Muskoka Report

[Guest Johnny Bass]

Went fishing with Mark Saturday. Was itching to go back to Muskoka. I have been telling Mark I wanted to go back there for awhile. The water looks very promising. Been there once before and we did ok and caught some monster bass. Finally Mark says lets go. I'm like, are you sure? We can go somewhere else... Mark says we will go to Muskoka.

 

Get there and this time we found the launch right away and launched with no problems. Started working the same water we had luck on before. Nothing......

 

We noticed there was no fisherman in Muskoka. We are like thats a bad sign! We seen a guy fishing on a dock but when we got closer, the fisherman was made of wood. We also seen a life like owl. After that we

seen a life like bird. Upon further investigation, it WAS a real bird. It was standing on the roof with wings spread wide open, sunning its wings. Really cool. Its a vulture hawk I think.

 

 

Anyways,we pounded alot of water with not even a follow. The water was really cold (67 degrees) and it was really windy!!

 

Mark and I were getting frustrated. I told Mark to forget about structure we see on the water we keep stopping at and concentrate on underwater structure on the map.This time I had brought a map I had made from the previous trip. So we checked the map and I marked some high percentage areas.

 

We started pounding them. We started finally seeing some fish and hooking the odd puke. I had caught a few bass a pike and got bit off by a decent sized pike on plastics.Mark had lost a few fish and brought in a ok sized pike.

 

At this point, Mark says he never wants to come to this lake again....

Of coaurse I feel bad for picking that lake. Its a large lake and its very deep. It can be over whelming.....

 

I told Mark, Muskoka is a lake that anything can happen. You can hook onto a 20lb pike or monster largie, pickeral, smallie or whatever.

 

We continue to work high percentage areas. It was maybe 3 o'clock and the fishing was below average. I had boated a few here and there but nothing big. The highlite was a 4-5lb pike I smashed.

 

I was working my tube on a shoal and Mark says he seen something long come up and follow my bait. I switch to a crank bait, throw it out and WHAM!!!Pike on, a decent fight and its in the boat. No picture taken because we were going to smash into the shoal.

 

We also worked a tree that had was underwater and seen a bass that was over 20 inches easily. He watched my jig and pig dance and even looked like it was going after it(out of our sight), but I waited and waited for the hit and nothing...We tried for a while to get that bass to nite but he was not interested.

 

Mark was clearly frustrated. Then the wind died down and the water started heating up. Water temps had hiot 70 degrees and we found a motherload of smallies.

 

We were smashing smallies after smallies after smallies. Mark hooks a MONSTER smallie, brings it in and it was bleeding. We pop out the hooks and I tell Mark to Clean the blood off for the pic. He is washing it in the water, it gives a shake and its gone....No picture.

 

We continue to work the area and I nail a monster even bigger than Mark!I am freeking out and its jumping everywhere. Then it starts to head for a boyd with a rope. I'm thinking its gonna get hung up on the rope, so I start to horse the fish and the hook pops out! DANG!!!! I dont lose too many bass, so the feeling was not good......

 

Once we had figured the smallie pattern, that was it for the smallies. Spot after spot, smallie after smallie.....

The water temps had reached 72 degrees. The hottest we had seen for awhile.

 

We later decided to go to our last spot. We were working the area and still nailing smallie after smallie.

 

Mark had just got bitten off by a pike so I said, lets target something different. Lets put on some crankbaits and target pickeral and pike. I had to rig up another rod because my baitcaster with 50 lb power pro was completey tangled and had to cut it all off. Gotta go buy more Power Pro now.

 

First cast for Mark? WHACK! Hits something decent. After a ncie fight brings in a decent pike. 33 inches.

 

 

At this point Mark is like, when are we going to come to Muskoka again. LOL We wanted to stay for the evening bite for pickeral because this spot was picture perfect but I told Mark the lake is too rocky, we are too far and dont want to travel back when its dark. Plus I was having boat problems. The engine kept on feeling like it was running out of gas but the tank had lots of gas in it...I gotta get that checked out....

 

Well it was another great fishing trip. Caught a lot of fish on a tube colour I dont normally use. Mark caught alot on ring woms he doesn't normally use.Lots of stuff I dont remember.Did alot of exploring, wasted well over a tank of gas. And there is still alot more exploring of Muskoka to do. We will definately be back!

 

Hope you enjoyed the report. Sorry about the lack of pictures.

[Rich]

Awesome report Johnny as usual. You did well on a tough lake by the sounds of it!