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From what I hear not many fish being caught....and those that are having some luck say the sizes are not there. To my knowledge only one area of the lake is producing any fish. My fish finder is marking all sorts of fish in the 12 to 15 ft range mostly near shorelines, but nothing is biting for me (could be schools of perch?).
Water temps are anywhere from 51 to 57 F. I have tried trolling, jigging, casting, spinners, plastics, worms and a few other inventive baits (no minnows ...yet). The fish I did manage to catch barfed out some small crayfish....likely due to the fish hanging around some shallow rocky areas.
Hope others are not telling the same grim story. I would be very interested in hearing how everyone else is doing. Perhaps the herd has thinned out?
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Different story here.
A very productive weekend for the guys in the South River. A larger portion being under the slot, lots in and a good number of 24+, including a few 26s. Kind of a reversal of last year where most were in the slot. River water temperatures in the mid to upper 50s. Most of the folks I talked to reported a very light bite with some groups doing better than others. Lots of boat traffic in the river. As someone pointed out in another post there is a lot of debris in the water this year so boaters beware.
Got out myself for a few hours yesterday evening. Got away from the crowds and fished the lake. Very calm. Hit a few of my spring lunker hotspots near the Gulls. Water temps where I was fishing were between 52 and 54. Kind of slow but managed 10 between the 2 of us. Most of the fish came after 6pm. Jig and minnow was the ticket. Zero interest in a slowly trolled worm harness. The smallest was 19 and the largest 24.5. Get this - unless there were 2 - 22.5 inch walleye with an identical chunk missing from their tail fin swimming in the same area, I caught the same fish that my partner caught 10 mins previous??? Haven't seen that one before.
Hope to get out this week when there is a bit of chop to see if that gets them hopping.
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Good to hear one of ya had a good fish. We nomally take the boat to nipissing the first month of opener but decided not to this year.
I could not find minnow and had to use worms too. Tried some other things too but nothing worked.
But all the other boats out there had minnow buckets. I must have missed where they are sold right now...We were in a hurry to get out of town though. I don't think it would have mattered as I only seen one fish caught with 3 or 4 other boats at the deep water in nosbonsing. Would have went to sunken island but the water is high so thought it wasn't worth it.
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QUOTE (Michelle @ May 20, 2013 - 07:23 pm)
Good to hear one of ya had a good fish. We nomally take the boat to nipissing the first month of opener but decided not to this year.
I could not find minnow and had to use worms too. Tried some other things too but nothing worked.
But all the other boats out there had minnow buckets. I must have missed where they are sold right now...We were in a hurry to get out of town though. I don't think it would have mattered as I only seen one fish caught with 3 or 4 other boats at the deep water in nosbonsing. Would have went to sunken island but the water is high so thought it wasn't worth it.
Go see Henry at Birchhill camp, he has lots of Minnow opening weekend
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Sounds like river was doing well and main lake was not. Probably because water temp is not yet there. Fish must not yet moved from the spawn to the lake.
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I have done a lot of asking and learning this year...and from what I gather....it's a simple thing...use minnows for bait right now (when water temps are 11 or 12 degrees Celsius)! They just are not into worms right now (jigged or trolled)...must be a water temp thing or something.
I am going to try my theory above in a day or so....will let you all know how it went.
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couldn't disagree with you more, we used worms and jigs all weekend and did just fine, when the wind picked up drifting with small bladed worm harnesess did the trick. Where we were fishing there was lots of fish marking - either jigging or worm harnessess, you had to be moving. We spoke to a lot of anglers who were anchored that hadnt caught a fish.Heavy OPP presence on the weekend - be smart!!
Group: Members
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Member No.: 3999
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Just got off the lake....and to quote flugsy....I couldn't disagree with him more...I visited all my spots that I fished worms with...and used minnows this time...and had better luck.....3 Walleye and 3 Jumbo Perch. I have to say I really think it was because I was using minnows. I even tried Berkley Gulp Minnows and they hammered those up......so I am sticking with my gut feeling that minnows work in the cold water temps.
Not many boats out tonight as it was a tad cold...water temp was 57 F. Caught fish in 35 feet of water in evening.
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