I'm a little late with this report as I just got my connection back.  I was fishing Limestone on Monday with a friend who was interested in my report some years back of 16 inch perch.  Actually I caught two at one time with double flies.  Thought I had a whale on.  A rather lazy whale, but a whale nonetheless.  I don't mind mentioning the name of this lake at this time of year.  I want the world to go fishing there now and catch and hopefully keep as many bass and panfish as you can.  Just stay away from my trout!  They are going to be out of sight and down at the bottom.  If you do catch a trout, it is only fit for the frying pan.  The surface water is at lethal temperatures for trout (80F).
 
Not much was happening so by noon we decided to start heading back to the launch.  With a brief interlude after we hit a stray dog (dog OK), we were approaching Pakenham just as the lightning started.  When we started up my road, a tree fell in front of us.  At our house it was raining too hard to get out of the car.  Lots of lightning overhead and the fiercest wind I have seen here.  My friend left an hour later but was back knocking on my door.  Can't get out.  In the .9km road there were eight trees down.  If we had been more dedicated fishers, we might have been driving that road dodging trees!  Or even worse if we had stayed in Calabogie.....those poor people at Norway Lake (another private lake with some great bass...I have a spot to get in :))
At Limestone I caught numerous small bass casting to shore.  But did get one LM at 17" and another at 15".  Both in about 15ft of water with sinking line and the bright green Mississippi Maiden, pretty well my go-to fly for bass.

I tried to find access to Dempsey Lake just south of Calabogie.  I have driven on most of the roads around the lake to no avail.  However, I went onto MNR's landuse map and found that one side of the lake is Crown Land. 
http://www.mnr.gov.on.ca/en/Business/LUEPS/2ColumnSubPage/STDU_137972.html

To access that part you have to drive on a "private" road.  I had not gone down the road befre because it had a no trespassing sign.  However, it is no different than any road servicing cottages.  There is no one owner but rather shared ownership.  I drove past the sign, plus an gate that had not been used in years and past a couple of other no trespassing signs.  After a kilometer down the road past the cabins and on Crown Land and not finding a launch, I decided to pack it in.  Even if I did find a suitable spot to get into the water, I felt pretty uncomfortable on this road.  It is totally unlike another private lake in the area where I fished last time.  There, I had pleasant conversations with two owners and no signs. What makes "private" lakes so nice to fish, besides having more fish and larger ones, is that usually you are the only one on the lake.  On this particular Thursday morning, I was only aware of one cabin being occupied out of about 15.  If you don't abuse your presence and be courteous, even helpful in any conversation you might have, I don't believe any of the owners will mind you being there.  Also make sure you treat the fish you catch well.  They do notice that.  Park your car out of the way and have a good day!

My first fish after 15 minutes was this 24 inch pike.  Good fight.  I had tiger leader on so I was able to save my fly.  A couple of hours later I got this 18" SM.   Both on the Mississippi Maiden on a #3 sink but you can see that the fly is getting beat up.   I had let the fly sink to the bottom while I fiddled around with something else.  When I picked up the rod, the SM was on.   I switched over to a black WB with a red hackle at the eye.  That fly caught several smaller SM.   I don't think the fly really matters as long as it is presented well and at proper depth. 

 I thought I had figured out one of the hot spots on this lake and conditions (25-30ft water at the drop-off).  Nothing.  This time casting into water lillies in 10ft of water on the opposite side of the lake was the trick.  So if one thing doesn't work, try something else.

I've often said that fishing in waters close to home is the best.  If it is less than 15 minutes from home, you can go often and with short notice to the rest of the family.  For me that is the Mississippi River at Blakeney.  Often the fisihing isn't as good as further afield but the idea that one can have supper and for no reason other than the constant inherant desire to fish as much as you possibly can, you annnounce, "I think I'll go fishing".  I had to paddle almost an hour before I got my first bite but it was a 16 inch SM.  I thought that with the warm weather that  they might be deeper and so I started off with my #3 sink and slowly went along with twitches.  Also some casts to shore.  But that was not to be successful.  I don't think with bass that your fly is all that important.  Being at the right depth is most important and presentation is second.  I eventually saw some action on the surface and they weren't small fish.  I quickly switched over to dry and put on a foam popper which I had just made the evening before and voila, I had the only fish of the evening.  It was time to head back.  I was satisfied!  Next time I will run past the unproductive water and go to where I have caught before.  In evening fishing you don't have time to waste.

I am trying to find the equivalent of my private Quebec lake closer to home.  There are a few lakes in the Calabogie Highlands that possibly qualify.  It should have road access only through private land with no public launch.  It also should have good plant growth and other biological qualities good for fish.   Hoever,  I'm coming to the conclusion that harvest and poor fish handling in C&R are the key reasons why we don't have more lakes like that one in Quebec.  Another thing I have observed in my 20 years of fishing bass is that they go through cycles.  It may be that even really good lakes will go through phases where at some years there will be plenty of large bass in relation to small ones and visa versa.  

After driving past this lake all these years, I decided to have a closer look.  I drove up every road, down some questionable goat tracks, one of which I had to back out spinning in 4WD.   Finally, I found what appeared to be the launch for those cabins that don't have that capability.  Since there were no signs saying that my SUV would be towed, I launched my tube.   Paul Quarrington in his last fishing book said that if you are fisherman, you will do everything in your power to get to good water, including climbing over fences.   Mind you, he was referring to the area around Toronto.  We are much more blessed here, however, unlike B.C. there are what are called "private lakes" where there is sometimes no access from Crown Land.  You can find public land  information out at http://crownlanduseatlas.mnr.gov.on.ca/ 
This site now has additional information on specific lakes.
 http://atlas.nrcan.gc.ca/site/english/index.html 
This site will give you all the maps you need to find lakes and the roads.

At the Quebec lake which has better biological features, we were catching on average 4 large bass per hour.  Here I caught about 1 large bass/hour.  Not nearly as spectacular but not bad considering this lake is only 35 minutes from my house as opposed to 3 hours for the Quebec lake.  This SM is I would think is between 4 and 5 pounds.  I caught four others in the 3 - 4 pounds on the Mississippi Maiden which you can see in the picture.   That is until a 32" pike pike ripped it off while I was trying to get it out of its toothy mouth.  The bugger actually snapped at me!  Don't really blame him.  I would have snapped at me too. After that, I put on some Tiger leader.  I was using my  #3 sink and mooching slowly along the drop-off in 20 to 30 ft of water.  I imagine my fly was down 15 to 20 feet.  I also caught some on a balanced MM but I think the gold cone head was a fair attractor on this sunny day.  All casts to shore caught the smaller bass.

It was so hot, that I decided to go for a swim.  I wasn't so worried about people seeing my naked body as for the dangerous light intensity reflecting off my white skin, a veritable hazard!   Surface temp was 78-80F which is ideal for bass.  They were quite lively much like that pike.

I was fishing a "secret" place on the Mississippi near Carleton Place and caught a lot of these "suckers". They are now becoming a much more common fish to catch.  They aren't bad to catch as they are growing bigger each year and unlike my concept of suckers, they will go after dry flies!  The river from Appleton to Carleton Place is very easy wading.  The rock profile is fairly flat and great for newbies and old guys.  The small bass hide in the cracks coming up for drifting goodies.  When you find a good location, it is a "fish a cast".  Use light rods in the 3 wt range and you are in for a good evening of fishing. 
I've had several comments via email concerning this post.  They are called Fallfish and are part of the Minnow Family.  Apparently, on the east coast they get up to two pounds!  I would be sorry to see them take over from the bass in our river but I think I could adapt to two pounders!

I was given the opportunity to spend two days at a private lake 2 hours out of Ottawa in Quebec.  Over the course of about 12 hours of fishing, two of us landed around 100 fish and almost all of them were between three and five pounds.   And we are not talking about the ones we lost which in my case were many.  I may have caught about five or six smaller bass.  At my Calabogie lakes I could also catch 40 -50 bass in a day but almost all of them would be small.  I can't explain it other than the small ones are much more cautious and stay out the way of this lake which is loaded with big bass.   Maybe they see too many of these big mouths!

This lake has everything going for it.  There are only five cabins (some were more like houses!) and for the past three times I have been there, there has been no other fishers to speak of.  When I did see a couple swinging flies/lures around, I could tell they weren't doing very well.  Some of the owners I talked to seem clued out as to what they have, not even knowing what kind of fish were in the lake.  Many lakes that I have gone to over the years have at the most 20% cabin occupancy at any given time.  The young people seem uninterested in the outdoor experience.   Overprotective parents think it is too dangerous for their kids.  My, have things changed!  This is all very good for fishermen, at least in the short term!  In the long term if we don't have many fishers to follow us, we may see more program cuts.  But for a lake like this with natural species, it is great. This lack of fishing pressure certainly is a factor.  I also believe that the few of us who do fish there know how to safely catch and release fish. 

If you ever get the opportunity to go to a private lake with no public access, you will experience fishing the way it should be, and perhaps could be if we were more pro-active in getting the Ministries to change regulations and to crack down on harvesting fish.  At the FMZ Council meetings on Bass we didn't deal with catch limits as we were told that most people release bass, but I am beginning to wonder if that is really true. 

Some of these five pounders could be 20 years old.  That is a "senior citizen".  I don't take my fish out of the water by the mouth and hang it vertically for a picture like you see everywhere, even by the professionals who should know better.  Why don't you try that with your grandpa next time you visit him at the old folks home.  Hey Gramps, lets have a picture and grab him by the jaw.  Think about it.  These large bass are coming to end of their lives.  Their jaw structure is probably as weak as Gramps.   Probably OK for the little tykes.  Leave Gramps in the water!  A biologist told me that hanging a fish by its mouth vertically will start to rearrange its internal organs.

These fish were not jumping into the tube.  The take was very subtle and the best results were with slow jerking retrieves down about 10 feet after having cast to shore.   Leech imitations seemed the best.  Even my orange maribou Jansen Leech was catching but green worked when the sun was out and darker colours when it was overcast.  It seems that the LM are overtaking the SM.  Let's hope that is not a trend everywhere.  We were using balanced leeches until the massive pike chewed them off.