Best Day on the Water?

[wolfe]

Got to thinking that although my Dad has passed away, he might have mentioned one particular July morning on Wolfe Lk. which he fished with my city-slicker Mom. (This has to be 20 or more yrs. ago.) Between them, they caught somewhere close to 40 smallmouth bass. I don't think there were any lunkers among the group, but I do know the action was intense for a couple of hours and was concentrated in a relatively small area. I think this is very unusual for smallmouth, and I myself in many years of fishing the same lake, same spot, have never encountered #'s close to that. My Mom still talks about that exciting morning of fishing with Dad, and trust me, she is not overly fond of fishing!

W.

[Trophymuskie]

Some fish have scars or some kind of mark that you will remember them by. If you look at the picture of the 50 incher he had one big scar along it's side. So 4.5 years later but in the spot the other 3 came from 200 yrds away a client caught a fish with the same scar. You can also notice that this was a trophy male and even tho the first time it was caught in June and the second time was in October the fish grew 2 inches in lenght but lost a lot of girth as it was a very old fish.

[wolfe]

TM, that's cool. You can really see the scar patches and compare. I would agree they would indicate it's the same fish. Wonder what he was thinking when he saw you -- again!?

W.

[saskie]

Then of course, there was this day....

[Tony]

Well 4 out of 5 of my favourite days came last year with Ransome. There was a day on Muskrat when we landed over 40 pike a couple bass and a nice walleye on the last cast, almost entirely out of one spot. Then another day on Muskrat we were getting bass on almost every cast including a 22" smallie and a largemouth about the same size which was part of a double header with a solid 3-3.5lbs LM. Then there were the two 2 muskie days (all within 2" of 38") we had when we went up as a group with fellow Fish-Hawkers to Arnprior and the Rideau. And the last one that comes to mind was with my girlfriend on some Quebec Lake . We went around on a canoe and caught a rediculous number of smallies by just throwing power grubs anywhere. There seemed to be a fish on the end of every cast. Plus she missed a nice trout.

Of course hoping to have just as good a season as last year.

[dana]

maybe the bay of quinte a few years back..
blade baits

29walleye[all realeased]
6-9.5lbs
so windy we caught em in 2-3 ft of water...
jig ..jig..thunk!!!
it was nuts

lately

day one of canadian tire classic last year was not too bad either
weighed in early..quit a t 9am
we had 20.88 for 5 smb[thought we had almost 24]
had to stop because every cast we had a 4lb'der
wanted to save em for tomorrow
it did not happen we sucked[day two one of the worst days ever yukko]

df

[jmd1340]

It was ironic I read this post last night and was going to reply with a trip we took last year on the Susquehanna River when two of us boated somewhere in the area of 150 smallmouth in four hours with a guide using tubes(I lost count after 130) but I went out this morning and had an experience that put things in perspective. I went out to a local lake just to try out a new reel I had purchased and see if I had a rod to match it. I ended up catching a 4lb. largemouth,which was nice, but wasn't the best part of the trip. I ran into an old timer,Burt who is 70 yrs. old, and we wound up trading fishing stories for a couple of hours. At the end of the day I had a new fishing buddy(I can never get enough). He promised he would meet me at the lake and we would take his boat out. Sounds like the start of something good. Burt is almost twice my age, but I left the lake today thinking this is what it's all about.

[Scum Frog]

Best day ever...hmmm...that is a tuff one, but I dug way deep into my memory and came up with this one:

I must be about 8 -10 years old ( I'm 30 now ) at White Lake.... we used to have a trailer at Cedar Cove. That particular day, I went out with my Dad in our boat and our friends ( Another father & son duo) in thier boat and we did some fishing. Both boats fished togther in the same area as we moved about the Lake. We netted 5 pike with the smallest being 5 lbs, largest being 8 lbs and the rest inbetween. Our friends never even got a bite That memory is still with me as my best day, probably due to both the quality and quanitity of fine fish!

[Moosebunk]

The water on Maidman's Creek was a quite a wee bit frigid that sunny late May day. I'd never floated in my tube on this particular creek before. The murky waters were running high and fast. I'd fished thru smaller ripids in my float tube before, but not on a river this narrow and choppy, and definetly not somewhere that I had no option but to float thru these turbulent waters. I was kicking my feet pretty hard most of the way, because I was getting turned around now and then, but also because I was trying to cast into everything that looked the slightest bit promising. My toes were also getting a little numb, and I knew that at my halfway point I'd easily beable to get out of the water to heat up and have some lunch. After about 2 hours and without a single bite I finally reached my spot. A little creek flows into Maidmans thru a large drain under the road, where the two waters meet there's a quick little drop off. Before I got out of the tube I couldn't resist standing atop of the drop and making a few casts. Well, the casts kept coming for about 20 minutes. Just getting to stand up seemed to warm my feet, so I stood in the middle of the river, finished a tuna sandwich, cracked my only pint and parked it into my chest waders, and lit a smoke (I quit since then). It was just one of those amazing spring days. I wasn't even really paying attention to my casts, I just kept throwing a small silver spoon at the drop off. Then while reeling the lure just stopped dead. I gave a quick yank and it was on. When I brought her up she was awesome. The hugest brookie I've ever caught, and I did it in the place I had such suspicion and drive to test. My supervisor in the ER department at my hospital wasn't too impressed when I brought this big fish in and dropped it on the baby scale. She was 2.5 kilos to the milligram. Just an amazing day of adrenaline floating through the rapids, quick thinking at every turn, and then being rewarded with one of my greatest prizes.

I thought 5.4 lbs of brook trout was a great catch back then. The folks in these parts remind me when I tell the story, that it is only a "nice fish." Nonetheless, it was definetly one, if not the best days I've had on the water.

[trexellunge]

And the winner is.................Trophy Muskie. You're my hero. Incredible catch of 4 fish over 30lbs in a just few hours of fishing...unheard of.
What are your favorite spots?? !
I remember another great day I had many years ago (1981?) when I landed 52 largemouth bass in a day of fishing at a farmpond in NJ (yes, there still is a few farms left in the "Garden State"), with some fish hitting the 4 lb. mark. My buddy also caught 33 bass that memorable day, so we had 85 largemouth between us, all on rubber worms. As Wolfe mentioned, there are great days on the water where you hardly catch anything. I've had plenty of these over the last 25 years, but most recently being out on the West Arm\Bay of Lake Nipissing. I just love the endless waters offering natural beauty and tranquility. If the jet skiers ever get up that way, I'll have to buy a bazooka.

[Fishhawk]

I can't pick just one. A great outing for me is one that is tons and tons of fun for whatever reason...usually there is a memorable fish or two or 20, but always there will be something neat that happened that makes the day the special one.

Fishing with Mick on the Mississippi River was one such memorable day about 7 years ago. We got a flat tire on the trailer about 50 yards from the entrance to the launch. We changed it like an Indy pit crew and launched about 6 seconds later. But it was a new stretch of water for us upstream from Appleton. Mick caught a decent smallie on the first cast. We fished the area for the morning and I caught five smallies that were big and fat and popping with crawdads. Each one was a great fish. We pulled the boat out and fished the river below Appleton in the afternoon. I took Mick to a spot I call the stciks, predicting a galoot of a largemouth. Sure enough, I caught the galoot that me and Mick now refer fondly to as the "Ohhhhh Myyyyyyy GAwdddddd" bass. I think it was that day that made me think it would be a good idea to try tournaments (big dummy )

With Weeder, it was the final day of musky season and we hadn't had any luck at all for several weeks. At 8:00 a.m. I caught my first muskie over 40 inches...a 45-er to be precise, and fat. We christend the cradle we had made that morning. What a week! Cloud nine.

With Bobber, there was day on Little Gull Lake that was not necessarily the best day for numbers, but one big hawg I will never forget came out on a jerk shad. The funnest part was the adventure we had, four-wheeling my 14 foot Sea Nymph through a bog in search of the long lost lake that we saw on the map. We knew it had to be in there. It took us hours, pushing the boat through branches and blueberry bushes. We never got to the long lost lake. Hours to get back. A little later we learned that we were in the wrong part of the lake and were looking at the wrong part of the map. Big Dummies. But there was not one minute we didn't laugh. I knew then that me and Bobber was destined to be good fishin buddies.

And then there was speckle trout fishing with my brother...blah blah blah

I could go on and on...

[JimW]

My best day?..... Fishing with Markus on good Friday!!!! Just kidding!!!!

Three summers ago, my dad and I fished our first muskie charter on Lake Scugog. We caught 14 muskie in 8 hours of fishing, nothing huge all between 33" and 42", it was a great day of fishing and the first time I took my dad fishing, after him taking me fishing since I was 3. The next year we boated 4 muskie and last year we boated 8. This year how knows???? I can't wait!!!!

JimW

[Markus]

My best day?..... Fishing with Markus on good Friday!!!! Just kidding!!!!

JimW

Jammer and I are hitting lake Ontario on Sunday for salmon if you're up for round 2!

Think you could make it down?

[JimW]

Oh man, it's tempting. Where are you launching from? I'm 95% sure I'm in.

JimW

[Markus]

st catherines. let me know if you can make it. We can meet at the 403/QEW exchange.

Be great to have you along.