It's time to book a campsite!

[glirw]

Hey lads and lasses

 

Hope everyone is having an enjoyable season, whether on the ice or in the boat, or in my case on the couch !

 

Today I am going to pick your brains with some provincial park stuff for the upcoming summer. Several friends and I want to go camping this summer to a park ~3 hours away from toronto , and we want to go to a park we have never been to before, and one that has the following :

 

- Great fishing (canoe rentals or wadable waters are a must)

- Great swimming (sandy beach or large boulders is fine)

- Scenery (nothing beats the picturesque shorelines or silent lake and such)

- Wilderness (no mass tourism type deal, i.e. balsam lake, bass lake, massassauga, etc.)

 

The parks we have been to are : Silent Lake, Killarney , Algonquin, Pinery, Bon Echo, and several others I can't think of right now .

 

We prefer fishing for bass , pike, panfish, musky, and pretty much anything else aggressive and plentiful.

 

Lets hear some suggestions and personal stories !

If this was the old board I'd use the search function , but when I tried to do that here I came up almost empty.

 

Thanks!

[lew]

Bonnechere Provincial Park.....Have a look at it and you may be impressed.

 

I've never been one for large campgrounds and this was the only Provincial park I ever stayed in, but it was excellent. It was in the fall though and practically empty, so I don't know how the summer months would be, but it's in a fairly isolated area and not close to any large urban areas.

 

Your only a few miles from the s/e corner of Algonquin.

 

The Bonnechere River is where our deer camp was many years ago, and it comes out of Algonquin Park and the campground is where the river empties into Round Lake in the Ottawa Valley.

 

The park has canoe rentals and you've got about 12 miles of river to explore before it get's to Algonquin. There's also a huge sandy beach.

 

It's been a few years since I was there so I don't know how the fishing is now, but have a look at it. I know if I was looking for another Provincial Park trip, this is where I'd be heading.

 

From your description of what your after, I think this is the place and it's about an hour or 2 above Silent Lake.

[setomonkey]

I camped once at Frontenac Park, near Kingston. There are several camp clusters on the big lake (Big Salmon), and there are a number of smaller lakes you can portage into for the day. Canoe rental available, nice scenery, and we did well catching some lakers deep and smallies in the mornings and afternoon.

 

Mike

[steverowbotham]

I forget the names of the parks, you might have to do a quick google search, but I have two in mind.

 

First is on Mill Lake (10 mins North of Parry Sound). Tons of pike, bass, walleye in this lake. Scenery is great, even a beach and rentals, and cheap too! If you like cliff jumping, there's some good spots aswell.

 

Second is on Ahmic Lake (20 mins West of Magnetawan). I'm pretty sure it's called Ahmic Lake Resort. Scenery not quite as nice, but still a northern Muskoka scenic lake. There is a beach, rentals, and the best bass fishing I have ever encountered! Topwater all day long! PM me if you want to see pictures from either lake.

[Eddyk]

Ive heard some very good things about Charleston Provincial Park north of Kingston.

[bow slayer]

well over the years I have stayed at more than a few provincial parks in central ontario. But for the last 18 summers I have been going back to Restoule. The fishing is excellent for walleye,bass,musky,pike,lakers and whitefish. The park has access to 3 lakes directley and there are countless others in the area. The park itself is off the beaten path of highway 11 and i think that helps it from becoming over used.You will never see the crowds and activity of the bigger more popular parks and you can boat and fish all day with hardly seeing another boat. The scenery is beautiful as with any of the shield lakes. There are hiking trails,canoe routes,and lots of wadeable shoreline. my son caught a 5lb smallmouth right of the shore of our site last summer while wading.The musky in these lakes are huge last summer we tangled with 2 that were both over 40lbs. We had 4 dinners of walleye while there also and released a lot more than that.The village has everything you will need,groceries,beer store a marina with parts and service,and a legion that serves great chicken wings on friday nights.Lots of water to fish,boat and canoes rentals,bike rentals in the park,and a very quiet relaxing park. it has 2 sand beaches also and if you are lucky you can book one of the sites on the water that has its own private beach to sit in the sun and relax and pull your canoe or boat onto.. Trust me everyone i have steered to going there has been back ,some for nearly as long as me.

 

P.S. I just booked my site 2 days ago,right on the water. Can't wait

[glirw]

I forget the names of the parks, you might have to do a quick google search, but I have two in mind.

 

First is on Mill Lake (10 mins North of Parry Sound). Tons of pike, bass, walleye in this lake. Scenery is great, even a beach and rentals, and cheap too! If you like cliff jumping, there's some good spots aswell.

 

Second is on Ahmic Lake (20 mins West of Magnetawan). I'm pretty sure it's called Ahmic Lake Resort. Scenery not quite as nice, but still a northern Muskoka scenic lake. There is a beach, rentals, and the best bass fishing I have ever encountered! Topwater all day long! PM me if you want to see pictures from either lake.

 

 

Wow , great responses so far guys , I am definately going to book a campsite in one of the parks you guys recommended .

 

Can anyone with a bit more experience in canadian geography figure out the names of the parks described in the quote above by Steverowbotham ? They both sound very attractive , and I would conduct further research on them if only I knew the name !!

 

I wasn't able to do it on my own .

Thanks a bunch ! Stay safe on the ice !

[steverowbotham]

Wow , great responses so far guys , I am definately going to book a campsite in one of the parks you guys recommended .

 

Can anyone with a bit more experience in canadian geography figure out the names of the parks described in the quote above by Steverowbotham ? They both sound very attractive , and I would conduct further research on them if only I knew the name !!

 

I wasn't able to do it on my own .

Thanks a bunch ! Stay safe on the ice !

 

I found websites for both places, I also posted a few pictures from my experiences at each.

 

For Mill Lake, I can't find my pictures from last year, put I'll post a couple from 04. 12 of us went up for a weekend and had a fun tournament, we could each weigh in 3 bass, 2 pike and one "oddball" each day. it was a blast.

 

Aaron and Kyle won the tournament.

 

I got this smallie from shore upon arrival to our campsite!

 

For Ahmic Lake, I've been going on Canada Day weekend for the past 3 years, the fishing is unreal!

 

big topwater smallmouth

 

my girlfriend with another nice topwater fish.

 

Another spot I may recommend is Mikisew Provincial Park on Eagle Lake, just north of South River.

 

my girlfriend with another monster !!

 

me with an avg. smallie from the lake!

[Kirk]

Bon Echo and Pinery are pretty 'touristy' like bass and balsam...

 

Silent Lake or Algonquin (not south part Hwy 60) would be my pics based on your criteria

 

I'd add Killbear onto the list of potentials but fishing from shore or rented canoes is tough on GBay.

[sirfish]

KFTO, I am going to be 46 this year and have probably been to over 30plus parks in Ontario and some twice. The best that come to mind wouls be Restoule ,for the awesome fishing and overall beautiful park, Killbear , if only for the park , caught some awesome bass there and Sandbanks where you can fish west lake for multi species , Lake Ontario and its also a short trailer ride to BOQ public lauch in Picton ,Oh and the honeys that come there in the summer are nice eye candy to boot . I could go on but these are my top 3 . Good luck i'm sure wherever you pick it will be the right park.

[Bernie]

I live about 15-20 miles east of Restoule Park. Only spent one night there camping. Beautiful place, very pretty lake. Fishing can be finicky from what I hear but there are some dandy's in it. Quieter than a lot of parks from what I have been told. Doubt you would be disappointed.

[bow slayer]

i will admit the fishing on restoule can be trying for a newbie to the lake. It took me a few trips there to have good sucess. The multi species is a huge plus. You can fish bass,pike in the mornings,lakers and bass during the day and walleye and musky in the evenings. There are several other lakes(stormy,clear,Barton) in the area that also offer great fishing. Stormy is accesable from the park and offer great fishing almost the entire shoreline being crown land.(no cottages or crowds)Also to get you started pop into martins camp and ask for Bing he will point you in the right direction.He also guides on the lakes in the area for a very resonable fee.