

Ok so the boat is a bit of an issue but we eventually make it to where I want to be and the wind is nice and slow and drifts us right over the edge of the weed beds. The perch were having a great time with our tubes and spinner bait which started to get a little annoying but finally something with a bit more weight took off with my tube right under the boat. After a bit of a fight my skunk was over:

We setup for another drift but the only thing that rose was a loon - right beside the boat. I've never seen one come up that close so I grabbed the camera:

Yep, one of those days and then the weather decides to join the 'we hate you' club. After 2 drifts the wind stopped and the sun nearly killed us - we were roasting out there to the point where we were thinking of looking for a shady spot when suddenly the wind change direction 180 degrees and really picked up. I was looking for the storm that must have been coming given the amount of wind and suddenness of the change but no storm - just a lot of wind and out little boat just couldn't handle it.

We headed out as fast as the crappy little motor would let us and tried to find some sheltered fishing spots. The first few spots gave us only this guy, my second WGSF of the day:

Eventually we found a nice line of pads and cane and just when we though Patrick was doomed to be skunked he pulled this scrapper out:

Not a huge fish but you can tell from the smile how nice it was to end the skunk on this miserable day.

After that we putted back to the marina and as soon as we were near the dock Patrick tells them that there's something seriously wrong with the motor - no reaction at all - they just drifted away from us. I didn't make a big deal out of it when paying since it's just some summer kid trying to close up and go home but all the way back to Toronto we kept repeating to ourselves "hate that lake", "hate that boat", "hate those weeds", "never going back".

I qualified never going back with "Only going back if somebody with a nice boat offers me a spot - then MAYBE I'd go back."

Sunday - what a difference a boat can make

Let me start by asking Patrick to stop reading. Please stop reading now - your just going to want to punch the computer

I got home at 10:30pm and my first stop is OFC and there's a message from Mikeh - "hey Sean I'm going to Scugog tomorrow morning - interested?". I just shook my head at the coincidence. I wasn't sure I'd be up for it but come Sunday a.m. I realized that I'd be an idiot to pass up a chance to go fishing with Mike so off I headed to do battle with this damned lake again (back on the horse I guess).

As we're heading up we figured we'd be on the water by 10:30 so first fish had to be by 11. Yeah sure I'm thinking. Well we got on the water at 10:20 so I reminded Mike - only got til 10:50 now. 10 minutes later we're at the first spot (that took us nearly an hour to get to on Saturday - yeah I like Mike's boat better). 10:45am and I have a fish in the boat but didn't take a picture ("he's small and I'll catch lots more" - foreshadowing anyone?) and 10:47 Mike's kept the promise too:

Gonna be a great day thinks I - sure they started small but thats OK, nowhere to go but up. We continued working the weedbeds tossing my new Muskie lures, some spinner baits, tubes and topwaters. The bite, as seemed to be my Scugog luck, died off with Mike getting one nice topwater fish:

But nothing else. Then the rain came in - boy did it come in. We put on the rain gear and stuck it out though and after an hour or so of rain including 30 minutes of solid soaking it cleared up and we headed for another spot where Mike wanted to try the pads. I still suck at flipping so I went back to tossing a tube near the edges and got another little largie:

Then Mike had to go and out do me so I took a lousy picture for revenge

As the afternoon came to an end we headed to a spot to try our luck with the muskies. We spent a good hour or so tossing the big lures but nothing wanted to hit them. I decided to go back to my trusty tube but by now the sky and the water were conspiring to make it impossible for me to really see the weed beds so I was more or less tossing randomly when my rod bent over. Oooh nice smallie I think then I see the flash of a long side and then he cleared the water in a beautiful leap - tube musky ($20 muskie lures beaten by a $1 weighted hook and a 50 cent tube - figures). He gave a great fight, weaving all over the place, jumping in the air, diving in the weeds, you name it. Eventually he tired out and we got him along side and into the boat for some quick pics. Not a huge one by any measure but what a fun fight for a 36" fish.

This pic cracks me up - looks like I sat on the lure while holding him:

After a little reviving he was off:

Since the tube caught the muskie I put on a spinner to catch - well anything. And a few minutes later I was back in the game - a wee bit smaller though - say 33" smaller ?

But hey two fish in a row - back out goes the spinner and a few minutes later the line is tugging and I can't figure out what it is - not acting like a bass and not a muskie, whats going on? Get him up and what do you know - my first southern ontario walleye and species #4 for the day:

Now Mike's giving me a funny look because I did this last week - skunked all day then hit them all from 6pm on. I kinda laugh and say the only thing I need now is a smallie but I'm down to my last 'magic' tube. In she goes and yup - you know it was coming, just shy of 3lbs:

That was it for the day and we headed back. I'm starting to think that I should stay away from scugog until the sun starts setting - I just flat out suck at daytime fishing on that lake but I've got a giant horseshoe up my back side during the early evening.

So I guess I'd call it a draw when it comes to me vs Scugog - really the lake won when you consider the amount of hours put in (20 hours total over 2 days) vs the number of fish I landed (10 I think including a couple rock bass and that perch). Ah well, I guess that means I need to try the bog again sometime.

Big thanks to Patrick for driving and putting up with that horrible first day (we'll hit a different lake before the summers up and make up for it) and Mike for the invite Sunday. Also big thanks to Chompers for creating my magic tube - all of my gear reeks of garlic now but damn that tube works well.

mcallister.grant · August 14, 2007

Awesome report!!! Looks like the second day made up for the first!!!!

BFSC Kevin · August 14, 2007

too bad about sat, maybe the tourney scared them off, but sunday looked like a great day!

wtg sean..

and better luck next time pat..lol

cheers

kevin

Edited August 15, 2007 by kevin

fishindevil · August 14, 2007

Thats a good haul of mixed species for sure !!!!!!! :clapping: well done guys,and on scugog to boot,thanks for sharing nice pics as well...cheers :thumbsup_anim: :Gonefishing:

fatherof3 · August 14, 2007

nice mixed bag,too bad about the boat trouble

August 14, 2007

Another excellant report! The thing about Scugog is, you dont need expensive musky baits to catch musky. All you need is bass and pickeral lures!

Weeds · August 14, 2007

Great report, Its been a while since I was out on Scugog, makes me think I'm due....

lookinforwalleye · August 14, 2007

I have a trailer at Goreski`s and while it`s a great place their rental boats just plain stink, I saw another group being towed in Saturday afternoon I don`t know why anybody would rent one of their rigs.

The tourney on Saturday was a Bassmanisa event and judging by the winning weight the Bass fishery on Scugog is alive and well the winning weight was over 22 pounds for 5 fish thats well over a 4 pound average which is very good for any body of water.

Pigeontroller · August 14, 2007

Looks like you did OK to me!

Nice Horizontal hold on the Muskie :thumbsup_anim:

And a nice release shot! :thumbsup_anim:

canadian_copper · August 14, 2007

SOME NICE FISH THERE GUYZ

ccmtcanada · August 14, 2007

Sean...at least you've caught fish on that lake...even with the rental...LOL. Bly and I have rented there twice to fish...not a single fish caught...mind you, we have no idea what we are doing in a boat. Sorry to hear the rental thing didn't work out...at least we've never had issues with the boats we've had.

That second day was classic! Congrats on the muskie....great job! Thanks for the detailed report...makes for some fun reading when I see you've posted something.

Bly · August 14, 2007

"all the way back to Toronto we kept repeating to ourselves "hate that lake", "hate that boat", "hate those weeds", "never going back"."

I have often muttered similar statements all the way home from that lake.... :lol:

Loved the report and congratulations on your success!

mattyk · August 14, 2007

great report, some nice fish.

dustink · August 14, 2007

Congrats on a great day on the water!!

dk

Bitsmith2k · August 14, 2007

sean, sorry to hear about the crappy boat.. we must have lucked out when we rented from there... nice work on the sunday though..

canadianguy33 · August 14, 2007

lol what a great report.

Glad to see you caught your muskie.

LeXXington · August 14, 2007

Super report, glad you got into some fish, I do the bog in the fall watch for the invite

I went up to Huron... HOT CALM AND A NASTY SKUNK SMELL

tbayboy · August 14, 2007

I'll be checking my email every 10 minutes from now til November Lexx . Thanks for the comments everyone.

mikeh · August 14, 2007

Great report. I think the look on your face in the musky picture was after looking at the scar(lympoma) on the other side of the fish.

tbayboy · August 14, 2007

Ahhh that must explain it. I was trying to figure out why I had that grimace and had almost forgotten about the scar on the other side. Thanks Mike

snagmaster · August 15, 2007

sweet report man...nice mixed bag ...

Sign In

Report: Sean vs Scugog

Recommended Posts

tbayboy

mcallister.grant

BFSC Kevin

fishindevil

fatherof3

Guest Johnny Bass

Weeds

lookinforwalleye

Pigeontroller

canadian_copper

ccmtcanada

Bly

mattyk

dustink

Bitsmith2k

canadianguy33

LeXXington

tbayboy

mikeh

tbayboy

snagmaster

Create an account or sign in to comment

Create an account

Sign in

Recent Topics

Popular Topics

Upcoming Events

Classifieds