Fishing in Meaford / Thornbury, Fishing Labour Day Weekend

Hi everyone,

My friend got a new boat and we are taking it on its maiden voyage labour day weekend. I was wondering if anyone has any tips for fishing out of Thornbury and / or Meaford. The only knowledge I have of the area is flatlining Lymans at the mouths of the rivers for Salmon. My understanding is that an hour after sunrise this bite is dead, and labour day may be too early to have any success with this technique. We are equipped for downrigging if the wind cooperates.

Is there any decent bass or lake / rainbow trout fishing to be had launching out of Thornbury or Meaford? Most info I found online said to fish the rivers or harbours for bass but not fishing anything about lake trout fishing.

Cheers,

Lenny

This post has been edited by Snagger Lenny on Aug 21, 2018 - 04:39 pm

Hey Lenny ; Before any replies please change your handle !!!!

Maybe Lenny gets snagged on a lot of logs.



Like I do.

Name is just a joke, I don’t do any snagging for salmon or steelhead and if I do snag one I break them off.

Has anyone ever caught a lake trout out of Meaford or Thornbury? Only successful lake trout reports I'm finding are coming out of Owen Sound. Also starting to wonder whether it may be in our best interest to maybe make the trek out to Southampton.

Lenny: Don't try to re-invent the wheel. Lakers are pretty "standard" on Georgian Bay. Run spoons just off the bottom and in deep water (70+ to over 100 fow).

For rainbow you might have to change tactics a bit. Spoons will still do the trick, but very early and much shallower will probably be more successful (20 - 50 fow or higher in the water over deeper water as the morning progresses). It wouldn't hurt to downsize to 3" - 3.5" spoons as well.

Good luck and stay "cool" with all the boat traffic this weekend. (Most of the "problem captain" are unlikely to be out of bed until midday!)

Just to answer the Meaford part on lakers I have caught 2 lakers in the Big Head river. I know of many other caught in the Big Head by friends. They are around in Meaford at some point.

Thanks everyone for the replies. We ended up going 2/7 with one 3.5lb lake trout and 17lb salmon in four outings (3 mornings, one evening) all out of Meaford. Lots of fun and a good learning experience, hope to improve our results next year, glad we were able to land a couple, hooks came out while netting and we could have easily been skunked. Also may have tried to be too fancy at times running flashers and the cheats which resulted in some tangles.

I think we're going to go a week later and take a day off rather than doing the long weekend, the boating traffic was intense, especially on Saturday morning. This was our first trip and I had no idea there derby was this weekend before I saw it on this forum.