Conditions Around Parry Sound??

[FishyFishy]

Hi all,

 

I’m heading up to Massasauga Park next weekend (long weekend down here in the states) for some camping and fishing. Can anybody from the area give me an idea what the conditions are like?

 

Are the black flies out in full force yet? Water temps?

 

We’ll be targeting pike and walleye. Not sure how far into post-spawn they are yet. Any tips or suggestions on presentations?? Man I’m sitting here in the office and I can already tell it’s going to be a long week…

[Rizzo]

Carry an anchor in your pocket or the black flies and skeeters will carry you away! I was just there this week-end, and when the wind died down the bugs picked up. At times almost unbearable. Caught some pike and OOS bass, but for the most part fishing was fairly slow.

[FishyFishy]

Oh man, that was about the worst news I could have heard!! I appreciate the warning though. I guess we'll just have to suck it up.

 

Has anyone ever tried bug spray with 100% DEET? I just got some the other day--apparently the more DEET just means it will last longer. Here's to hoping i guess...

 

How are the water levels and temps? Is that affecting the fishing?

[Cast-Away]

Norm, be careful with deet around anything that contains plastic. It desolves plastic really quickly. I was at the Moon on May 3rd and the blackflies were just starting. The good news is that tomorrow and Thursday are suppose to be very hot in Ontario which usually kills off the blackflies!

[lunkerbasshunter]

I just talked to a buddy who was on the moon this weekend and said the fishing was decent. They got into a few large walleye 5pounds ++ but most were in the 2 pound range. They hooked into a few BIG pike everyday but it was slower then what he was used to. between the 4 of them they said they caught about 40 smaller pike in the couple days they were fishing.

 

Over all he said the fishing was good. the bugs got to them when the wind died down.

 

Its amazing to think that 30 years ago you could not catch a walleye on the moon that was under 5 pounds. they used to produce walleye like quinte does.

 

MY friend tells me that they are stocking walleye to hopefully regain the status of a world class walleye fishery. Lets hope it works.

 

Enjoy your weekend up here!

 

Cheers!

[Rizzo]

There are no walleye in the Moon, I blame those dang musky and the double-dang catch and release musky fisherman

[xrap]

Black flies are really bad up thier. We used the Off spray for them and it didn't do anything. If your going to be spedning a couple days there you should go to walmart or crappy tire and buy one of those smoke bomb things for blackflies or ask someone what works the best.

[cvezina2]

Yep, the black flies are out and they're hungry. Mesh nets and head gear are in fashion. Upcoming weekend is supposed to be fine, high 60s and low 70s. Good luck and enjoy

[FishyFishy]

Yup, might be a mesh net weekend for us!! Thanks for the replies.

 

Hopefully I'll have enough fish for a report. We'll be camping in Blackstone Harbour and probably sticking to there or Wood's Bay but not too much beyond.

 

Any tips for fishing those areas?

 

I figure we'll try and find the weeds (start shallow, then go deeper) for pike, and figure out where the walleye are too...don't know how recently they've spawned or what the water temps are like.

 

 

 

Norm

[Hookset]

Yep, the blackflies are out thick. Fished all this past weekend and the morning and early evenings they were bad. Only for about an hour though and then they let up a bit. When I couldn't handle them anymore I just fired the boat up

and flew around the bay once just to catch a breather from them. Plus the 2 stroke exhaust seemed to drive them away as well lol. On that 100 % deet..... I bought every bottle I could get my hands on. I think I have about 5 left.

Do not put the 100 % deet directly on your skin. Put it on your clothing only. I spray my clothes near exposed skin and then cover my hat in it. It works well but like Cast-Away said it will eat anything plastic. We were on a small lake close to the Moon river system. All the Walleye we caught were in 10 - 12 feet of water. 1/4 oz. Jigs with 2 1/2 " yellow grub style tails worked better for us than even live bait. But since the bait shop I stopped at was selling minnows at 7 bucks a dozen, maybe I'm a little swayed towards artificials. Time to start trapping my own minnows again I guess.

 

 

Hookset.

[Zamboni]

That strong deet is great on bill of a ball cap, socks etc....better than normal bug spray sprayed all over. As other mentioned its melts plastic, be especially careful overspray doesn't get on your line etc. My kid needed his reel respooled after touching his caps bill then the line.

 

I pm'd you links to charts, make sure you dl all 5 Georgian Bay, the key map in first file will help you put jig saw puzzle together.

[discophish]

We are a little north of Parry Sound, and we spent last weekend around the cottage eating black flies for breakfast, lunch and dinner. <shiver>. Fishing was very uncomfortable with the exceptions to fishing in the fast wind and night after 9:30pm or so. I'm still picking the little buggers outta my teeth. Gotta take a break from them next weekend and put the boat in a more southern lake. The mosquito's were not all that bad, it's the damn black flies. Don't let the pesky fellas discourage you from visiting though. Some predictions say that they will lag a little between their cycles, so we can hope for minimal air strikes.

 

Good luck with the fishing!

[LipDip]

All I know is the the last three days up there the walleye, crappie and pike bites were a lot more frequent than the bugs. If the fish are biting , do bugs really matter? I'll be missing the easy fishin' in May come July and August, bugs = part of the deal. Surface temps inland are 60 even everywhere we went, pushing that in spots on the bay, but still plenty of high 50's. There was a good hatch of mosquitos over the wknd also. Fish are biting well, this wknd is going to be really good. Sneaking up tomorrow afternoon to jig for a few hours. Bugs are like snorers..............listening to the complainers far outweights the original issues in both cases.

[raysfish2005]

Bugs?.....What Bugs?

 

Fished Sat and Sun on the sound and only saw 4 bugs flying in the other direction...........The fish bite was good and the sun was a bonus...........Do your self a favour and forget the soap starting thursday, then go dig up some horse poop befor you go fishing, Yep not a bug around!! even kept the wife a mile away

 

Just let me know if you need anymore tips

[FishyFishy]

OK, just one more set of questions here before heading out this afternoon, if someone can oblige.

 

Do the walleye push into Blackstone Harbour, or will we mostly find pike there? Just wondering if our best best will be to head down to the Woods Bay/Moon River area so that we have a chance of getting both species. We're camping in Blackstone, but it doesn't look too far.

 

Thanks for all the tips so far. Man this day at work is going to be long...

[LipDip]

Snuck up last night and jigged from 5:15pm until 9:30. Blackflies were out and biting, so were the mosquitos. Surface temp is up exactly ten degrees, to seventy from sixty a week ago. Cleaned 16 crappies, only one cigar walleye. Everything was in 18 to 28 feet, on the bottom, couple crappies in the 12" range, mostly 9's and 10's.