Soft Water Shut Down 2014

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Fishoholic
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Soft Water Shut Down 2014

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Hello Fish-Hawk. It’s been a while since my last fishing report (hard to post with no internet at home haha) and with the ice fishing season now upon us I thought I would cram my soft water season into one report.
The soft water season for me started off with some shore fishing for steelies. It’s becoming a tradition for the last 2 years to head down the 401 to chase chrome once the ice is no longer safe. Marko, Chevy, his bro and I all crammed into the civic for the long early morning (or is it late night at 3 am) drive to the creek side. These trips are always good fun, especially when you hook up. It was smiles and laughs all around that day.


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Especially after Chevy hooked into this one

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Not long after that one I hooked into a big one as well but it was directly in front of me and SNAP goes the leader. F*@%..... A reminder to always check your drag.
Not long after that trip I was able to make it back with another buddy. As soon as we got there hook into one, damn a sucker. A couple minutes later and another skunk off the back

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This trip did not last long however. After fishing for about an hour my buddy got a call that there was a death in his fiancées family so the trip was cut short and back to Ottawa we went.


Next up was the long awaited opening weekend in Quebec. My buddy and I wait for this weekend all year. It’s a chance to get back out in the bush and not worry about the city life one bit. They’ve got quite the base camp up there that is just perfect for bouncing around from lake to lake exploring. This year we woke up to pouring rain on the opener. We decided to head out anyway and man what a miserable four wheeler ride that was. The rain started to die off by the time we got to the lake but the fishing didn’t seem to pick up at all. We trolled around the lake hitting a few spots that we had success in the past and nothing until we went over a shallow rocky point. At first I thought I was snagged but after a second I knew that feeling..........fish on........and what a fish! Turns out to be my new PB brookie , on the 1st day, which more than made up for the slow fishing!

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I was on cloud 9 after that fish and I seemed to put a lot less pressure on myself the rest of the weekend after that one. The reminder of the weekend the fishing did not pick up to much either. We got into a few more fish but nothing too special. The one thing that did stand out for me was this: First let me give you a bit of a background. There are 100s of lakes up here and every trip it is such a task just to decide where we are going to fish next. Every night we spend a couple hours scouring over maps and asking each other, “so where do you want to fish?”
“ I don’t care wherever you want” or
“I want to fish here” or
“I want to fish for” etc. Etc.
So we always agree, “ok tomorrows game plan we hit up lake A then lake B and the if we have time head over to C.”
Then we wake up and go somewhere completely different, never fails.
So this one particular evening I wanted to catch a laker and he wanted a brookie so he reluctantly agreed to go to this one lake I always tease him about going to. Sure enough fishing is slow as it has been everywhere else all weekend. Then I decide to throw on a jig and cast to the trees like I was bass fishing and boom a few casts later fish on.

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Not 5 minutes later my buddy drags a crank by the same shore line and boom he got his wish too!

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We were both laughing about how the evening turned out the rest of the way back to the camp.

Another brookie from the trip.

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The following weekend was my annually spring brookie trip with my dad and his buddies way up 5 hours into Quebec (gotta love May). This was our 2nd time going (had to miss last year) but we will be going for the rest of our lives. The fishing there is just insane. I have probably caught more brookies up there in the 2 weekends I have been then I have my entire life anywhere else. They also have stellar walleye fishing up there if the river run is timed right (depending on ice out from year to year etc). Once again I did not take as many pictures this year as I would have liked to but when you are up there something about it just makes you want to soak it all in and makes you forget about that stuff. This weekend was just as bad as the opener weather wise, wet and cold. The rivers were way too high to fish since the ice was only out a few days before we got there but we still managed to catch almost 100 that weekend. Here is one haul after being out an hour or so while waiting for lunch.

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Next up was toying around on the Ottawa river. I made it out with Marko a few times. One time we met up with Dano and he was fishing with Jimmy. I fished Shirley’s a bit since it is so close to home and fished a few new spots further up river. I was also introduced to fishing for Gar. Man it is so cool when you come across a school of these prehistoric monsters. I learned a lot this year and will back in full force next year. Here are some of the exploits:

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I forgot to mention on Sunday night coming out of the Quebec backwoods at around 11:30pm I got a flat tire on the logging road. So here I am exhausted from fishing from sun up to sun down with no food and now I am stuck on a logging road in the middle of nowhere in the pitch black, by myself (should have just stayed at the camp but I had to work in the am) All I wanted was to get to burger king and eat since my head was throbbing from being in the sun all day and not eating. Luckily I was able to find a board flat enough to put the jack stand on or the jack would have just sunk right into the dirt. Put the full size spare on and away I went and man was that Tim Hortons drive through AMAZING! Here is my niece and nephew helping me remove spare and putting back on the patched up tire. Thanks kids!

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Next trip was back to the Quebec backwoods. This time Splake were on the menu. What a weekend. We caught around 30 splake this weekend and the smaller ones were all around at least a pound so not only where the numbers good but they weren’t little stockers either. I boated 3 nice ones that all surpassed my previous PB splake. My buddy was jokingly getting mad because he was using same lures in the same boat but for some reason I got all the big ones, funny how that works sometimes.

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Hunter wanted to get in on the action too:

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This brings us to just before Canada Day. The wifey and I decided that we were going to have a little RR and go camping. I knew the perfect spot where we could enjoy the beach but where I could also play with my new toy, the downrigger for my tinny. Perfect! After a few learning curves I was able to figure out what the hell I was doing and went out for an hour with the dog and it paid off nicely! Nothing like a mid day laker on a hot summer day, and whatta pig!

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No wonder the belly is so fat. Pulled out an 11” laker and 13” cisco or something from it’s stomach. We’re talking muskie sized baits here!

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Now we are right into summer and Chevy asked if I wanted to hit up the Ottawa with him. Meet at his place and launch at Buckhams. We started off casting for ski’s but after about half an hour the topic changed to you ever fish “here”? He said nope and I say how fast does your boat go? Fast enough to get to where we need to go. A short trip later we are nailing walleye and bass in 3 feet of water on cranks. Fishing and weather was so hot I had to cut my jeans off into shorts with my knife.

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Then the sky started to look mean and we had to start the ride back. We make it 5 minutes and KA-BOOM thunder and lightning is right above us, in a tin boat, on a big body of water. Executive decision to dodge the ferry and cables and haul butt to shore on the Quyon side. Well there was no where to seek shelter so we end up hiding in the kids pirate ship at the park. This works for a bit but its built like a deck so the heavy rain starts to get us. By then I am freezing cuz my scrony butt cut my jeans into shorts and now I am soaked. So we started to try and make it to the store when the rain let up for a second and then just started to open up again. Long story short, we hid under a tree, made a dash for some bathroom, then monitored my weather radar and stuck it out. That thing is pretty darn accurate and I say to Chevy, “according to radar should be 10 more mins” and sure enough we were on our way. What a chilly boat ride back even though it was middle of summer. Good times!

My next fishing outing was back to the woods for splake weekend round # 2. Well the fishing did not die down at all and we caught approx another 30 splake. This time though the tables turned and my buddy was able to boat 3 big ones while all I got was the average size. Once again same lures, same presentation, same boat, yet this time he got all the big ones. The world has righted itself!

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Here is the average size of the ones we were getting both weekends:

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Hunter didn’t want to be left out:

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Morning trouting:

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Now we are approaching September and I decided I am going to go on one more camping trip before August ends. No one was game to come so I took a couple days off of work and load up the truck with Hunter for a father dog mid week camping trip.

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We get to lake and to my surprise there is not a soul there (usually this lake is jam packed). I was able to have my pick of whatever site I wanted. It didn’t take long to chose this one and get camp set up.

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Then we were fishing.

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Hunter having fun, reaping the rewards of his hard work (eating fish), and making sure I don’t go to bed with out him.

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The fall was not as fish filled for me as usual due to lack of being able to get out but I did spend some days fooling around on the Ottawa and Rideau around town. Here my pops with a fat bellied cat:

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ImageAnd a Rideau slime ball with a nice gash:
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***WARNING*** A FEW HUNTING PHOTOS***

By this point in time it’s getting to be the end of October/start of November. One of my favorite times to fish for brookies. Well this fall proved to be a little tougher than normal mostly because of my stubbornness to fish one lake in particular. We got skunked there about 5 times this year but almost every time we could see pods of big brookies swimming around, they just wouldn’t bite on anything this year for some reason. Well “f” that lake, I gave up on it for this fall and my buddy and I decided to try one of our other go to lakes. He usually does not fish as much in the fall since he is also a hunter. Since we had to hike into the lake he wanted to see how Hunter (the dog) would react to the shot gun and see if he could stir up some grouse during our hike. So first thing we did was fire the gun to see how Hunter would react. It’s either him running for the hills or he’s got the hunting itch. Well as soon as the gun was fired Hunter’s head popped up from the bush, looked in the direction of the gun shot and instinctively started running that way with his nose to the ground! Perfect!!! He’s got the hunting blood in him! Well Hunter was able to flush out a couple birds and we got a bunch of specs. Nothing like a good meal of fins and feathers!

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DUDE! There’s my Car!

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Well that about sums up my soft water season. Hopefully I’ll have my first ice post up soon too. Have been able to make it out for brookies twice so far. Once with Marko and once with Chevy with fish hitting the ice both times! Can’t wait for all the ice reports to start flooding the pages.

Stay safe out there everyone and a Merry Fish filled Christmas and Happy New year to all of Fish-Hawk and your families!
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smitty55
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Re: Soft Water Shut Down 2014

Post by smitty55 »

Hey, great post. Lots of real nice trout there. WTG

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Chevy Champagne
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Re: Soft Water Shut Down 2014

Post by Chevy Champagne »

awesome report buddy!
had a blast the couple of days we were able to share a boat or bank this season!
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Re: Soft Water Shut Down 2014

Post by Tip-up »

Sweeet post! Great lowdown of your time in the backwoods. Was a great soft water season for ya!!
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Olivier Livernoche
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Re: Soft Water Shut Down 2014

Post by Olivier Livernoche »

Great season! Congrats
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flewdogg
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Re: Soft Water Shut Down 2014

Post by flewdogg »

Great report, thanks for sharing! May I ask how old Hunter is? Always curious how old is too old to try and train a dog to hunt. Habituating them to the sound of gunfire is usually the problem with older dogs. My lab was around 6 when he heard a shotgun for the first time. He took off with his tail in his legs. Too old to train him to be a duck dog.
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lape0019
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Re: Soft Water Shut Down 2014

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Great report with a tonne of fish to be proud of!
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zippyfx
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Re: Soft Water Shut Down 2014

Post by zippyfx »

Wow, an awesome year!
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EagleEyesFlash
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Re: Soft Water Shut Down 2014

Post by EagleEyesFlash »

Thoroughly enjoyed the read.
You caught a ton of char for an Ottawa lad.
Good stuff. :)
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Jimmy_1
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Re: Soft Water Shut Down 2014

Post by Jimmy_1 »

Awesome man!

It was very nice meeting you!

Hopefully you, Dano, Marko and myself can get out again soon!
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fishin mission
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Re: Soft Water Shut Down 2014

Post by fishin mission »

not hopefully .......it will happen Jimmy..... we can meet up at lake x for lakers i am planning on a few stay overs at night too
just wish we had a permanent shack up but if my buddy still has his shack up there this winter i will ask him if i can rent it for a couple of overnighters ,,,,,,, 16 days till opener but might have to be patient and go after that to make sure we have lots of ice.
I can already hear them lakers calling our names lol :shock: :shock:
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Re: Soft Water Shut Down 2014

Post by Fishoholic »

Thanks Guys, I had as blast this year, as I have every year since starting to fish regularly.
May I ask how old Hunter is?
Yep no problem. He will be 2 years old on boxing day so he was over a year and half old when we brought him out for the first time. He is not a pure lab though they say he is approx 75% lab and 25% hound. Looks like I will have to take up hunting next year since Hunter seems to like hunting even more than he likes fishing.
had a blast the couple of days we were able to share a boat or bank this season!
Always good times fishing with ya man! Here's to many more!
Hopefully you, Dano, Marko and myself can get out again soon!
It was pleasure meeting you too, especially when nice fish are being caught all around! If you'll be fishing with Dano this winter I am sure we'll meet again!
See you on the ice.
See ya out there Choke, hopefully sooner than later if the weather will take a look at the calander and stay below 0.
You caught a ton of char for an Ottawa lad
A lot of work and driving being in Ottawa and all but there's just something about where you find them that speaks to me. Even when we aren't catching them I just love EVERY minute of being out in the bush.
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CyrusG
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Re: Soft Water Shut Down 2014

Post by CyrusG »

What a wicked report bud!! :D
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Re: Soft Water Shut Down 2014

Post by RJ »

Very nice Brad! Hope to spend some time on the ice with you again this winter!

RJ
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