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I have started to fish a lot of little lakes in the Lanark / Calabogie region and found several of them have really nice crown-land camping spots, often with rock-outcropping and deep water.

I was thinking of taking my kids out camping this week.

Even though the water is clear and there are few weeds, I was worried about leeches on these small lakes (closer to ponds really).

Have any of you actually swam in the lakes? Had any trouble with leeches?

Obviously, I will avoid heavily weedy areas and areas with swampy standing water.

Thanks!

Go for it. I swim in trout lakes all the time. Like you said, as long as you stay away from weedy/swampy areas, you're good to go.

Good to go, a lot of those lakes are great for swimming. Worst case if they do get a leech on them pour some salt on it and flick it off. I haven't gotten any leeches for those areas in the past though. Have fun!

I fish and swim all over the area never had a problem

Thanks guys!

Great, trip is booked, heading out Wednesday Night with my Son and my Dad. Going to have three generations camping out under the stars.

That's awesome, hope you guys have a great trip!

We had a great time fishing and swimming... and after we were done, yeah, that's when I started seeing leeches (great big ones in fact, just swimming lazily along in the open water!).

But they pretty much left us alone, so thanks for the advice everyone, we are glad we took the plunge because it was a great day!

How was the fishing Steve? I noticed it's a drive to lake.
Trout readily eat leeches. You should try some for bait.

Cheers

smitty55 wrote:How was the fishing Steve? I noticed it's a drive to lake.
Trout readily eat leeches. You should try some for bait.

Cheers

Fishing was "OK". Several campers on the lake said they caught nothing (one group had been there 7 days!)... yet somehow I managed to land a couple small rainbows. Embarrassed to say that I missed 5!!!

I was thinking about using that leech for bait. It was bright orange on the bottom. But I was doing OK with minnows, so figured I would stay the course. Never fished leeches before and wasn't sure how well it would stay on the tiny hooks I was using.

Just wondering if there is a website that tells you where these crown land sites are? I fished north west of there in Deacon, and Tramore.

kevinv wrote:Just wondering if there is a website that tells you where these crown land sites are? I fished north west of there in Deacon, and Tramore.

Lots of previous posts on where you can go for information. My favourite two sites are the MNRs "fish online" which tells you what fish are in each lake (roughly) and will also show potential access points if you enable the launches button under map-options.

https://www.gisapplication.lrc.gov.on.c ... cale=en-US

The crown-land site is here, it does not cover ALL crown land (example parks or municipal land) but it does cover a heck of a lot:
https://www.ontario.ca/page/crown-land-use-policy-atlas

scarkner wrote:We had a great time fishing and swimming... and after we were done, yeah, that's when I started seeing leeches (great big ones in fact, just swimming lazily along in the open water!).

But they pretty much left us alone, so thanks for the advice everyone, we are glad we took the plunge because it was a great day!

Looks awesome. I haven't been camping on crown land in ages. This picture totally makes me want to go camping