Fishing Fails

[mcdougy]

How many different lakes have you fished? Of those, how many left you with the feeling.. " I'm not planning on coming back here, I was disappointed"

[aplumma]

I would guess I have fished in the hundreds here and up North. I will say that if in a few trips I haven't caught fish then I decide

not to fish them again. It is usually not that the place is bad but that I didn't figure out the way to find fish. I remember one special place that kicked my butt hard but when I took my bass fishing guru he analysed the lake and put us on fish within an hour. While humbling it shows me that we all can learn from our fishing partners and friends in fishing.

 

 

Art

[misfish]

How many different lakes have you fished? Of those, how many left you with the feeling.. " I'm not planning on coming back here, I was disappointed"

 

 

Not many here. All new lakes i have fished is trial and error. I know there are fish there,but it,s a hit and miss. You cant hit the fish everyday.

 

Thats why it,s fishing,not catching.

[Old Ironmaker]

Good question. When I get skunked after pounding the water hard all day and sometimes night, rather than not wanting to come back I want to hit it again until we do have a good outing. I know they are under the boat, sometimes heck we can see them, that's the most frustrating part. When they don't want to eat we don't either sometimes if we are pan fishing. But I'm as stubborn as a mule, I'll get you tomorrow. Never quit. Even a day of not catching isn't really disappointing. I just think back when we had to change coolers and tuyeres on say Christmas day or eve, or docking an ore boat at 4 AM when it's -15 and the wind blowing off the bay feels like razor blades. Not catching a fish beats the hell out of that any day. It's not about the fish, it's about the fishing.

[bigugli]

Every lake is a challenge. Even after a dozen visits. Different conditions, atmospherics, seasons, all come to play.

[Steelheadphycho]

Great topic! I'm sure I've fished hundreds of lakes and streams in my life. None of them really stand out as ones I'd rather not go back to. But, my two favorite lakes on this planet are also the two lakes I've caught the least fish. The first is Nimisila reservoir, just 10 minutes away from me here in ohio. It's one of the most peaceful lakes this side of the border. Trolling motor only. Lots of structure. Walleye, pike, large and smallmouth bass etc etc etc...... I've only caught ONE walleye in it in the last 10 years. Don't matter, ill still go back and try again, and again, and again........

And my favorite up there is memesagamessing just south of nipissing in the parry sound district. Another incredibly peaceful lake, my brothers and I have been going there since 1998. We would camp on grandpas island and have the best time. I started taking my son up when he was 5 and even after he got into his teens he still loves going. We would spend all day on the lake. We would target walleye or lake trout mostly and I would almost guaranteed catch nothing. My brothers would do fine, it's just I who would get skunked. I'd do fine targeting the pike or the smallmouth, but fail on the fish I desire. None the less, I can't get enough of the place. Always thinking about it.

Edited February 15, 2014 by Steelheadphycho

[Canuck2fan]

Most epic fishing fail for me was ice fishing on Calendar Bay... I was invited to go but it took 7 years for it to finally work out, that there was a space and I could get the time off. So we get there the night before stay in a cabin that was nicer than any home I have ever lived in.... Since it was New Years Eve and we were watching the fire works over the lake in our short sleeved shirts I should have known it wasn't going to go well...

 

8 Am we get taken out by the outfitter and it took about 30 minutes to get to the huts. The poor guy driving the sled was getting drowned because of the water on top of the ice and then it started raining... He drops us off said he was going to check on us in a hour... We start fishing and after about 15 minutes I realize he had left us with about 20 minnows for the 3 of us. (Remember this is my first time and I am with guys who have fished there for 7yrs and they didn't check the minnows either) So we get a cell signal and call the outfitter to tell him to bring more minnows. Ummm nope he just left to take out another angler it took him 45 minutes to get back so we are looking at least an hour before we can get more minnows. By now we have caught 4 walleye 2 in the slot and 3 perch and one gianormous small mouth bass...

 

The outfitter comes over after depositing the other angler in a hut and we hope he has minnows because now we have 6 left and the fish are getting more active. NOPE but he will be back with some as soon as he can, he says he is sorry but due to having his head in the beer pail until about an hour before he picked us up he wasn't thinking to clearly.

 

10 minutes later we are out of minnows. We start using fake worms and any other reasonable looking bait we have with us. NOT a sniff, about an hour and ten minutes later the outfitter is back.... YEAH except for the fact that his owner says it is no longer safe we have to get off the ice as a huge pressure crack has opened up. Well that was true we overlapped two sheets of plywood and make it across.

 

So we get back I check the weather and tell the guys screw it we are leaving. They all liquored up by now and say OK since there will be no fishing for the 2 more days we were planning to stay. So we go into the office and tell the camp manager we want to settle up and leave.... She says no need for that she feels bad we can stay and she will won't charge us the 280 bucks for that night.

 

So the boys want to finish their booze and have a fish dinner then watch the Juniors play hockey.... The next morning we go to settle up well the camp manager is so sorry but the owner INSISTS we pay for the second night because he could have rented the cabin.

 

So after waiting 7 yrs for my dream ice fishing trip it went like this Cost 400.00. Time on the water less than 4hrs. Fish caught 1 walleye in the slot 2 out and 3 perch. Getting screwed without having sex PRICELESS.

[Old Ironmaker]

Canuck2fsn, that is truly an epic fail. As far as charging you for the second night because she could have rented the cabin out, too exactly who? The weather is her problem, who rents from an ice fishing outfitter when you can't fish because you need sunblock. That sucks large.

 

That's why there is an entire page of lawyers in the phone book in a county of 42,000 people where I am. Small claims court if you really wanted the money back. She knew she had you.

 

I don't know what it is about Calendar but I've never had any luck there. Flat tires, boat won't start in the middle of the lake no one in sight and cell phones were a future invention, blown tranny once, blew my knee out throwing the ball around. I've never been back. When I paid around $2000.00 for a cottage and a boat rental 18 years ago at Cozy Cove that's when I decided to buy our own place, right then and there. Best 2 grand I ever spent. The fishing was hot though that week. PB Walleye on Nippissing and a mess of smallmouth every other cast one afternoon. My wife's first Musky, no leader and my nieces had a blast driving me nuts on the drive up. I know all the words to This Is The Song That Never Ends!!! So not all bad.

 

Weeks vacation $2500.00, Tylenol $7.99 memories of that week with the future wife and brothers kids, priceless.

Edited February 15, 2014 by Old Ironmaker

[Canuck2fan]

We have never went back so in the long run that 280.00 bucks is going to cost her boss thousands. The minimum group that used to go was 9 people some years 15, for 4 nights. If the fishing was good four of the guys would do a 3 night stay later in the month... It was the first year of new management owning the camp, they were probably struggling so he took the mentality of grabbing the quick cash over the long view.

 

Now we all just do day trips to Long Point or Simcoe. So I hope he invested that cash wisely because he won't see anymore of ours LOL.

[Old Ironmaker]

Of they would have camped your second night you guys still might be going there. Good help is hard to find. Penny wise pound foolish.

[Canuck2fan]

Usually but in this case it was the OWNER that insisted his manager charge us, after she had said she wouldn't. She had the records from the previous owner showing how many times my buddies credit card had been used for reservations, 12 times in seven years as he was one of the guys who always went twice when the fishing was good. She kept saying she was sorry for the mix up.... I was too LOL

[OhioFisherman]

Over a hundred? Ohio, PA, New York, Ontario, Va. Didn't think much of Chautauqua in New York the first couple of times there but they kept putting it on the tournament schedule and I learned.

 

Still don't think much of Berlin Lake in Ohio, I could go to lake much closer and catch small bass all day. I don't recall ever seeing anyone weigh in a bass there over 3 1/2 pounds in any of the tournaments I was in, other lakes you could almost count on a bigger one than that.

[solopaddler]

I would guess I have fished in the hundreds here and up North. I will say that if in a few trips I haven't caught fish then I decide

not to fish them again. It is usually not that the place is bad but that I didn't figure out the way to find fish. I remember one special place that kicked my butt hard but when I took my bass fishing guru he analysed the lake and put us on fish within an hour. While humbling it shows me that we all can learn from our fishing partners and friends in fishing.

 

 

Art

 

Hey Art, what type of lake was that and exactly how did your friend find and catch the fish?

 

Sounds interesting.

[Musky or Specks]

Well I get the urge for strange like a man married seven years at a singles bar. For me it's all about getting to new places. If I only have a day or two I stick with the tried and true but any other trip I'm going someplace new. That's put me on hundreds of lakes I've never fished before. Most of the time I manage to catch a fish or two. I hardly ever go back to a lake or river I've fished before because there are so many to chose from in this great country.That said my most epic fail was a 7 day trip down the Kowkash river near Aroland, Ontario. We arrived after two solid days of torrential downpours and high water from a late spring.

 

We had a great first day and the first rapid below our put in lake was insane. Fish on every cast.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lowpZrHSxe8

 

The rest of the trip the river mudded out with visibility of less than 6 inches. The river was right up into the forest on the banks and finding campsites was darn near impossible. We still had a great time though lots of wildlife like moose and bear. Would I do the river again? No there is other rivers in the area I haven't done yet that I'm more interested in.

[Gnote]

I have fished quite a few lakes and only one has ever left me frustrated and its the one i live on. However my issue with simcoe is not usually the fishing, but the combination of ridiculous boat traffic and sometimes overzealous enforcement. Before last year i only had a 12 ft aluminum boat so i was restricted to cooks bay on nice weather days. One day i was out for a grand total of less than 2 hours and in that time i was nearly swamped a couple times by the same wakeboard boat flying past within 15 ft of my boat while trolling, i was stopped by THREE different police boats with the last one blowing by me with a 3 ft wake and than turning around to inspect my boat and licences, and i never really had a chance to catch a fish. I asked the last cop boat if they had radios so they know who had been checked that day because it was getting a little frustrating and he said thats not my problem just doing my job. Fair enough, i told him i was tired of this bull and i called it a day. I have a lot of respect for enforcement but sometimes enough is enough. Now i have a 20 ft bowrider and can do what i want so i can stay away from the weekend idiots on the lake.whew thats a long one!

[aplumma]

Mike I have a friend who lives bass fishing. He has gone so far as to buy a house on Lake Anna that is a cooling compound for an electrical plant. To fish in January in 75 degree F water is a little spooky. The fish come up and warm your hands and are smoking. So anyway the knowledge and talent he has helps him catch fish.

 

The lake was actually a reservoir that had very little cover and was electric motor only. It was in Feb just after ice out and the weather was sunny and blue skies. I had been fishing the week before in the same conditions in the ledges and the rock pile looking for the wind side and warm water. I started us off on that section again with different lures and colors with poor results. I realize that I was falling into my pattern that didn't work so I asked him to drive. He started cruising along not stopping at 2 or 3 places I would have and I asked him what we were looking for. We stopped in 4-6 ft of water with a mud bottom. The rigs were cut off and rerigged with weightless senco wacky rigged. A cast out and let it settle to the bottom wait 1 minute then snap and fall was the ticket. The mud/clay bottom was absorbing the heat of the day and the bass were there to warm not suspended in a winter pattern. It was acting like a spawn pattern before we even had a prespawn pattern. He has also been kind enough to help me learn deep water vertical jigging which is something I rarely did before. This is why I have always tried to take someone who wants to go fishing with me.

 

 

 

Art

[solopaddler]

Mike I have a friend who lives bass fishing. He has gone so far as to buy a house on Lake Anna that is a cooling compound for an electrical plant. To fish in January in 75 degree F water is a little spooky. The fish come up and warm your hands and are smoking. So anyway the knowledge and talent he has helps him catch fish.

 

The lake was actually a reservoir that had very little cover and was electric motor only. It was in Feb just after ice out and the weather was sunny and blue skies. I had been fishing the week before in the same conditions in the ledges and the rock pile looking for the wind side and warm water. I started us off on that section again with different lures and colors with poor results. I realize that I was falling into my pattern that didn't work so I asked him to drive. He started cruising along not stopping at 2 or 3 places I would have and I asked him what we were looking for. We stopped in 4-6 ft of water with a mud bottom. The rigs were cut off and rerigged with weightless senco wacky rigged. A cast out and let it settle to the bottom wait 1 minute then snap and fall was the ticket. The mud/clay bottom was absorbing the heat of the day and the bass were there to warm not suspended in a winter pattern. It was acting like a spawn pattern before we even had a prespawn pattern. He has also been kind enough to help me learn deep water vertical jigging which is something I rarely did before. This is why I have always tried to take someone who wants to go fishing with me.

 

 

 

Art

 

 

Pretty cool Art, don't know if I'd have the patience to fish like that.

[aplumma]

What this man will do to catch Bass is amazing. We were fishing the Potomac with white bandit crank baits for bass no tournament involved mind you and he hooked into a large Blue catfish. He cussed for 10 minutes fighting this 35 lb est. fish in and couldn't release it fast enough to get back to the bass. He came up north to Lake Nipissing for pike and such and with in 1 hour he had dialed in the bass. He stopped using white spinner baits because the pike kept interrupting his bass fishing. He does have a beautiful set up to fish from The top end Stratos boat with every advantage you can put on it. I just find it a pleasure to fish with not only a great guy but one who has such knowledge and patients for the sport.

 

 

Art

[lew]

He stopped using white spinner baits because the pike kept interrupting his bass fishing.

 

Those pesky pike are always getting in the way LOL

[misfish]

 

Those pesky pike are always getting in the way LOL

 

And they like leaderless baits too.

[aplumma]

The funny part is I cuss because I don't catch a fish and he cusses when he catches any other fish but a bass. lol

 

 

Art

[lew]

 

And they like leaderless baits too.

 

Hope we can repeat that day again sometime bud

[mcdougy]

Well it's kinda nice to see this thread not fill up. There's a big difference in frustration and disappointment in my boat. Frustration is present a lot of the trips I go on. The nice part is it never outweighs the FUN. Tagging into some of the other threads, the biggest frustration bordering disappointment is when I DON'T COME HOME STINKING LIKE FISH. But as misfish and others have stated , even when not successful at boating any fish, I search for the other types of success. Wether it be the birds the scenery the conversations whatever. They are always there. Fishing has many other things to offer besides catching. So I guess I will apologize for the loaded question IMO that wasn't intended. Bashing props and ruining equipment sure does suck but it IS the price you must pay when seeking the many different types of JOYS in this wonderful activity we call FISHING.

 

Cheers MM