Gilford bay fishing round 2

[Acountdeleted]

So, after talking everyones ear off this week about how good the perch fishing was at Cooks bay I was able to talk a few buddies and my girlfriend into heading up there with me for the afternoon.

 

 

We head out at about 11am and head off to Canadian Tire when the girlfriend realizes that she needs a fishing licence to do this legally. While her and my buddy are waiting in line I realize that I have my good rod and 2 lenders, seeing as how I told them I'd set everything up and outfit them I realize this means I'm using a paintstick in 20 feet of water if I don't make a last minute purchase. I run off to the fishing isle and come back with a HT Enteprise light combo, after buying it I tell the girlfriend that its hers if she wants to come out ice fishing more often (brownie points).

 

 

So we head out and rent a hut from Terry Goy, really nice guy and great huts in about 20 feet of water, last week I was in 30 where I was having all my success but I figure 20 will be good. Now, the thing that everyone has to understand is that my close buddy who came with me on this trip, him and I are like cryptonite for each other. Normally we are decent casual fishermen on our own, when we combine together we usually have a terrible terrible time. We've spent days on Balsam lake, Rice lake, Tommy Thompson Park in Lake Ontario and a few other smaller lakes catching nothing but weeds and having the fish laugh at us, so we get a little nervous setting up shop.

 

 

First 30 minutes the curse rings true, nothing. Not a hit, not a bite, nothing, this is around 12:30 and I'm starting to get nervous thinking this is going to be a long day and the girlfriend will never forgive me for this. Finally I start banging out a few small perch, normally I like catching fish but when I'm bringing up 3 or 4 dinks and no one else is catching anything I feel kinda gulity (as an asside it was my 2 buddies own fault, they decided to use full minnows on medium size spoons. The girlfriend on the other hand was having bad luck.)

 

 

Finally things started turning around, everyone was hooking into tons of perch and having a great time. I told the girlfriend that I wanted her to see how cool the legend hookup was on my St.Croix rod so I let her use that and she started clobbering the perch (No surprise I had to use the HT the rest of the day as she wouldn't give my rod back). Finally, my 2 buddies gave in and realized I knew what I was talking about with perch (more so what everyone on this forum helped me with) after the switched to micro tubes everyone was pulling in crazy umbers of perch, I think we had 7 or 8 good eaters and 1 or two really nice ones that fell back in the hole before we could get them out.

 

 

At 5pm Terry told us that we had to go, he was a good sport though and I was able to talk him into another 20 minutes. Surprisingly when the time was up my girlfriend didn't want to leave (I think she's a keeper) so we told Terry that we apreciated the ride out but we would fish our way in. We ended up landing a few more on our walk home, I think our grand total was somewhere in the high 60's with my girlfriend landing about 25 or so of em.

 

 

The only 2 bad parts about the trip were getting back in there must have been a sandbar or a channel or something that was almost impossible to cross at the Simcoe road 89 boat launch, I almost fell in twice crossing it so we decided to cross over where the man made bridge was at the Gilford road boat launch.... much safer there. The only other bad thing was that my girlfriend took a spill on the way back in, bruised her knee up pretty bad and turned the 25 inch HT enteprise light into a 21 HT enteprise Medium.... still works though.

 

 

Still in my opinion the best way to spend a sunday. My buddy's and my curse is finally broken (we hope) my girlfriend had a great time and can't wait to come out again and we were even able to bring home a few perch dinners.

 

The girlfriends first fish of many through ice.

 

 

First doubleheader of the day.

 

 

 

Proof the curse is finally over.

 

 

Ummm.... maybe you should wait till we fry it up first.....

 

 

Who needs huts? We're not done fishing yet.

 

 

 

 

[bigugli]

As long as you got out and had a good time, nothing else matters.

[Roy]

Beautiful report, Jeremy. Four friends having a good time. That's the way it should always be. Thanks for taking the time to post.

[limeyangler]

Wicked report J!

 

Thats why i'm not catching with my buddy Garnet....darned Kryptonite!

[Rod Caster]

Great read! Thanks for sharing it.

Those nervous minutes before catching the first fish are like running through a gauntlet. You have no idea what to expect.

I forget who told me this, some wise fella I'm sure, but he said : the hardest fish to catch is the first fish.

[Acountdeleted]

Great read! Thanks for sharing it.

Those nervous minutes before catching the first fish are like running through a gauntlet. You have no idea what to expect.

I forget who told me this, some wise fella I'm sure, but he said : the hardest fish to catch is the first fish.

 

 

Thanks for the praise guys. I always worry whenever I tell friends, family, coworkers about a good fishing spot. Waiting for the first fish is always the worst.

 

Before the job I'm doing now I used to work childcare and every summer I would take them dock fishing for perch and pumpkinseeds. Waiting for that first fish was always the worst because I knew if we didn't get anything in the first 10 to 15 minutes the kids would be miserable and give up.

 

I told my buddy that we'd take his son (6 years old) to perchfest in Orillia this year, I know for a fact the first 15 minutes of that fishing trip will be a huge panic attack.

Edited February 6, 2012 by jeremy84

[EC1]

Nicely done!

I gave away an all inclusive ice fishing trip for Christmas to one of my best friends too. It's gonna be just like you to put him on fish!