Just because you live in the city or don't have a boat or car, it doesn't mean you can't catch giant fish. Trust me, I grew up in the concrete where it seemed impossible to dream of any decent fishing experiences.
In reality, though, there are great fishing opportunities in Toronto and its surrounding area's. The TTC, GO Train and Ferry boats are all options for getting out to the shore. Or if you want to get out in a boat you can always rent one.
Some good places to look for big fish from shore are the Toronto Islands, Ashbridges Bay, Credit River, Rouge River, Leslie Street Spit, Rideau River, Niagara River, Bay Of Quinte, Ganaraska River and the list goes on.
As for boat rental's Rice Lake and most of the Kawartha's have very affordable rental boats. If you decide to rent a boat here are some tips on how to fish from a rental with no trolling motor and no fishfinder. When you are fishing from a rental it is hard to cover any amount of productive water and it is very difficult to to stay in productive water for long periods of time. However here are few tricks that I have learned from my old school days as an avid "rental boat angler". When bass fishing from a rental the first thing you can do is to drive around looking for visible isolated cover such as duck blinds, docks, trees, small patches of slop and cane islands. Some of the biggest bass love to dominate limited or rare isolated structure. This stuff is very visible to the naked eye and can be easily found from a rental boat. When approaching these structures make sure to cut you engine out way before you get too close to the cover or you will spook the "Lion" in his den, lol! Paddle your way into casting range and make sure you don't bang the boat with paddle because there is nothing worse than that when it comes to spooking fish!!!! This technique is great on calm days because you can control the boat well with a paddle. If it is windy anchoring away from the cover is the deal. The wind can be your friend when anchoring, you can slowly let rope out and creep up on cover and tie off when you are in perfect casting position.
If you decide not to fish these isolated structures giant weed flats can be your next best friend. For this you will need markers, polarized glasses and drift socks. When I find a weed flat in the middle of a bay for example I like to start out by fishing it in strips. I then let the wind blow me down the top of the flat to the bottom and for the first few runs over the flat. A spinnerbait, crankbait or lipless crankbait is hard to beat when staring on a flat. You can burn these baits through vast amounts of water and pick up quick active bites, this will help give you an idea of where the fish maybe holding on a big flat. As soon as you get a bite on these horizontal style baits roughly mark the spot with your eye and drive over to it and throw a marker on it. Now you can fish around the area slowly with plastic worm, jigs, tube and any other type of vertical style bait. I will then use a drift sock from my reference point (marker) in this situation so I can fish around potential fish holding water. Here I will use vertical baits fished slowly and methodically. Fishing slower like this can help you connect with the biggest fish on the flat. Not all the fish on a flat will hit fast moving horizontal baits, this is why its important to slow down once you have found potentail fish holding areas. Sometimes you will find a "money spot" where fish are just bunched up like crazy, this is when you would anchor and milk the spot for all that it is worth. Pay attention to what productive spots on a weed flat look like, sometimes these sweet spots have mixed types of weed there or the weeds are a fresher green colour or may have rock mixed in the area. This is important to pay attention to because you can duplicate this in other areas.
As for good shore fishing, do your research on different websites and talk to as many angler as possible to find out where the bite has been hot from shore. Or just bring a variety of baits to the nearest body of water to your home and start casting away, you may be surpised to find out the size of the beasts that live in your backyard!
Keep these few things in mind the next time you feel like a "deprived angler" and I guarantee it will help you catch a few more fish.
And remember...
Get fish or die tryin'!
RSS Feed (xml)
0 comments:
Post a Comment