Lake Huron Spring Chinook SalmonJeff Wall | Nomad Adventures info@nomadac.com The groundhog said six more weeks of winter from Feb 2.... he was wrong! It has been a lot of years, close to 20 since I was able to put some decent time in on the spring Great Lakes fishery. April is normally our second busiest month for river guiding, but the winter that wouldn't go away gave us some time for personal fishing. Canadian kayak fishing guide Jeff Wall showcases his spring catch. Over 40 fish caught in six outings last spring. All were salmon or trout except one giant out of season walleye. Steelhead, Coho Salmon, Brown Trout, Chinook Salmon, Atlantic Salmon, Walleye, Lake Trout were all caught and released over six separate days of fishing. Long lining shallow crankbaits on light lines pretty much sums up the spring kayak fishing in Ontario for the Great Lakes region. We employed a variety of minnow baits, smaller spoons, and kwikfish style lures. Slow trolling with abrupt direction changes were the ticket in the open water trolling but crashing two lures thru the baitfish schools got us several doubles. I don't have to tell you how exciting that is in a kayak! Please always consider best practices when heading out on the Great Lakes, especially when it is still winter. Better yet, hire a guide! Be sure to look up Nomad Adventures for your next spring kayak fishing trip. Hope you enjoy! Giant Lake Ontario WalleyeLake Ontario Atlantic SalmonTake the time to read and understand ALL the rules that apply to operating human powered watercraft in Canada. It will probably one day save you some money from being fined, but may well save your life too!
Foul weather kept us off the rivers for a lot of November and December, so we had to chose our days wisely. The fishing sure was good when we did get out in December! In five outings in the month of fishing only Lake Huron flows, we only had one day where less than six fish were hooked. Most of those days we saw winds over 40km/hr and high water, even rain and ice. Not to mention the fog that rolled in on our last steelhead kayak trip Dec 29th when the temp went from +1C to -8C in 20mins! Looking forward to Spring '14 steelhead! We are now into the final month for the extended season of 2013, and the weather just hasn't cooperated. We aren't logging nearly enough time on the water because of wind, rain or high and dirty water. We are getting out though! This past week offered the best conditions in a while but the Credit and Niagara rivers are just fishing slowly. Likely at lot to do with the windy and cold conditions from the week prior. Averaging a couple fish each per 5hrs of fishing. Not bad but way down for the time of year. Now the cold is coming and will likely stay below 0C for most days until Jan 1. So that will mean more weather stability, and fishing will improve.
We still have openings left to the end of the year, and are now booking into 2014. This was a busy year for us and guiding river smallies! We had numerous trips run between the prime season Aug-Oct, and the big fish did't disappoint. We ran four consecutive trips that say Smallmouth Bass 20" and larger! We even had one that was close to 22" in the third week of October. Make sure to look us up early next year because we unfortunately were not able fulfill all the booking requests.
Steelhead arrived a wee bit earlier to Southern Ontario this fall than they normally do. We were doing well catching them in the first week of October and it will only improve into December. The overall Series title was captured by Paul Winkel for the second year in a row. Congrats Paul!! Adam MacKay finished second, and Jeff Wall third. Individual OKFS event winners are as follows: Bay of Qunite - Jeremy Parker Black Bear Camp - Tom Callary South River - Stefan Jackson Boat Lake - Paul Winkel Kashaga Lodge - Doug Culver To all participants and sponsors, thanks again for a great year!
Looking forward to 2014!! |
FISHING NEWS ONTARIOOntario and Great Lakes region salmon, steelhead, and migratory trout fishing articles, information, news, and reports. Stay up to date on our most recent trips, events, tournaments, and general news on adventure fishing and kayak fishing in Ontario and Canada. Archives
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