Woke up this morning with a cough and feeling run down…. WAs planning on launching my boat in Algonquin Park at one of the larger highway side lakes for some Brookies, Whitefish, and Lakers…. But the prospect of long drive and slow start to my morning meant I was going to launch somewhere close by. So I chose a lake I had good winter success for lakers and whitefish, but hadn’t fished open water yet, a fairly small lake. Hit the water by 9am and set out on my own for some fish.
Fished anywhere from 30-65fow early on scoping things out, run and gun. Marked clouds of perch, smelts, and small herring. At one point in the small 65ft basin, the cloud of herring turned my graph red from bottom all the way up to 30 ft and kept creeping higher and higher and I was waiting for the surface to start boiling, 40ft thick school I though for sure was smelt until I hooked one by accident and turned out to be 3” herring…. I’ve never seen so many… must have been one heck of a year class as this lake is very small for that amount of herring.
The weather was tough, wind, Hail, rain, calm, hail, and fish. I got soaked and almost called it twice if it wasn’t for 1 hour reprieve just before lunch where the lake was glass. I was able to shake myself off and kept going.
Moving on, I had found a few spots where larger fish were marked consistently and had some great chases but no commitment. A board member Xiaolu contacted me around 9:45am and said he wanted to fish, so he was on his way and would arrive around 1pm. I managed to find a nice 23” laker and a 21” whitefish before heading to the launch to meet him, so I had something to show off when I met him hahaha…. He brought his own vessel and back to the lake we went. I managed one more whitefish before I packed it in at 4 pm, but had found the area they hang out in and had lost a bunch of whitefish before leaving that spot. I just couldn’t stick them again. They were in the bottom 10ft in 65 fow on a very steep reef. 4 or 5 at a time, very sluggish big marks, then one would suddenly become crazy and dart and chase until it bumped the bait or inhaled it in the case of the ones I landed.
All in all, a great day chasing fish I boated one laker and 2 fat whitefish and played with enough fish to keep me happy. Haven’t heard from James yet but I assume he was able to get a fish or two as well, he was just getting onto them when I left, I think the dinner bite was just starting.
Sunday Solo, Lakers, Whitefish, perch, herring…..
