Fish-Hawk.Net

Hi All,

While out prefish this past weekend for a bass tourney on the St.Lawrence I notice it was some what tough to fly down the river because of all the shoals and such. Now, while the channel is well marked for those big ocean lliners, the shoal are not marked outside of the channel. Anyone have any tips or such for naviagting the St.Lawrence river. The stretch of concern is by Morrisburg.

There seems to be lost of deep water by my concern is the shoals come up pretty quick.

Cheers,

Mike

Get yourself a GPS with maping softwear, you will be able to fly in the dark around all those schoals better then the guys who's been fishing there for 50 years.

All so look at
http://www.trakmaps.com/securestore/c166806.2.html

I have a couple of their maps and they are pretty good.
For the St. Lawrence
There is one from Kingston to Brockville
and one for Brockville to Lac St Francis

I've been out quite a bit a little further east of there and also below the cornwall dam... The depths can be scary indeed.. The channel is marked for the big ships but everyone else pretty much has to guess in anything under 40ft... It's not uncommon to be bombing along in 30ft of water and for it to suddenly go to 3ft !!

I've never looked at the trakmaps and a gps with mapping software is an option but they're not too cheap. There's always the go slow option too

I tried my GPS mapping for the first time this week-end on the St. Lawrence and it's definitely worth the money. The only problem now is that I have no excuses for the wife when I'm late. Can't say sorry honey got lost couldn't find the lauch.

Steve i'd have to guess you're using the navtronics maps... i've heard a lot about them... i forget who mentioned in ed's that they were on the rideau and couldn't believe the acuracy considering it's a reasonably smaller river.

He may be talking about the mapping software from Navionics.

http://www.navionics.com/HotMaps/Default.asp

I fish the Potomac River which can go from 70 ft to 2 ft without notice and I would be lost without this software. Basically it is a small chip which is inserted into a compatible GPS/Sonar system - mine is Lowrance. You have to buy pretty specific regions (it is pricey) but well worth the money in my opinion, especially if it can prevent you from losing the lower unit of your engine. Mine also shows various underwater structure such as barges and stumps/logs which I would have never know about it without this software. I would recommend checking it out at Bass Pro Shops or a local tackle store.

Hi,
I have a gps with the navionics chart also..its great

BUT

you still have to be way carefull


my advice is:

if you don't know exactly where yer goin then.....

keep yer eyes open and
yer throttle NOT.

df

Thanks for the replies guys. Guess the idea is to play it safe. Since it is not my boat we are fishing out of but I am the naviagtor I will just have to ensure we try and stick to the main channel where possible and keep those eyes open.

The thing I wonder is are these shoals good fishing spots? Easy access to deep water, rocks, baitfish. Make me wonder

Will be out tomorrow.

Thanks,

Mike

It's my boat so I think we will use the go slow and be careful strategy. I have been thinking of getting the Lowrance IFinder Plus with the Navionincs chip for the St. Lawrence. Sounds like it is worthe the money. As for tomorrow, Mike, we will be going slow outside of the channel!

Hey guys, if you're in the main part of the river the shoals are outside of the markers, they are not individually marked. However, if you're fishing by the dam or inside the parkway go slow or get yourself the chip. Some good fishing all around.

Boogie

Hey boogie you'll have to let me in on some pike spots below the dam.. for some reason i just can't master it down there... perhaps it's the strong currents i dunno... I've had better luck above the dam but still nothing outstanding.

Hey John, the neighbour caught one over 15 lbs. fishing off the dock last week. All you have to do is find the weedlines and wham, they're there just hang on to your rod. Also you can fish inside the numerous bays during the spring time. At times, no problem getting over 50 pikes a day.
If you're looking for some spots let me know and I'll show you on the map.

Boogie

This season the water levels on Lake St Lawrence (Iroquois to Long Sault) have been extremely low. By as much as 4-5 feet. It has recovered a little bit in the last week but you may find yourself in significantly less water ghan your chart indicates. The attached pictures were taken at the RBT Classic in Morrisburg a couple of weeks ago. The water should be st least to the bottom of the docks if not higher.