Cookslav Posted December 23, 2011 Report Share Posted December 23, 2011 I decided to brave the weather and hit Quinte again with BigSwede one last time before the big freeze This past Wed & Thurs. 2 words...Tough Bite. Wed we launched at the ferry because of false reports stating Picton harbor was frozen. we could have launched in Picton with out any issues but hey...atleast the ferry is free We Launched and headed west into Picton bay, working as far south as Merlands across the cement plant, through to Thomson's point.... and we saw a grand total of 3 boats all catching Nadda, and off the water by noon. We trolled 8am to 6pm and marked a TON of bait fish and pickerel stacked like cord wood adjacent to the bait balls, but we couldn't muster so much as a sniff... We ran 100' off the board with Reef runners, TD's, X-raps, sticks baits in a variety of colors(mainly purple, and clown)..troll speeds of 1.5-2.5km/h We tried experimenting with the lead lengths from the boards but realistically these fish were not interested. Most of the schools we marked were in 32-34' of water but fish were scattered at a wide variety of depths, and despite our best efforts we could not pinpoint any depths that were holding active fish. By 6pm we were more or less chased off the water with a complete deluge of driving rain and heavy easterly winds(not forecast) It was a bit of a white knuckle ride back to the ferry LOL... Thursday was a lot nicer...Dry, and crisp. We Launched at 7:30 from Picton Harbour and immediately headed to the Cement plant where we had marked so many fish the day earlier. Again the Fish were present, but tight lipped... We decided to steer our troll from the cement plant down to long reach and keep the wind to our backs as it was a bit stiff. About 2 hours into our second day Just past the Marker buoy leaving the Cement plant I finally had the planner board go off on a Purple TD 11 But the line went slack...we were 0 for 1 but it was encouraging. We continued in the area for another couple hours in the chop with nothing to show, and we were not observing any one else doing well, so we moved down the reach in search of more active fish, and if anything....we needed to get out of the wind for a bit to warm up. We trolled down the reach as far as Huffs point with another boat in toe...nadda for either of us. By 4pm we turned it around and decided to give the Cement plant one more go at Dusk. I made a judgment call not usually considered to be advantageous by most hard core Pickerel anglers... I removed my Planner board and flat lined with about 150' of line. My rational for doing this was to steady the action of the lure...with the chop the planners were doing a lot of bobbing and weaving which IMO would have been making the lures action a bit iritic...which I know is usually one of the "benefits" of using a Planner, but with the slow bite, I couldn't help but wonder if a more subtle presentation would help.....At 5pm I got my answer. A nice 22" pickerel for my troubles It was not the 33" Inch Quinte Monster I was looking for to beat my current PB but it was a VERY welcome fish after 20 hours of effort It was nice to simply validate my approach...getting a decent dinner was a bonus. He had the Santa like Christmas Spirit with a Fat little belly on him, PS, Water temps in Picton harbour were 34-35 degrees, and we scoped water temps of 33 out by the Cement plant. There are NO positive temps forecast between now and Boxing day so if your going I would expect some light Ice starting to form at the Launches. However the Long range Forecast has some warmer Weather forecast next week, so I think there is at least another week or two of soft water fishing available. Good Luck and tight lines! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
I'mHooked Posted December 23, 2011 Report Share Posted December 23, 2011 Wow, great effort! Glad you hooked into something, nice looking one too. Could have been worse during the first 19 hours...could have been doing house work! Nice report, well detailed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cookslav Posted December 24, 2011 Author Report Share Posted December 24, 2011 Could have been worse during the first 19 hours...could have been doing house work! Ain't that the truth! That task was left for today...But I'm guessing I'm not alone in gearing up to host Christmas dinner LOL! But it sure was nice to get another kick at the can...as late as Dec 22nd non the less Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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