Simcoe Smallies

[Starcraft]

I'm headed up to Simcoe tomorrow with the girlfriend to do some smallmouth fishing. Hoping to follow up a decent fishing trip at Algonquin with one here. I think one more decent fishing trip and she will be hooked. Never been to Simcoe before so I'd appreciate any tips anyone may have. Not looking for anyone's spots or anything like that. Just some general guidelines on what I should be looking for. Renting a boat at the Trent Talbot Marina for a day, won't have electronics which is one reason I'm looking for any help I can get beforehand.

 

I'm planning to primarily use tube jigs, dropshot stickbaits, and assorted jerkbaits.

 

Thanks

[NAW]

Show up about an hour before it gets dark for the night.

 

Look for Cudz, and Jdub, and follow them out (from a distance!)

 

Guaranteed Smallies

 

 

 

In all seriousness though, herd there's lots a bass around Georgina that you can sight fish for. Might be a good place to start if you don't have a sonar.

 

Good luck.

[Starcraft]

Show up about an hour before it gets dark for the night.

 

Look for Cudz, and Jdub, and follow them out (from a distance!)

 

Guaranteed Smallies

 

 

 

In all seriousness though, herd there's lots a bass around Georgina that you can sight fish for. Might be a good place to start if you don't have a sonar.

 

Good luck.

 

thanks for the advice. i will give that a shot. sight fishing for them would solve the problem of locating them based on structure, depth, etc.

 

actually, i've seen some of the pics that Cudz and Jdub have put up and they're ridiculous. if i do see them around i will stalk them from afar

don't really expect to get bass like them, but if i could just get a few for my girlfriend, that would be great. i have her partially sold on the fishing thing because she caught a few nice ones at algonquin, so if i can follow that up with another good outing, i think she will be on her way to becoming a fishing addict. which should make it easier to buy more fishing junk

 

if anyone's on the water tomorrow stop by and say hi. Chinese dude and his girlfriend in a rental. if there are lots of Chinese out on the water, you can differentiate us by the fact that we'll be the only ones throwing back all the fish we catch -- j/k

[Cudz]

PM sent

[Starcraft]

Just got back a little while from Simcoe. Fishing was a little slow, and although we managed few fish, at least they were decent. Caught 3 fish in total, and also had 1 break off and missed 2 more on jerkbaits. First one was 2 pounds, around Thorah island on a dropshotted stickbait. Second fish my girlfriend caught, a 4 pounder which was the big one of the day, again on a dropshotted stickbait. She was very excited about that fish as was I. She's definitely getting into the fishing thing now, which is a very good thing for me. These two were caught around 1 pm. We took a break because she was getting sea sick and started back up again around Thorah. I caught another 2 pounder on a jerkbait which I was running over a huge weedbed and missed a couple more. The jerkbait fish fought like crazy because he was hooked in the head, but I managed to get the hook out and he swam off fine. Last eventful thing was my girlfriend hooking into what was probably around a 3 pounder. This was near the canal to get to the marina and the only fish we saw that wasn't at Thorah. It ripped out some drag and then jumped a few times, more drag, jumped again and somehow snapped the line - probably my fault as I wasn't really checking her line during the day and it probably got worn down from wear and tear or the 4 pounder. Too bad because landing that guy would have been a good way to end the trip. We also tried crankbaits, tubes, spinners and jigs, but didn't get anything on those.

 

I'd like to thank Cudz and SlowPoke for the PMs they sent with advice. Cudz explicitly told me to head for Thorah and that's where my girlfriend caught the 4 pounder and where we actually caught all our fish. If it wasn't for him, we may have caught nothing because I probably wouldn't have bothered going if not for his advice. I wasn't able to find any boulders or sizable rocks and didn't have electronics, but I did find semi-gravelly bottom with some weeds here and there and that's where we got our fish. I'm definitely going to go back again. Simcoe's a nice lake and I'm happy with my first outing there, some nice fish, and no wasted time today with garbage fish like rock bass and sunfish. But the boat traffic is crazy and some people drive these huge battleships right by your dinky boat when you're fishing like you're not even there

 

Lastly, all fish were released and swam off strong.

[castgame]

we used to nail them off the islands on a grub/leech/crayfish in about 20-30ft of water... that was about a decade ago, but it was the best smallmouth fishing i've ever experienced...