Nipissing Report

[Guest Johnny Bass]

Went up to North Bay for the long weekend. Dave at sunbeam bungalows(on Callander bay) was booked, so we stayed at the Best Western and Dave was nice enough to let us dock our boat at his place.

 

So we head up Saturday morning. A beautiful morning with no traffic. I'm driving and all of a sudden the RPM's start reving and the speed starts dropping. OH NO! I'm thinking the tranny just dropped, our trip is ruined, big bucks out of my pocket. I start to panic, my friend says, your car is in neutral. He must have knocked it while turning around to chat with the girls in the back. I put it in drive and she is back to normal. WHAT A RELIEF!!!

 

Got up their 4 hours later. Callander was just as nice as I remembered it.After checking in to the hotel, docking the boat, and eating our lunch(around 3-4pm), we were off to fish.

 

We worked a weed line near the shore and in minutes I hook my first pike on a jig and grub. Then I hooked another one. This one more decent(and the biggest of the weekend).

 

 

Then my friend gets bitten off by a pike, using a grub also. He then says he wants to target pickeral. He is a pickeral guy and likes to eat them. He comes up every year at the end of August so I figure he knows where they are.

 

We start drifting in deep water. From 18 to 24 FOW. He rigs up his pickeral rig with worm on the end. I'm throwing out my grub.

 

He starts nailing jumbo perch, and the odd sheep head. Then we move to another spot and his gf picks up the first pickeral of the day. We redrift the area. And he and his gf picked up another 6 pickeral.

 

With this one being the biggest of the day. 23 inches.

 

 

All fish were in the slot limit and had to be released,but I could have sworn I seen people keeping slot fish, though there was no sign of the MNR anywhere.

 

Now I'm fishing with a jig and grub and dont have confidence yet jigging in deep water. After no bites, I finally gave in and switched to the worm.

 

I started catching fish right after. We all caught Jumbo perch Sheephead and Pickeral, with only 2 pickeral keepers the first night. And many jumbos in the livewell.

 

Next day we fished for a few hours in the morning with no pickeral to show and then returned around 3pm. We worked the same areas as we did the night before and they were there.

 

Caught a few more keepers.Then the bite stopped.

 

I then explain that I dont like to fish like this and wait hours for a bite, I like to find fish on structure. I told him if we hit a weedline, I will smash one after another. It was about 7 and we decide to hit a weedline I had seen.

 

Sure enough, first cast? Pike. Second? Pike. 4th? Pike. I think I nailed 6-7 Pike a Jumbo perch, and a nice smallie, all in about 12-15 casts on a crank bait.

 

 

My friend and gf were totally amazed.lol I told him if we work the entire weedline, the fishing will be non stop. He wanted to target pickeral though, so I said fine.

 

I picked up another keeper outside the weedline, in deeper water. The mosquitos came out so we called it a night.

 

The last day we were out on the lake at noon. It was a nice day considering the last 2 were very windy,cold and it rained for a bit both days. Lucky we stayed in Callander bay. I would imagine the south side of Lake Nipissing would have been much rougher.The water temp was 68 Degrees for all 3 days.

 

We fished the same spots, with average luck. We then moved to a new spot and picked up our first keeper of the day. My buddy throws out the marker and its on. We landed many pickeral, with many keepers. Many jumbos and tons of sheep head wich were in the deeper water of the drift.

 

Here is the average size pickeral.

 

 

I even nailed 2 pike on a worm in 20 feet. Lake nippissing is one of the few places I have been to where you can easily catch pike on worms. There is just so many pike. We caught a few in the shallows, I caught one on a drop off. We caught a few drifting deep water.

 

By 4:00pm we had to leave.

 

Turned out to be a very succesful trip. Didn't target as much pike and smallies as I would have liked to but still, a great trip. I really didn't want to leave...As we were driving off, over looking Callander bay, it was hard to go, but I will definately be back!

 

As for damage report? Broke a rod tip, I dont know if BPS will replace. My buddy dropped my jaw spreaders in the water.And that was it.

 

The strangest part of the trip was that I had a full truck load(4 people) and I also filled up the boat with luggages and stuff... And got better gas mileage than I normally do(by 50k+). Go figure....

 

Sorry about the late report but my time has been limited. I'm still catching up on all the posts I have missed too!!!

Edited July 4, 2007 by Johnny Bass

[Guest Johnny Bass]

Fixed......

Edited July 4, 2007 by Johnny Bass

[Roy]

Thanks Johnny, a great report that I will read more carefully later but, in Photobucket, there are 4 choices for code.

 

The first one is:

http://s199.photobucket.com/albums/aa291/J...IPISSING001.jpg

 

The second is:

http://i199.photobucket.com/albums/aa291/J...IPISSING001.jpg

 

The third is:

<a href="http://photobucket.com" target="_blank"><img src="http://i199.photobucket.com/albums/aa291/Johnnybass7/NIPISSING001.jpg" border="0" alt="Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket"></a>

 

The fourth is:

 

 

So now you know which one to use.

 

I'll get to read you report in depth later....thanks.

 

ps. You didn't use the IMG tag...you used the URL tag.

[Guest Johnny Bass]

Thanks Roy.

[steve_paul]

Great report JB, looks like a good weekend.

 

It's always hard to leave up there.

 

Thanks for sharing.

[setomonkey]

Sounds like a fun weekend of fishing, congrats on the nice fish.

 

Mike

[Joey]

Great report Johnny Bass. Yep, lots of pike in Nippissing that's for sure. What kind of rod did you break? I know of a place they replace them, depending on the make.

 

Joey

[Joey]

Oh ya, nice turban by the way

Edited July 4, 2007 by Joey

[joonmoon]

Nice work up there. Isn't the Nip just grand! Gotta luv the Nip.

[Golfisher]

Great report; thanks for sharing!

[Guest Johnny Bass]

Great report Johnny Bass. Yep, lots of pike in Nippissing that's for sure. What kind of rod did you break? I know of a place they replace them, depending on the make.

 

Joey

 

Its a BPS special. I wonder if they will make me exchange for a fenwick!!

 

I forgot my toque in the car so I wore my balaclave(sp?) on my head. I think I would look good in a turbin.lol

[ccmtcanada]

Great report!! Lots of great fish and information in there. Glad to see the trip was successful with minimal damage/loss to your fishing gear. That was pretty funny about the transmission too...LOL.

[Smokey]

Great read Johnny and some nice fish. Thanks for the pics and report.

[dustink]

Thanks for the report & pics! Looks like a good weekend!

 

dk

[love2fishhave2work]

know the area you are fishing well. I have known it to produce very well but it sounds like your trip it was on fire. Congrats.

[fishindevil]

Great report & pics!!!!!! well thats some nice fish you caught ,and it looks like everyone had a wonderfull time,thanks for sharing...cheers

[mattyk]

nice report JB.

[Guest Johnny Bass]

know the area you are fishing well. I have known it to produce very well but it sounds like your trip it was on fire. Congrats.

 

Thanks guys.

 

Lovetofish, we were using a technique not many people use on Nipissing. Unfortunately my buddy told me not to say anything. Another thing that enticed the pickeral to bite was to thread the end of the worm only, on the hook(once or twice max) and let it squirm!!!