2007 Fishing Reports in Quebec and Ontario






Custom Tied Rigs Meet the crew Fishing Blog 2008 Fishing Reports 2007 Fishing Reports Lakes and reservoirs Rivers and streams Ice fishing Kids fishing Catch vs live release Videos Gear Q&A Species menu: » Bass » Carp » Catfish » Northern Pike » Panfish » Perch » Trout » Walleye » Other species » Links \| Feedback		2007 Fishing Reports The following fishing reports have been compiled from most of my outings, I hope to add many more this year. Scroll down the page to view all reports. December 2007 No fishing to report in December, we got enough cold to freeze most areas slightly, just enough to make them un-fishable until they freeze enough to go ice fishing. During this transition time, I'm just researching some new ice fishing spots I intend to try this winter, as well as dreaming about / planning next season. November 26 2007 After last week's surprise walleyes, we headed back to the Pointe des Cascades pier / jetty for intending to target walleye. The bait shop (CR Sport) only had small minnows, we took a couple dozen, ended up arriving a bit before 3 PM. We set up our lines with 2 minnows each and waited until 4:00 PM to catch the first one. Over the next 35 - 40 minutes, we caught another 5 walleye between 8 - 14 inches. Naturally, I had them for lunch the following day, after spending about an hour completely de-boning and skinning them. Although I've caught walleye sporadically over the years , this was the first time I had any real success targeting and catching walleye. I hope to return again before the river freezes. Pics to follow. November 19 2007 Not much fishing lately, we finally decided to take an afternoon to do some local fishing. Tried a couple spots that were still too shallow to produce in the cold water, we ended up at the Pointe Des Cascades pier / jetty for the late afternoon / evening bite. People all around us were catching lots of small walleye on double rigs with medium sized minnows, unfortunately we had only tiny minnows, I ended up catching an 12" walleye on a jig and worm. I previously had no idea that spot can be so productive late in the season, I will try to make it back again before it all freezes up. October 2007 summary October slowed down a bit as expected, the carp have moved off for the winter. Looks like small bass and perch are stalking up for the winter, these would have made great fishing days for the kids, but unfortunately (or fortunately) for them, I can't take them out of school whenever I go out. The obvious highlight of the month was the guided musky trip we did with Musky Mike, although the muskies didn't fight as hard as I expected as the water was cold and they weren't monster sized ones. October 31 2007 18 degree weather helped us decide to take a local half day trip, we ended up at the Pointe des Cascades pier / jetty. All that was biting throughout the afternoon were perch, we caught about 50 or so, the largest about 9 inches. With November around the corner it seems like "back to work" season is in the air, no more going out twice a week until next season. October 30 2007 With the water temperature nearing 50 degrees Fahrenheit, and our plans to target musky next season, we decided to try a charter to see how it's properly done. We went out to the Outaouais / Ottawa River with "Musky Mike", a local guide based in the Montreal area. This trip was definitely one to remember. The 20 foot boat with 135 HP motor and fancy electronics are impressive, but nothing compared to the lure collection he uses to catch these elusive monsters. We trolled 3 rods most of the day, using 9" - 14" lures, ended up catching our first 2 muskies. We now have a rough idea on what we need to get started, this will give us all winter to buy and plan the strategies. For 7 months of musky dreams, the guiding fee was well worth it. Pics should be in the gallery soon. October 25 2007 Last trip of 2007 with our boat, as it's being stored for winter this week, westarted fishing Lake St Francis without any success, although we managed a couple following pike. We decided to give the Raisin River a final try too. We weren't expecting much with the water a bit over 50 degrees, but we turned out to be wrong. We started off catching a 2.5 Largemouth bass, then in one of the small feeder creeks we caught between 50-60 smaller largemouth bass in a couple hours. I guess that's fishing, great way to end off our first boat fishing season in the Lancaster area. October 17 2007 We headed back to Lancaster to fish lake St Francis with our boat, as we had not taken the boat out in a month. We arrived a bit after 9:00 AM, the fog was so thick we didn't want to risk the big waters. We started out fishing the Raisin River unsuccessfully until the fog cleared, then headed out across the seaway, as the Southern Side was a lot calmer. We tried a wide variety of lures, live bait, casting, and trolling, all we managed all day was a 6 LB Northern Pike on a blue and silver spoon, which seems to be the best producer in this area so far. We stopped at the Ile Perrot pier on the way home, where I caught a nice 10 inch perch on a live worm. October 11 2007 13 degrees and lots of rain, perfect carping weather for this time of the year. I headed out with a friend who originally put me on to my carping spot, I hadn't fished with him for a couple years. We arrived at noon, as it was a last minute trip, and only had a few hours to fish. I fished my usual spot without any luck for about 3 hours. I then switched to an area the carp use to head back into bigger waters, and they started hitting within minutes. I hooked 3 carp within 15 minutes, but it was already time to start packing the gear to leave. We kept a couple for some friends of his, I shoulf have some pics in the gallery shortly. October 2 2007 I tried the pier at Ile Perrot with Ari and Avi, just some small perch around, it was also crowded with about 10-12 other people fishing there. After about 1 hour, we headed to the Pointe des Cascades pier / jetty, again managing only some small panfish and about a dozen log perch.. We decided to hit the Soulanges canal to end the day, again all we managed were some sunfish and rock bass. The kids had a great time fishing over the past two days, as mom was in Toronto. October 1 2007 Kids were off school, we took the family for a half day carping trip to the St Lawrence River. I brought along Ari, Avi, Levi as well as my dad (NoNo), my 3 year old nephew and his dad. I chummed the area with my home made spod, carp were slow most of the day, around 2 PM I hooked 3 carp one after the other, the largest, a 13 pounder. My Power pro carp rigs held up as usual. For once, the gobies were useful, with 4 children and a beginner (my brother in law), they kept them busy for hours, they caught at least 50 over a few hours. September 2007 Summary September started slowly, but started to improved as the weather and water temperature cooled off. Fall had a great start, I hope October will follow through with some big ones. September 25 2007 We headed out to the St Lawrence river for some more carping, hoping those annoying gobies would be less aggressive than the carp due to the cooling water. We brought some live bait just in case. The morning started off pretty well, I landed a 34 inch / 23 lb carp. Minutes later, I cast a small minnow with my pike rig under a poping cork. Within minutes, it went down deep, I set the hook into what I figured would be a bass or catfish, turned out to be a bowfin. I was pleasantly surprised by the fight this fish can deliver, making hard, fast runs and powerful headshakes. I finally landed it, measured 26 inches and weighed 6.5 lbs. I decided to keep it, as I always like to try eating something I catch at least once. Big mistake! Once I opened and filleted the bowfin, I found out that the fish's flesh has a very mushy texture which is quite repulsive to me. I didn't bother deboning it, it's going straight into the garbage, which is sad, because the fish could have lived. I won't make that mistake again… I managed another 20 lb carp later in the afternoon, and although the gobies ate of some of the corn, they are less aggressive as the water has cooled down considerably. Fall is definitely starting off with a bang. Pics will be in the picture gallery shortly. September 24 2007 Fall is here, we decided to try fishing the Pointe des Cascades pier / jetty. We equipped with minnows and worms, fishing from the end of the pier. We only had a few hours to fish, during which time nothing was biting. Towards 2:30, my bobber finally went down as I was drifting it near the shoreline drop off, I caught a small but chunky pike. A couple minutes later, Jimmy hooked another pike, this one a bit longer and skinnier. Unfortunately, it was time to leave as we were already behind schedule, kind of disappointing that the fish decided to start feeding just as we are leaving, although 2 pike is a nice way to bring in the fall season. September 18 2007 Last trip of the summer, we headed back to Lake St Francis with a variety of minnows, figured we would try the seaway again. Unfortunately, we didn't catch anything after a couple hours of drifting, so we headed shallow despite the waves. We anchored behind an Island to keep the boat more stable, caught a bunch of perch on small spinners. We also went back up the Raisin River for the first time in a while, looks like the weeds are finally starting to die down a bit. We caught many small largemouth bass, then headed back to the marina, where we caught some more small bass. September 17 2007 We decided to go shore fishing few hours near the island, we went to the Outaouais / Ottawa River, knowing that the water is about 3-4 feet deep. Using shortened versions of my pike rig, we managed to catch a decent sized smallmouth bass and a tiny grass pike. September 10 2007 Another days without wind made for extremely calm surface on Lake St Francis. We decided to fish the St Lawrence seaway for walleye. I couldn't find any shiner minnows, so I had to settle for larger 5-7 inch suckers, and we also brought along some extra large worms. We started drift fishing in about 30 feet close to the northern edge of the channel where to big drop of occurs, using a worm harness bottom rig on 1 rod, and a standard worm rig on the other. As nothing hit for a while I switched to a live minnow on a bottom rig. First cast hooked into what I assumed might be a decent pike or large walleye, it turned out to be a 3.5 lb smallmouth bass. Nice surprise, it's the first time I've caught bass in about 35 feet at the bottom. As she had my hook lodged pretty deep in her throat, she ended up being a keeper, and made a nice set of boneless bass steaks. We drift fished another few hours in the seaway, nothing else hit or worms, lures or minnows. As the weather warmed up considerably, I went for a swim closer to shore, where I caught a smaller largemouth bass in about 2 feet of water on a ½ worm, as well as a small perch. That was all she wrote, I hope to get out again next week. September 6 2007 We decided to head out for some shore fishing due to another extremely hot and humid day in the forecast, we were kind of fed up seeing huge fish that weren't biting in clear water. As we arrived at my carping spot, we spot a nice sized bowfin cruising the shoreline. Unfortunately, the rods weren't set up yet, he was gone within 15-20 seconds. I had imagined that the spot had bowfins from what I've read, It was the first time I had ever seen one. We set up the carp rods, cracked the beers and waited for some action. Most of the action we got all day was these annoying gobies eating off the corn before the carp had a chance to see it. Boilies didn't work at all, we managed a couple mid size carp before noon. We eventually got sick of re-baiting the corn every couple minutes, we headed back for town. We stopped at the marina on the way to try the docks again, I ended up with a 1.5 lb largemouth bass after a couple casts. The rest were the usual panfish. Next carping attempt will be with jumbo corn, I'm hoping the gobies won't be able to get them off the hook, as the carp are everywhere now. September 3 2007 Back to Lake St Francis again, we decided to throw some lures of the docks at the marina as we need to get gas before heading out. Almost immediately, a couple nice sized Pike were after the lures, but they didn't seem to be interested in taking them down, they simply rushed them and then hit at then before returning under the docks, When Jimmy finally managed to hook one, it cut his line as he wasn't using a leader. That was enough to spook them, we picked up some gas and headed back to the spot where the huge smallmouth bass was cruising the previous week. We spotted another nice one, about 4 lbs or so, again it wasn't interested in what we had to offer, including live worms. Unfortunately, just as we were deciding on what to throw next, the wind picked up out of nowhere and we lost sight of it as it was cruising. We cast for a while, again only managing to attract perch with our lures. We didn't stay out for long, as I needed to do some work on the boat, we tried casting for the pikes at the marina but they weren't showing up either. August 2007 summary August started off pretty well, with some nice catches of various species. The end of the month slowed down considerably, I'm hoping some cold fronts will switch the fish back into feeding mode in September. August 30 2007 Another day without wind prompted us to return to Lake St Francis with big plans. First we intended to spot and attempt to hook the smallie we missed a couple days before. That didn't happen as it wasn't around. We finally made it out to the seaway with the deep diving crankbaits and trolled for a while without much success. When we finally switched to vertical jigging, I caught some more perch. OK, my plans failed again, I'm getting used to the perch situation though… August 28 2007 It was back to Lake St Francis again, as the wind forecast was extremely low, I planed to troll the St Lawrence seaway using some deep diving crankbaits. We got out broght and early, then I realized I left my crankbaits at home by error. Feeling kind of stupid, we stayed shallow, drifting and casting all types of lures without any success. Then out of nowhere, we spot a huge smallie, easily 5 lbs +. We threw all kinds of lures at it for a while, it didn't seem to interested in anything we had to offer, and eventually left. We headed up the raisin river, not much luck there. We picked up some live worms and returned to see if the smallie came back, but it was gone. Not a very exciting day, a few perch was all we ended up catching. August 23 2007 We headed out for some carping as it's been a while since I've gone after carp, and rain was in the forecast. We arrived about 10:30 AM, the weather was overcast drizzling on and off and extremely humid. The good news was carp were jumping everywhere. We tried various set ups with boilies throughout the day, but none worked. All that worked was corn niblets, when they weren't getting eaten off by those annoying gobies that have invaded my spot and are increasing in numbers every time I go there. I can actually see them cruising on the bottom, darting between rocks. I ended up hooking 10 carp, keeping eight for some acquaintances of mine that actually enjoy them I tried one, but the flesh is extremely fatty almost like Jelly and tastes very fishy. Anyway, I'm glad to see they've returned to my spot on the St Lawrence River, I'm hoping they'll stick around for another 4- 6 weeks. August 21 2007 I went to Lake St Francis with Pikeman Avi, waves were to big to attempt trolling the shipping channel which had been my original plan. After catching some perch and bass in the Raisin River, I decided to troll it with a weedless jitterbug. Just as I'm explaining Avi how a bass hits a topwater, we see what appeared to be a small fish after it. Next thing I know, I see a huge mouth surface and take it down, I thought it was a big bass, turned out to be a 4.5 lb pike caught by the outer skin of it's teeth/jaw. I was lucky that I left the motor in "drive" while bringing it in as I had no leader, the boat kept just enough pressure while I was netting it. Avi caught some more panfish off our dock at the marina while I packed the car to head home at the end of the day. Hope to head out for some good carping over the next few days. August 20 2007 I took Ari and a friend of his to a new spot on the East end of the Island of Montreal that I had mapped on Google, figured there should be some decent sized carp and pike there. The structure was perfect, but when I got there I quickly realized the current was too strong for any type of still fishing. The kids ended up catching some rock bass and unfortunately some round gobies, which seem to have made it here from Ontario. August 7 2007 We headed out to Lancaster for a half day trip on the River. We got out on the water before 8:00 AM, we decided to fish the big water despite the heavy chop / whitecaps. We drift while casting a variety of lures, the only producer turn out to be a red and white Williams Wabbler spoon, which landed a 4 lb pike. After a while, we went up the Raisin River, first cast landed a 3 foot long gar on a blue and silver spoon. These fish fight harder than I imagined, it actually jumped out of the water a couple times before we netted it. The hook popped out immediately, we were lucky to have the proper gloves on board to hold down it's beak while we got it out of the net. When I set it down for a moment, it hit my leg with its beak, made a few holes the size of needles point in my leg. Good thing I had some Arak (strong alcohol) on the boat, it works as a disinfectant as well as great drink. After catching some small bass and tons of perch, we headed back out to check the shipping channel which marked thousand of fish on the sonar. We didn't manage to hook any, although we mist a few strikes on jigs. We later headed to the shore for some carping, all I caught was a nice 5 lb freshwater drum. I kept it for lunch, not much meat left once I de-boned it, but it tastes very similar to walleye. Anyway, this one was one to remember, I'm not sure what the odds of catching a gar and drum in the same day are around here, but I'm guessing it might be easier to win the lottery. Pics will be in the picture gallery shortly. July 2007 summary Looks like fishing slowed down overall since June as expected, due to the heat waves and almost no rain. I'm guessing that the carp and pike will start again in August once we get a few nice storms. Now that we're equipped with a decent boat, we have a lot more water to cover, the results should be interesting… July 29th to August 2nd We headed back to Giles lake for some more largemouth bass fishing, I took the 3 boys along with my dad on another friend. We got there Sunday afternoon, started shore fishing in front of the cabin after unloading the cars. First few cast landed 3 bass between 2.5 - 3 lbs. As the weather had been extremely hot and still getting hotter, the larger bas shut down for the rest of the trip, none over 2 lbs. We also caught a small 3 lb pike and a 2 lb smallmouth bass, which is quite rare for that lake. Lots of huge perch over 12 inches and tons of very large sunfish kept the kids busy for 5 days. I hope to headed back to that region next season. July 25 2007 The new boat has been launched, we started fishing Lake St Francis today. We decided to try the Raisin River first thing, as the surface was still and mirror like. I started by throwing a Texas rig with a live worm, first 2 cast landed 2 largemouth bass, the bigger one just over 2 lbs. Ari and Jimmy lost a couple pike, then things died down. We headed out the "big water" on Lake St Francis, started fishing between the 2 islands in front of Lancaster, where the water doesn't go deeper then 10-12 feet. You can see the bottom quite clearly due to the water clarity. As Jimmy was untangling Ari from his line, a huge smallmouth bass picked up Jimmy's crankbait, jumped out of the water and threw it before he had a chance to set the hook. It was definitely the biggest one I've seen, easily 7 lbs. Needless to day, he wasn't thrilled with Ari… We headed back to the Raisin after a ew hours of nothing exciting, Jimmy caught 1 more small pike. July 15 2007 I decided to go ahead and buy the boat, it's a 14 footer with a double fiberglass hull. It also has a live well, anchor winch, a couple lights, a built in bilge pump, and some storage space. The motor is a 25 HP mariner, about 20 years old. As I don't have a trailer yet, it looks like many of my upcoming trips will be to Lake St. Francis, I would appreciate any tips on "good spots", it might take me a bit of time to get to know the water, as it's quite large and has a great variety of structure at different depths. As the boat is not launched yet, I tried a few casts into the raisin River from the shore, caught a small bass and a few perch. July 12 2007 We returned to the St Lawrence in Ontario after trying out the boat I want to buy, figured a couple hours of carping couldn't hurt. Turns out that the carp seemed to have moved off the spot where they are usually more abundant, we hooked a couple, one of them actually took a minnow that I had, as the carping was so slow I had set up the rod for pike with a big minnow on a 2/0 hook and steel leader. I guess weirder things have happened, although I thought I had a trophy pike on until I saw the carp, which turned out to be in the 12 lb range. I also caught a few bullheads, it seems they might be the culprits that keep eating off the corn I use for carp bait, which probably doesn't help the poor carping situation either. I somehow managed to catch a huge "chub" or some kind of sucker, close to 2 lbs. I'm not 100% sure what it was, I'll post it in the picture gallery sometime in the near future. July 10 2007 As I am contemplating buying a small boat, I decided to try the Raisin River after the successful day we had there in June. There are 2 marinas that offer boat docking and storage there, and as it is right on Lake St Francis (St Lawrence River) and less than 1 hour drive from Montreal, it seems like a good choice. We rented a fourteen foot boat and headed up the River at about 8:30 AM, as the rental place only opens at 8:00 AM. The River edges is almost unfishable now due to thick weed cover, but the cloud cover allowed us to fish the edges of thick weed beds. When the weeds weren't fouling our lines, small bass and pike up to 5 lbs were hitting for the first couple hours or so. Once the sun came out and the weather heated up, the fish went to far into the weeds for us to be able to target them. Plenty of perch are in the middle were the weeds are less dense, at one point I was pulling out 4 or 5 per minute, nut they were quite small maybe 5-6 inches at most. We tried drifting in Lake St Francis, as the wind and waves were to strong for us to attempt anchoring with such a flimsy boat, I caught a small perch on a "Little Joe" style worm harness. As the boat rental closes at 5:00 PM, we headed west to try a couple more hours of carping before heading home. For some reason, they weren't even jumping as they normally do, and this was a spur of the moment decision, I wasn't equipped with enough corn to spod with, I simply picked up a small can at a local grocer on or way. We ended up with a couple small carp under 10 lbs in about 2 hours. I might go back to see a boat at the Raisin River in a couple days, possibly attempt a few more hours of fishing. July 5 2007 We headed carping again, we took a new friend along who we met the week earlier on our Giles lake trip. We wanted to try our carp spot after hearing of the great success we usually have there. We got out there around 11:00 AM. My spod snapped off on the first cast, but fortunately for us (unfortunately for the environment), many people leave there empty water bottles and styrofoam worm containers on the shore, so I made a new one on the spot. I "spodded" the entire area we fish quite well, It took about 1- 1.5 hours for the carp to get in and start feeding well. I landed the first carp, I weighing in at 18 Lbs, most of them after that kept getting smaller, by the end of the day we were catching "tiny" 7-8 lb carps. For the first time this season, the fish snapped some of our rigs, quite strange as mine are 30 lb Fireline, Jimmy's were 14 Lb. Our new friend Howard didn't mange any carp on his specialize equipment he received from a British friend of his, my guess is that his 4 OZ sinker was way too heavy, and tied too close to his "hair rig". July 4 2007 I decided to try a new spot with Ari, we headed for the Soulanges Canal, which runs parallel to the St Lawrence River for about 15 kilometers. Although it is no longer in commercial use since the St Lawrence Seaway opened, the fish still use it on a regular basis. I heard of Largemouth bass up to 7 lbs being caught there, so we decided to just drive around until we found a spot to fish. We found a spot with some picnic tables right on the canal, as a bike trail runs along one side of it, we tried live minnows, lures and worms. Plenty of panfish hit almost immediately, on a variety of bait and rigs, we didn't catch any big ones. We did spot one 10 lb carp cruising through the weeds, as the water is extremely clear there. Unfortunately, the weeds cover there is so thick now, it makes fishing with lures nearly impossible. If I do return there, I'll have to go weedless. As it started raining a couple hours after arriving, we headed west into Ontario for some more carping. We were only had about 3 hours, we managed to catch 5 carp in the 10 - 12 lb range during that time. June 2007 summary: Another great month of fishing as expected, looks like I beat my June record for number of days fished again, thanks in part to the Giles lake trip for the bass season opener. The carp co-operated better than expected throughout t the entire month, we also got lucky to have great weather for largemouth bass on the opener, as we had a heat wave for most of our trip. Don't forget to check the picture gallery for updated pics from June 2007. We hope to head out often in July, and keep providing our viewers with updated pics, videos and reports. June 24 - June 29 2007 Well, we finally made it out to Giles lake for a 5 day trip with the entire crew. We were waiting for a long time for this one, the trip ended up being a great success. Most days were in the 30 degrees range, pretty much a heat wave for that area, the water remained around 75 Farenheit which triggered the bigger largemouth bass in the lake to feed aggressively. As I was on Daddy duty for the entire trip, I didn't get to fish from our boat nearly as much as I would have like to, but I quickly discovered that the shore fishing was just as good if not better right in front of our cabin, where the lake has thick branch and log cover. The bass started hitting from the first cast, which landed a nice largemouth bass, just under 4 lbs. The fish went straight into the sunken trees as soon as I gave it some drag, I had to go in the lake to get it out of the branches by hand. That's when I realized that I needed to "horse" larger fish caught on the shore, as they all tried to head for the same submerged branches when hooked. Over 4 days, 6 adults and 4 kids managed to catch hundreds of bass with 5 over 4 lbs, another 6-8 over 3 lbs, and about 25 over 2 lbs, in addition to hundreds of sunfish and a few perch and a couple smaller Northern Pikes. I got some great fillet practice, as I must have filleted over 50 bass, I got to try my new serrated saltwater fillet knife, it cuts through thick bass ribs like butter. The younger kids really enjoyed the wildlife on our shoreline, including non venomous snakes, lots of turtles, and other interesting birds and insects, and got some great hook setting practice. Before we knew it, the week had passed, time to head back to reality. Luckily, we have another trip planned to Giles lake in the end of July, we look forward to some more rod bending, drag peeling action. Pictures from the trip should be in the picture gallery shortly. June 20 2007 As mentioned in the last report, I planned to do some carping this week, unfortunately I could only go for a few hours due to last minutes scheduling changes. The wind was gusting over 20 KM per hour too, which was not what the weather network had predicted, but they are wrong more often than not. I took Largemouth Ari along for the day, we hit the River about 10"30 AM. The carping started off slowly as expected, I did quite a bit of "spodding" with corn to chum the water for a carp frenzy. They started hitting about an hour later, and the kept hitting with increasing frequency up until about 2:30 PM when I had to leave. We ended up landing seven carp, Ari landed the largest of the day at 20 lbs. We lost a few that spit the hook quickly, so much for my idea of trying larger #1 worm hooks, I'm reverting my carp rigs back to #2 bait holder hooks, the fish don't throw them as often. The entire "crew" is heading for Giles lake next week, we hope to have some great new reports, pics and videos when we return. June 18 2007 Kids were off school today, I took them for a half day trip to the Outaouais / Ottawa River. The weather was hazy, around 26 degrees, the water extremely shallow. The weeds are starting to foul up live bait, and the bass have moved away from shore now that the season is open and they have stopped spawning. As the fish weren't biting much, we left after about 2 hours, and headed for the St Lawrence River at the spot it intersects with the Outaouais / Ottawa River, which is a short drive from where we were. The panfish were biting well all afternoon, the kids must have hooked about 30 perch, rock bass and sunfish. I manage to catch a small Northern Pike, 26 inches, weighing just under 4 lbs. Didn't bother trying for carp, as I hope to go carping in the next couple days at a better location. June 13 2007 Jimmy and I headed back to the St Lawrence River for some carping. Another great day on the River, weather was sunny, around 28-30 degrees, 10 KM / hour wind. Jimmey started for carp right away, I started off trying for Northen pike, nothing much biting on the minnows. The carp we great though, especially after I did some chumming with my home made spod. We hooked fifteen carp, landed nine. I beat my personal carp record, landing a 26 Lb female, Jimmy caught his first channel cat, which weighed in at 9.5 lbs, on corn intended for carp. He also caught his first walleye, measuring 12 inches, amazingly, it swallowed a hook baited with corn too. So much for trying to target species, looks like everything is eating corn these days… Pictures from the trip should be in the picture gallery shortly. June 10-11 2007 I took "Largemouth" Ari and "Pikeman" Avi up North for a couple days, as a reward they earned for school related efforts. They were waiting for this trip for months, as I told them there was a good chance of catching walleyes, based on my past experience on the Du Lievre River in the Laurentians. We arrived at about 1:00 PM and started shore fishing under a bridge that typically has large numbers of small bait fish, it seems we might have been a little early in the season, as we were catching many bass in the 1 LB range, as well as lots of "Jumbo" fallfish in the same weight range. We fished for about 5 hours, no walleye in sight… Next morning, we returned to our spot, more big fallfish and a small Northern Pike, still no walleye. The kids finally got bored there, we moved to another lake about 100 Kilometers closer to home that I fished as a kid. We got to on of the spots I knew where we fished of a small bridge over water 6-8 feet deep. The kids had a blast, as each cast landed another fish, mostly smallmouth bass up to 8-12 inches long. You could actually see them swarming around the worms the kids were dropping right in front of us, which made the fishing all the more exciting. We also caught various pan fish (perch, rock bass and sunfish), and I even caught a small 9 inch brook trout on a worm and jig. Pictures from the trip should be in the picture gallery shortly. June 4 2007 Light rain and 20 degrees, we decided to go carp fishing in the St Lawrence River in Ontario. The decision was a great one, as the fishing was great. We hooked our first one within less than 5 minutes, a small male. As the day progressed, the fish were biting in shifts, where an hour or so would go by without anything happening, then suddenly they would start hitting non stop. We ended up catching a dozen carp between 6 - 25 Lbs, most in the 10 - 15 Lb range, including a couple double headers. The rain seems to make them feed a lot more actively, looks like we'll be planning most carping for rainy days. Pictures from the trip should be in the picture gallery shortly. May 2007 summary: I beat my record for number of days fished in May, thanks in part to the trip to Florida. The fishing was pretty much what I expected, except that the spawning bass seem a bit smaller than usual so far. I hope June will have the "big ones" finally arriving (unless they already left?). The perch, bass, pike and carp mostly arrived on time as expected, although my Ontario spot in the St Lawrence has been highly infested with invading gobies since last year. We haven't managed to hook into any perch or sunfish because of them, they are extremely aggressive when it comes to stealing the other panfish's food and territory. I hope the MNR finds a way to get rid of them, although that is highly unlikely, as any poisons will kill the fishery for years to come. Maybe they should put a bounty on them, all though I imagine that wouldn't be too cost effective. Anyway, I look forward to more great fishing and beating more personal records in June 2007. May 31 2007 As mentioned in the May 30 report, we decided to go out again for another half day trip. Due to the high wind and rain advisory, we decided to fish for carp in the St Lawrence River in Ontario instead. Although the forecast called for a good chance of light rain, the sun started coming out as soon as we arrived. My previous day's assessment of the dam being closed was correct, as this spot is on the other side of the dam and the water was extremely high. As the day progressed, the weather really warmed up, we must have reached over 30 degrees with the humidex. The carp fishing started to heat up as expected, we must have seen over 100 carp jump, sometimes 2 and even 3 at a time. Jimmy landed the first carp of the day, a nice female in the 14 Lb range. What happened next was one for the books. I hook into what seemed to be a huge carp from the way it was fighting and running. Once I brought it in I was quite surprised to see that it was under 12 lbs. We didn't have the net with us, so I volunteered to grab it by the gills near shore. As I was about to grab it, the hook popped out, the carp just remained sitting there as it was quite exhausted. I had to get my feet in the water to grab it quickly even though I was wearing boots. As I grabbed it, it took off for a few feet then paused. I dived for it fully clothed, managing to grab it by the gills and tail at once, with only my head above water. Jimmy almost died of laughter, but at least I had my fish. I really wish I had the camcorder for this one, probably could have won on the "Funniest home videos" show. Jimmy ended up landing 2 more 20 Lb males, which I "gilled" now that I was in my boxers in the heat, the water was a lot warmer than I expected. I also caught my first rock bass of the season, and welcome change from those invading round gobies. May 30 2007 Light rain didn't deter us from more pre season smallmouth bass fishing in the Outaouais / Ottawa River. We got to our usual spot only to find the water at the lowest level I have ever seen it at this time of the year. Looks like they closed the dam on the St Lawrence which directly affects our sport on the Outaouais, as it's a couple kilometers away from the St Lawrence. We picked up some large minnows, first cast landed a 2 Lb smallie. Then it died down a bit after that until a couple hours later when the smaller ones started hitting our bait. Most were too small to get a proper hook set as we were using 1/0 and 2/0 hooks with 4 inch + minnows. We managed to bring in another couple in the 1.5 - 2 Lb range, but we had to leave early as we only had time for a half day trip. Of course that meant we would have to do another half day trip the following day… May 18 2007 More high winds in Quebec sent us back to Ontario for a half day trip. I left the kids home for this one. We hit our usual carp spot on the St Lawrence River, the water was extremely stained, as we still had cloud cover and the occasional drizzle. No carp hookups in 2 ½ hours, we caught some small bullheads eating our corn instead. As this got rather annoying after a while, we switched spots to the Long Sault park. The water was a bit clearer there, but no fish anywhere. I eventually hooked one small carp that threw the hook shortly after being hooked in the later afternoon, unfortunately is was already time to head back home. May 15 2007 Despite high wind warning, we headed back to the Outaouais / Ottawa River for some more live release smallmouth bass fishing, as the shore fishing doesn't stay this good for more then 4-5 weeks, usually just until the season actually opens around June 16th. We got there around 9:30 AM, along with "Largemouth" Ari and Levi "Conservationist". Jimmy's first cast landed a nice 2 LB smallmouth bass, again using the pike rig under bobber with a live minnow. The fishing then died down for a few hours, with the kids catching 4 perch on worms. As the wind picked up, we switched to artificial lures, which paid off as Jimmy caught another 2 pounder on a crankbait. The wind really started gusting around noon, we decided to head to the St Lawrence River in Ontario, where the wind prediction was a lot lower. We arrived to my usual carp fishing spot about an hour later, only to find close to a dozen carp fishermen already there, visiting from England. These guys have all the "fancy" and latest carp fishing equipment, they caught a few while we were there. We didn't get any hookups, so we left for another spot after a few hours. We ended up in the Long Sault park, we had total wind shelter on one side of the road, and crystal clear water. Unfortunately nothing was biting for the first hour or so, as we fished for perch, carp, pike and bass. Then out of nowhere, I got a nice hit on a Thunderstick top water lure. I set my hook, and the fish took off, Ari grabbed the camcorder, Jimmy woke up from his snooze, I had a nice Northern Pike on the line. I brought him in a couple minutes later, it measured 32 inches, weighted in at 7.5 Lbs. As I climbed the bank, to unhook it, Jimmy started casting the Thunderstick, and noticed it being followed by more pike. I quickly switched my carp rod for a leader and blue / silver hammered spoon. First cast hooked up to another Northern pike, measuring 33 inches and weighing in just over 9 lbs. Suddenly they were everywhere, we tried a few more casts, had some follows, but they were gone again as fast as they showed up, all in a matter of 5-10 minutes. We got some live video footage of the catches, you can check the video page to view them, as well as our updated picture gallery for more pics. May 10 2007 After catching the nice bass in the St. Lawrence River the previous day, we decided on a last minute/ spur of the moment ½ day trip to the Outaouais / Ottawa River as I figured the bass should be on their way in to spawn. We used 4 inch shiners with pike rigs under bobbers for this one. As I know my spot, we used the bobber to drift the bait over the intended "strike zone" with deadly results. Within 20 minutes I caught 2 bass in the 3.5 LB range. The days ended with 3 more bass in the 2 - 2.5 LB range, all on the same rig, using the same bait, over the same spot. All fish were live released as the season on the River is closed until mid June. Pictures from the trip should be in the picture gallery shortly. May 9 2007 Looks like summer's getting closer, we hit 26 degrees, 30 with the humidex. We headed back to the St Lawrence, as I needed to get back into freshwater mode after the Florida trip. I took pikeman Avi along for this one, we were targeting a mixed bag. Jimmy started off by hooking a carp that snapped defective fireline he bought on eBay, kind of frustrating. Avi and I then started hooking in some decent sized bullheads on minnows, in the 16" range. After catching 3 of them, I hooked into my first smallmouth bass of the season, turned out to weigh 4 ¼ Lbs. We released it as the season on the River doesn't open until Mid June. The day ended with Jimmy catching 2 carps, 8 and 17 Lbs. Pictures from the trip should be in the picture gallery shortly. April 30 - May 7th - Saltwater special - Miami Beach Florida My wife and I took a short vacation to Miami Beach, along with our youngest son Eli, 16 months old. We stayed in North Miami beach, the hotel we were at owns the 167th / Newport pier. The was extremely convenient, as I didn't need to pay any access fees and could come and go as I wanted, as the pier is in the hotel "yard". The only drawback is that most of the pier has been closed due to hurricane damage in October 2005, apparently they haven't been able to get the construction permit to repair it. The pier is located on the beach, only the first 150-200 feet are currently open, so fishing is in water 3-4 feet deep. Saltwater fishing is quite different from freshwater, the fish seem a lot pickier about what they eat. My guess is that they are "spoiled" due to the abundance of prey, which makes them a lot harder to catch. When you add the low / high tide factor, fishing gets more complicated. Of course they payoff is a lot better, as pound for pound they fight a lot harder, and you can find many fish that will eat a freshwater sized trophy for breakfast. Here is a quick run down of my fishing experience on that trip: Sunday April 29 After checking in at night, my wife went to sleep and I hit the pier at about 11:30 PM. A couple people were still out fishing, the pier manager assured me that fishing was terrible, and no inch has been catching anything decent for months. I decided to try a live 12 inch mullet hooked up to a 7' catfish rod with 80LB Fireline XDS, followed by a 45LB steel leader. I dropped the bait under the pier next to the lights and waited. I kept seeing huge Manta rays cruising around, finally one settled right over my bait. I let it sit for about 45 seconds or so, and set my 7/0 hook right into it. The ray measured about 4 ½ to 5 feet in diameter, my guess is that it weighed between 100 - 150 Lbs. Of course I stood no chance with my equipment, as once it realized I hooked it, it took off at high speed. I kept tightening the drag, reeling and running backwards on the pier, but I was no match for this monster, it just kept taking line, as If I hooked into a moving car. Finally, it took most of my 200 feet of line, I didn't want to lose the whole spool, so I thightened the drag to the max, and it snapped free within a few seconds. When I reeled in, I found it snapper the 45LB steel leader, leaving only the swivel still attached to my "Pike" rig. That was a great intro to saltwater fishing. April 30 2007 I tried a night time fishing trip on Kelley's fllet, they take you out with about 25-30 other fishermen for $30 per 4 hour trip, We left at sundown, after about 25 minutes, we anchored at 100 feet, over a rock pile. I spent the next 4 hours getting bitten off by tiny snappers, finally hooked one 10 incher. I sent it back down as bait, but lodt him in the rocks. The average catch was 12-14 inch snappers, I was pretty disgusted with the whole idea of taking a boat that size into the open sea to catch fish smaller than the bait back at the pier. May 1, 2007 Back to the pier, for evening / night time fishing, as daytime is reserved for beach activities with my family. I hook up with the locals fishing for snook. They start biting around 8"30 PM, over the next hour, the pier anglers hook about 12 snook, and lose them all, including one myself. These fish are hard to hook, was they inhale mullets and run with them extremely fast. They then managed to throw your hook or snap the line against the pier pilings. Mine fought for about 30 seconds, and threw the hook as soon as I tried to put pressure on it. May 2, 2007 I try daytime fishing with live shrimps on carp rigs, catch 5 sailors choice fish under the pier. These are also quite hard to hook, as they have small round teeth, crunch the shrimp and pull it of the hook within 1-2 seconds. I lose about 24 shrimp in 1 hour to these sunfish-like fish. May 3, 2007 I try evening fishing off the pier again, no bites on the mullet, a pick up a "sabiki" rig to catch pilchards off the pier to use for bait. The Sabiki has about 6 #12 hooks, with a tiny piece of fish skin and red string to tie it down. Jigging them in a school of pilchards will usually result in multiple hook ups. Nothing bit on the pilchards either, although I caught a small sting ray on a frozen shrimp. May 4, 2007 I head on on Kelley's morning tour to try for kingfish. The sea was unusually calm, and were were drift fishing over 130 feet with angkers on both sides of the boat due to the lack of waves. I hook a small triggerfish on the first cast, turns out to be all I caught on that trip. 1 person caught a 3 foot king fish, a couple others caught mutton snappers using bottom rigs instead of kingfish rigs. When I return, I head straight for the pier, and Managed to catch 2 more sailors choice and a pompano on live shrimp. May 5, 2007 Back to the pier for nighttime fishing, not a bite in 4 hours on live mullet. May 6, 2007 A couple nibbles and shrimp, no hook ups. Major storm moves in just after sundown, I head back and pack up the gear as we left the next morning. Overall, I learned a lot on that trip, and also saw many big game fish swimming around the pier, including 2 tarpons in the 150 LB range, about 12 snook over the few days, probably in the 10-15 LB range, and a coule big jacks in the 25-30 Lb range. I also spotter about 25-30 manta rays, between 50-200 Lbs, as well as a couple manatees one night that came to drink from the live well drain. The weather over the week was in the 85 - 90 farenheit range, sunny with not much wind. Pictures from the trip should be in the picture gallery shortly. April 23, 2007 Last day of the first warm front, looks like things are going to cool off a bit. Strong 30 KM winds didn't deter us from heading to the St Lawrence River for some spring time carping. We only had enough time for a half day trip, we decided to make it an afternoon one. I took "Largemouth" Ari along, with the intent of training him to shoot video footage of some decent sized carp. The day started quite slowly, all we caught on the carp bait was a small bullhead catfish. I got my first hookup a bit after 4:00 PM, Ari started shooting footage within the first 30 seconds or so. About 7 minutes later, I landed my first 20 LB carp of 2007. I was surprised to find out it was a male, as most fish in that weight range are usually females. ½ hour later Ari got his first hookup, I volunteered as "camera man" for that one. After a couple minutes, he landed his first carp of the season, another male weighing 12 lbs. That was all for the day. We managed to shoot a couple clips which are now on Youtube.com and can be viewed by clicking: Freshwater Phil: Pics to follow in the picture gallery. April 20, 2007 The first decent warm front has moved in to southern Quebec, which brings us to spawning Jumbo perch in the Outaouais River. I took "Pikeman" Avi along for this one, as at his age numbers beat size any day. We went out for half a day to my usual spot, set up the rod with 2 #8 worm hooks, got the rods into my custom built rod holder/foldable chair, and got started. The first cast landed a double hookup, the bottom perch a "jumbo" 10 inch perch filled with eggs, the top one a bit smaller. The next catch landed identical results, another double with a jumbo spawning perch on bottom. The days went on with mainly single hookups, although we hit one more double before leaving at about 2:00 PM to be rush hour. We ended up catching a total of 21 perch, 12 of them in the 10 inch range. All fish were live released as the perch season is still closed for another couple weeks. Pictures from the trip should be in the picture gallery shortly. April 18, 2007 We just got over the last snow of the season (I hope), the cold weather was blown out by a major wind storm Montreal over the past couple days. Although the wind slowed up a bit, it was still gusting at about 40 KM per hour. I took Levi (conservationist) along for this one, we started off at the Outaouais River again. The local bait shop was out of minnows, luckily they had worms. First cast landed a mid sized perch, unfortunately Levi started complaining about the high wind. I wanted to enjoy himself, so I packed up and headed for Ontario where the wind had died down the previous day. Once we got to our spot on the St Lawrence River, we found that water was still covered by thin ice / sluch in many areas. The water was a bit colder and the perch and panfish weren't biting yet. I figured I might get lucky carp fishing, as they typically start spawning in May. Sure enough, I caught a small 7.5 LB male after about 1 hour. It was a great feeling catching my first carp in 5 months, first time I've heard about "ice out" carp. I spent the rest of the afternoon carping, didn't catch any others though. The good news is that the big females will be following soon, I hope to put in some good carping hours over the next few months. March 30 2007 March ended a bit colder than usual. Although most of the Rivers were still frozen and some people were still ice fishing, I found a spot on the Outaouais / Ottawa River where the current has cleared most of the ice, so we went out to try the first shore fishing trip of the season. The local bait shop had a few small minnows left and no other bait, so I grabbed them and also pick up some fresh frozen sardines when I stopped for beer. I figured they would do well as they have an extremely strong smell when they defrost. We got out on the water, we could actually fish off the ice going about 50 feet out on one side of the current, and off the shore right where the feeder creek flows into the River. Fishing was rather disappointing, as we didn't get any bites after trying a variety of combination and presentations, however it still felt pretty good to be able to cast into the open water instead of fishing through a hole. March 12 2007 March started off with a major cold front, but then suddenly warmed up in a hurry. I took advantage and headed for Lake Champlain with "Pikeman" and "Largemouth". We couldn't have asked for better weather, the day started off at about 0, then warmed up about 7 or 8 degrees. Virtually no wind and plenty of sunshine made this one an "outdoors" trip. We didn't bother with the cabin, and had the car nearby just in case… The place we went to was out of worms, luckily they still had minnows ranging from 1-3 inches. Although smaller than I would typically use, I had no choice but to stock up on them, as that was all they had. At $1 per dozen, I can't complain too much. We set up 5 rods with bells and 10 tip ups, with a variety of rigs. The the shallower outer holes brought in most of the fish, the water was about 12' deep. We caught a dozen perch in the 6" to 8" range, and lost a few more trying to teach the kids how to get a good hookset when ice fishing. They had a great time, all I forgot was the sunscreen, we ended up with mild sunburn. Check out the pictures gallery for some pics from that trip. February 2007 February was quite cold as usual, unfortunately (or fortunately), I didn't have the time to fish too much. I did manage a half day trip to the St Lawrence River, weather was in the -15 range, more like -25 in the wind. I tried a variety of bait, including worms, minnows and even corn on some tip ups and ice fishing rods. We sat in the car with the heater on for this one instead of renting a cabin, we ended up "getting skunked", Not one bite in 4 hours. On the brighter side of things, we managed to keep the beer cold without a cooler… January 2007 - Barriere Lake, Quebec Ice fishing season finally got underway after an unseasonably warm December in 2006. Most of the crew came along for this one, as we were already suffering from withdrawal symptoms. We got out on the lake at about 9:30 AM, took about 20 minutes to get our holes drilled and our lines set up. The weather was in the -15 range when we arrived and eventually warmed up to about -10. This lake is stocked with brook and rainbow trout once a week, so catching tasty shore lunch is almost guaranteed. The morning started off quite slowly, with no hits for the first couple hours or so. They were stocking on that day, but unfortunately, due to the number of fishermen on the lake, they skipped our holes / cabin. Pity, it would have been very interesting for the children to watch about 150 trout being dropped next to our 15 lines. We caught our first couple brookies around noon. They were both in the 12" range, and caught about 15 minutes apart. I got to test my new fillet knife on them, kind of made a bit of a mess out of the first one, as my knife was too sharp, I cut right through it's backbone, which is hard to rectify on a small trout with extremely thin bones. We set up the BBQ out on the ice, shore lunch was under way. As they were cooking, Ari caught a 3rd trout, this one was a female filled with eggs. It was added to the ice / shore lunch. After a good meal and a few beers, I decided to make the rounds instead of the kids who had been making them all morning, cleaning the holes, and bouncing the tip ups. As I got to the last tip up, I noticed line moving in small circles. I set the hook and brough in a 13" chunky brook trout, weighing over 1 lb. As I was unhooking it, Avi pulled one out of another hole, where he was jigging with one of the tip ups. More fillet practice… The day ended with one more catch, although this one was a 12" chub native to the lake, I have never seen one that size come out of that lake yet. Check out the pictures gallery for some pics from that trip, additionally the fillet instructions page has video of the 13" incher getting filleted.