Thames River

Heard some reports that they were catching walleye on the Thames River in Canada, so I gave it a try. I went for the evening fish to do some scouting of the old areas that we used to fish. I found most of the old spots but the place has changed a lot since the late 80's. After talking to a few fisherman coming off the ice, the game plan was to fish by the church for the last 3 hours of the day. When I started fishing the temp was in the upper teens and when I quit fishing it was still in the upper teens. The wind was out of the north about 10 knots. The ice is 8 inches thick and there was very little current in the river. There is about 2 inches of snow covering the ice which made walking very easy. I tried fishing a little East of the church in 15 feet of water jigging a Rapala tipped with a minnow and a Williams spoon tipped with a minnow on a dead rod. I never had a bite and I fished until dark. Some fishermen that were fishing in front of me stopped by to talk and they said the fishing was pretty good about 2 weeks ago but that it has slowed down since then. Most of the people left about 5:30 PM so I started hole hopping the last 1/2 hour. There were no fish caught by the church on Tuesday evening but I know of 1 fish caught that morning. I plan on going back in a week or so to give it one more try. Just to give some perspective, that bank is approximately 10-12 feet high.

Lake Simcoe, Day 2

Day 2 of fishing Lake Simcoe. Temperature this morning was in the middle 30's and it was raining. It rained most of the day and the temperature stayed in the mid 30's all day. The rain and warm temps was making water puddles on the lake but the lake is still in great shape, the cars and trucks are still driving on the ice.Today we fished the huts closer to shore in about 10 feet of water. The water is still very clear so we were still able to sight fish. Being a little closer to shore there was a lot more traffic around the huts. Every time a machine or vehicle went by the fish would scatter. We used the same set up as yesterday and that seemed to work again. The only problem was we saw a lot less fish today. I tried banging the perch call off the bottom a few more times today without much success. The fishing was OK for the first couple of hours and then it just died off. Right before dark we had a little flurry but overall it was a slow day of fishing. The fish were not as large as yesterday and we caught fewer of them. We kept 34 perch between the two huts and the largest perch was just over 12 inches. Canadian law requires that a portion of the skin remains on the fish for identification so once we get home we can remove the skins and vacuum pack them. Over all we had a good trip, met a lot of great people and brought home a few fish for the fryer.

Lake Simcoe, Day 1

Fished Lake Simcoe with Dwayne, Fred and Dan. We stayed at Whispering Pines bed and breakfast in Sutton, Ontario. Temperature in the morning was -7 degrees and when we quit fishing it was around 10 degrees. The wind was blowing out of the east about 10 to 15 knots and the wind chill was very cold. We fished with Ice Fishing Outfitters out of Virginia Beach, Ontario. We fished in the huts furthest out in about 14 feet of water, about 3/4 miles from shore. The ice is 12 inches thick and it is a good black ice. The water was gin clear so we were able to sight fish all day, which is a lot of fun. We had small perch in the hole most of the day and eventually a larger fish would show up. The first couple of hours we had a tough time hooking up with the larger fish. I finally put on a Slab Grabber spoon tipped with a minnow head and Dan put on a silver and gold Williams spoon tipped with a piece of a minnow. That seemed to attract more fish and our catching improved. We kept 39 fish between the two huts with the largest perch around 12 inches. It was a tough day fishing but it was only our first day.