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.
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.
RSS Feed
