The Quest continued at Fairbank Lake… No new fish species but lots more!

[007]

Hi all.

 

My quest to catch as many of Ontario’s fish species continued at Fairbank Provincial Park, west of Sudbury this past weekend. The plan was to catch some bigger smallmouth bass and perhaps hook into my first walleye or musky.

 

Thursday evening we left Toronto via Bass Pro of course. $300 bucks and a new spinning rod n reel combo later we were on our way up HWY400. We had decided to split up the long drive to the park by staying in Parry Sound on Thursday night. The other reason for doing this was to take my wife on a flightseeing trip over the 30,000 islands area of Georgian Bay for her birthday. What an experience! We had always wanted to take a flight in a float plane, and what a place to do it. The views over G Bay were spectacular. Here’s a few pics….

 

 

 

 

 

After a 3 hour delay on HWY69 north of Parry Sound following an accident ahead of us, we made our way up through the heat of the day to Fairbank Provincial Park. We had a great campsite on the end of a peninsular with our own private beach or so we thought! We had paid extra for a waterfront site but the water access from our site was actually via a gravel pathway leading from the site to a beach where I could fish and launch my inflatable boat. A few days into the trip, we went into the town of Espanola for groceries, but on our return we were surprised to find that the people who had arrived at the adjacent site were putting their tent up on our beach!! We couldn’t believe the nerve of these people, especially when they bullied us into sharing the beach with them in return for moving the tent. The next day, we go down to use the beach and wouldn’t you know it there were our neighbours with 6 guests and their three dogs running around (not on leashes as required by park rules). We were so annoyed as we had now lost the use of the beach, which we later found out from the park warden definitely belonged to our site! Just to make things worse, on the last night these people partied until 2am, which meant we got very little sleep before the 5 hour drive home! Consequently, my wife now doesn’t want to go camping again and we’ve had to cancel a trip in September to Charleston lake! Sorry for the rant! Glad I got that off my chest though….

 

So to the fishing…. First I find out that there are no walleye or musky in the lake! Just my luck. However, there were plenty of smallmouth bass, perch, and rock bass (plus lake trout and pike so I’m told). I managed to catch lots of small smallmouth bass and perch close to a weedbed near my campsite from shore or the inflatable. I did also see someone fishing from a boat just off my site catch a good 3lb Smallie but I didn’t have that same luck. I also had great fun watching shoals of perch fight over my bait in the crystal clear water. On a few occasions I went out in the evening in a friend’s boat. We managed to catch more smallies, the best being about 2lbs and as usual I managed to catch small rockbass on a big lure meant for its bigger cousins! Here’s a few pics of the park and the fishing – check out the leopard like markings on the pic of the bass in the water – pretty cool.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On the last day we managed to see some of the local wildlife. First was a toad of some kind that had been sleeping between our groundsheet and our tent! Second was a family of Sandhill cranes. Here’s some pics.

 

 

 

 

After that we headed back to T.O, stopping off for a look at Six Mile Provincial Park where I managed to catch a few small largemouth bass, sunfish and perch in a half hour from the day use area with my wife’s ultralight rod, float and worm set-up.

 

Hope you enjoyed the report despite the lack of big fish and the rant. I'm looking forward to my next fishing trip and hope that I can catch some new fish species soon as my quest is faltering somewhat at the moment.

 

Cheers

007

[Andy]

Great photos. Don't feel bad about the rant, sometimes you just have to let it out. When I first started camping, I would put up with other people's crap. I finally got so sick of some of the hicks and their antics, I would complain to staff working at the park. I found the staff to be very helpful and they would speak to the others so that my stay wasn't ruined. More often than not, there were other people in the area who would feel the same way I did and they would speak up as well. Good luck in your quest. Andy

[fishindevil]

Very nice scenery shots for sure,all that wildlife & pics from the plane man they look like a postcard,and you sure did well fishing to,and your weather looked great as well....thanks for sharing all those nice pics and your report as well cheers

[ccmtcanada]

Wow....sorry to hear about your camping experience!!! That would really piss me off too. Great pics from the air...what a great birthday present that was.

 

At least you got into some fish...and you did catch a bigger smallie I believe. You'll get into some walleye and muskie before the season is done...they are bigger in the fall anyways!! haha.

 

Thanks for the report and pictures....always a pleasure to read!

[dustink]

Great pics!

 

Nothing worse then having to share a camping area with a bunch of a#$%&^@!.....hopefully next time you go out with the wife it will be better.

 

dk

[frozen-fire]

beautiful pictures. sorry to hear about the bad neighbours though.

 

may i ask what kind of camera you were using on your trip?

[007]

Frozen-fire - I had left my SLR at home so for this trip I was using my Canon A640 digital - its tilting screen was pretty useful in getting the shots of the toad low to the ground.

 

Thanks for the other comments guys.

 

Maybe my quest will pick-up in the fall.

[Tarzan's Jane]

What an ugly toad! Your wife should not give up on camping - it won't happen every time that you run into people like that. A little friendly word to the staff would make a difference for sure. I had a horrible camping experience once where the camper beside us did nothing but scream and yell at his kids all day - it was so abusive and upsetting. I finally had enough and turned up my music. He approached me and in a not so friendly tone told me to turn it down. I did the opposite and I let it rip until 11:00 p.m. The next day, he was much nicer to his kids.

[MJL]

Great pics 007

 

Riding in a float plane looks like a blast. Too bad about the neighbours though. You do run into total jerks from time to time but more often than not, it's usually not the case. Convince your wife to rebook for September. All you need is some wine, massage oils, easy listening music and some chloroform...A good back for heaving her into the car is always good.

[mcallister.grant]

Great pics from the plane!!! Sorry about your camping experience!! LOL

[007]

MJL - That's too funny!

 

Good idea though!

[Mike the Pike]

Too bad 007 about the bad experience but not all trips are like this.As for the late night parties a quick call to security at most provincial parks are usually taken care of promply.The rangers can hand out $150.00 dollar fines if they want to.next time if this happens just play some music loud in the morning .There lack of sleep from their late night party will be taken care of with your tunes.I usually ask my kids to be loud in the morning if people had no respect the night before.The key is to complain to security.I have complained about loud music and yelling not folks who just stay up late and talk around the campfire.Oh did I mention you are really good with the rockbass

 

Good Luck on the next trip.

 

MTP

[addict]

sweet pics thanks for the post

[danpz42]

my Parents have had a camp/cottage on Fairbanks for more than 50 years.

while there are not that many bass you do have a good chance of getting a lunker smallmouth especially around the shoals near the island across from the provincial park. I have caught many in the 3.5 to 5 lb range.

Also the lake has been stocked with Walleye in recent years. I have only ever caught one but I have heard that Falconbridge bay produces decent results.

 

the true value of fairbanks is it's spring fed water and acid rain resistance.

it is a steadliy producing lake trout lake both in the winter, spring flat-lining and in the summer on down riggers in the deep bowl.

 

DZ