How to get the most out of Fish-Online?

[Acountdeleted]

Hi Guys,

 

As much as I love using Fish-Online to find new lakes and fishing destinations, I find myself still wanting more. I wonder if anyone on here has any tips to best improve fishing outings.

 

The reason why I ask is, over the past couple of months, Laughing_My_Bass_Off and I have checked out a number of different lakes and fishing spots. We find a lot of the 'renowned' or 'recommended' fishing lakes are very big and can often be a bit of trouble to find the hot spots or even remain safe in a small Kayak like ours.

 

We would love to find a nice small lake that larger boats can't get into. The problem is that we are finding that Fish Online is not always accurate with its fish species. Lake Trout in lakes that max out in 10 feet, Sturgeon in land locked tiny lakes. For tiny lakes how do you make sure there are species you actually want to target in them?

[ckewley]

I'm sure I'm not doing anything you haven't tried but just in case, I contact the ministry & get a hold of stocking lists. Then I e-mail the local office & hope to get someone knowledgeable (I'm 9 for 10 in that department so far which has been awesome) with access points, trail maps, depth charts...etc, most I've been in contact with are avid outdoors men & tell you what's what. They (local guy's) have no control over that site but will tell if the info is correct or not, providing they've fished it. I also contact the local government parks & rec department which also provides a wealth of information, again most of the folks are outdoors people. Of course I also PM members here & elsewhere.

[Sterling]

Not sure if you've done this, but register at anglersatlas.com, they have a lot of free maps of lakes with depth charts and everything. Might help you avoid the 10ft lake trout spots...

 

Otherwise, checking yourself is sometimes the only way to know what's in there.

 

My brother and I fished Dymond Lake for years and brought home monster walleye almost every outing. Strange because this is a small lake.

 

The MNR stopped us one day, and asked where we'd caught the fish. They accused us of lying when we told them the walleye had come out of Dymond.

 

"There's no walleye in Dymond", they said. "We've been stocking that lake with specks for years".

 

We eventually managed to convince them they were wrong.

 

Moral of the story, no source can be considered 100% correct unless you go there yourself and fish the lake.

[chris.brock]

There is some wrong info on there, but it's still a good tool.

 

Finding good lakes takes leg work and trial and error.

 

Typically, the more effort required to get to the lake, the better the fishing.

[big guy]

The fact that the MNR wouldn't know there is a particular species in a lake before wasting stocking money on it is mind boggling. However, perhaps it's not either. They don't recognize or divulge that there are brookies in most of the northern Haliburton lakes either, but many of us know better.

[Acountdeleted]

Thanks for the help guys.

 

I find summer fishing can be a little difficult. Over the winter all lakes are accessable (as long as you don't cross private property) and it's easy to bring a rod and a bait bucket.

 

Over summer it's all a matter of how far you want to portage a kayak plus gear. It's worth it, but the honey holes I have found are nearby. Sometimes I just wanna drive for a bit before I go fishing.