Warm up before next weekend's Rice Lake season open

[Steelcat]

I went to Cook's Bay at around 7am this morning. It was already crowded with people, I was lucky to find a place to fish. The fishing was kind of slow, but I met another fine angler who always fish in Rice Lake (he couldn't wait 1 more week so he came to calm his itching fingers). We were sharing our fishing experience, and from time to time, we hooked into some Crappies and some big Sunfish. As we were talking and fishing, we saw three huge Pikes cruising along the shore, they were spawning~! Omg it was a lovely sight~! I was lucky to have three nice size Crappies (10+ inches well compare to the normal 5-6 inches they were already jumbo in that area), one of them were badly bitten and we guess that Crappie had a nasty encounter with the Pike we saw earlier. As time passed, we could actually figure out when the next school of fish were coming. All we needed were to look to our right hand side (Canel exit to Cook's Bay), as people started to hook onto the fish, we got our rod and lines ready Overall we caught around 20+ fish (Crappie, Sunfish, and one Rockbass) threw the small ones back and kept the other for lunch. A day of fine weather, nice fishing, and nice chat with other people who love to fish........what a wonderful day~!

 

btw no Perch were caught.... I guess they all went up to Orillia for the Perch Festival

[frozen-fire]

Hmmm.. I went on Friday (yesterday morning) and my buddy and myself both got into crappies on almost every cast. 95% of them were dinks though. Threw them all back but kept a couple of the larger ones (10+ inches). Hope it isn't over yet. Gonna head up there tomorrow morning.

 

Many of the crappie we hauled out had really badly torn fins and skin... didn't see any pike, but we know they're in there.

[fishindevil]

Wow you guys were lucky to find a spot to fish..its been real crowded there as of late,and you guys got some nice fish to eat...way to go...man those crappies sure taste good....cheers thanks for sharing

[Steelcat]

That place is so crowded that when you look sideway along the shore (parallel to shore), you can actually see some artistic like action as people casting their line one at a time. I was really lucky to find a spot and with anglers who respect each other's space beside me.

[fishboy]

I just plain old don't have the patience to fish with a crowd that big.

[98Fahrenheit]

Arrived at around 5am .... dark. Then a whole poop load of Mainlanders showed up .... causing lots of noise. So damn annoying those people. No fishing etiquette. No respect for the locals .... who are deeply in their sleep. Caught about 14 5 inch crappies, a couple of perch, one bluegill and a 12oz. largemouth .... all returned to the water. Caught two decent sized catfish for Mom to make soup. These Mainlanders kept everything (a lot of catfish, bluegills, perch) including a couple of bass. One guy landed a northern and released it. The Mainlanders said that the guy was stupid to release the northern and that he should of kept it. Obviously the guy ignored these incompetent people. Too bad the COs did not show up .... or else it would have been a great seen .... a few of them (I am guessing) did not have a license ... esp. the women.

[frozen-fire]

omg...those mainlanders...they arrived right after my gf and i did. i am SO glad they didn't fish beside us. could hear them all the way from where we were. i was hoping for a CO to show up as well. We hauled up a good number of crappie...right at daybreak, they really started to get aggressive. Ended up keeping a dozen bigger ones for the gf's mom. we threw back all the crappie, sunfish and oos bass only to hear people calling us stupid and we should keep all of it. Fishing was great...not as awesome as a couple days ago though. it's starting to slow down already.

 

there are some decent pike i witnessed cruising the shoreline spawning... probably why the fishing sucked after a while haha.

[Steelcat]

If I were there when they kept the bass, I would go back to my car, get a Regulation booklet, turned to the page that shows season open for the division, put my hand into their bucket grab the bass and threw them back ><

[irishfield]

I'm still trying to figure out what the slur "mainlander" refers to....

[Steelcat]

I think 98Fahrenheit is referring people from China as "Mainlander".

[irishfield]

I hope not..one bigot around here is tooooo many, we don't need two more.

[Terry]

maybe he means"non Newfie Canadians" ...mainlander

[Roy]

People born in Maine.