Muskoka Outdoors

Canadian tackle company, Koppers Fishing & Tackle Corporation, wins New Product Showcase Award at iCast 2010.

The lure maker’s, Live Target – Hollow Body Frog,  took the soft body category at the prestigious fishing show.  When you visit Kopper’s Live Target website you will find that they take lure design very seriously. They have tried very had to create ‘the world’s most anatomically accurate line of fishing lures’. This characteristic defines the success of these lures.

Live Target's Hollow Body Frog wins 2010 iCast Award

Great job Koppers!

It can be a hard to choice to make when you open up your tackle box to pick out the first lure for a fishing excursion. Colour can be a key trigger for fishing success, but do not let a topside, internal debate keep you from getting a lure down into the water quickly.

First, choose something that mimics the colour, size and shape of the natural prey your target species feasts on in the body of water you are on. When was the last time you saw chartreuse baitfish while you were freshwater fishing?

A shiner coloured minnow crank - a good start.

If fishing is slow on your first ‘natural’ pick, be sure to experiment with other colours. Let light conditions and/or water clarity dictate your next pick. If the water is murky or they sky is overcast move to a brighter colour like chartreuse or bright orange. When water conditions are clear and the sky is bright – try shades of blue, browns, or green.

These are just guidelines. It has been this blogger’s experience that the way fish react to your lures is far from predictable. When in doubt about what colour to use – experiment. Take time to try everything you got and forget the rules and systems often read about or seen on TV. My tackle box has cranks of various colours. The colour of your lure is just one of triggering mechanisms built into its construction. Vibration, flash and silhouette also play significant roles.

On day 1 of a recent sunny fishing trip on a local Muskoka lake, I started with a natural looking black-topped and silver-white bottomed minnow crank bait. My partner chose to start with a chartreuse coloured bait. Within four casts, he had landed a nice pike. Upon switching to a second bay, he pulled in another nice pike on his first cast. My natural looking lure had no hits. This all changed when I switched to a lure with similar colours (not shape) as my fishing partner’s. Colour in this case ‘trumped’ shape.

The second day of our fishing trip, I started again with a more natural coloured silver minnow crank bait. My partner, again, started with his chartreuse coloured lure. After a few minutes of fishing, I had landed two nice walleye. Things did not start to happen for the other angler UNTIL he switched to a silver coloured crank.

If you are deep water fishing, keep in mind that at greater depths, lack of light penetration makes a colour debate a mute point. Colours can not be differentiated if there is no light to reflect or absorb.

Colour can impact your fishing success, but not to the extent that it will benefit the angler to change a lure every second or third cast. Fish will not be caught if a lure is not in the water.

The action under the water’s surface is often taken for granted once the fish has entered the boat. To get a glimpse of the action missed while bass fishing, try using these topwater lures to bring explosive bass up out of the water.

Generally speaking, these top-water tactics are reserved for calm water conditions normally associated with early morning and evening fishing opportunities. However, if nothing else is working out of the tackle box, change things up and try fishing the water’s surface any time of day.

To begin, I recommend a Heddon Moss Boss lure. The design and purpose of this topwater lure allows the angler to cast into thick weeds with a minimal risk of snagging. This puts the lure into the realms of largemouth bass that are usually undisturbed by other anglers. Reel the lure erratically from weed patch to weed patch and pause randomly before continuing. Allow the moss boss to drop into weed pockets encountered along the way. Expect weeds to fly.

The second topwater offering should be a standard issue in most tackle boxes – an Arbogast Jitterbug. This wobbling noise-maker will ignite the early evening, glassy calm on any lake or Toronto pond. Cast this lure just off weed beds or around shoreline structures. Reel and pause at random intervals and get ready to fight aggravated smallmouth and largemouth bass. Don’t under-estimate the effectiveness of casting close to docks and vertical logs.

As published on:

The fourth Saturday in June marks the beginning of the 2010 bass season in Muskoka (FMZ 15) . Take somebody fishing and enjoy these exciting gamefish on your favorite muskoka lake.

For more Ontario MNR fishing regulations follow this link

According to the Ontario Fish Registry (kept by the Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters) the Ontario bass records are:

Largemouth Bass: Weight: 10.43 lbs. Length: 22.00 in.
Waterbody: Preston Lake
Girth: 19.50 in. Bait/Lure: Jitterbug
Date Caught: August 26, 1976

Smallmouth Bass: Weight: 9.84 lbs. Length: 24.00 in.
Waterbody: Birch Bark Lake near Kinmount
Girth: 18.25 in. Bait/Lure: N/A Date
Caught: September 26, 1954

One of Muskoka's Many Smallmouth Bass

Tigerback. A term of endearment given to a particular smallmouth bass that haunted the docks of children’s camp I use to work at. Only, myself and 6 other campers, know his name. Until now, only the 7 of us knew his secret.

I first met Tigerback while practising some swimming lengths at the camp’s waterfront. Something caught my attention in the shallow end of the waterfront while I exited via the the deep-end ladder. A large smallmouth bass was swimming very close to the surface of the water. I could clearly see the ‘tiger-like’ formations (at least they looked like that to me)on it’s back as it swam back and forth between the docks.

I named it Tigerback and it soon became legend!

After a few minutes of swimming, he disappeared into the murky depths.

Later that week, I managed to call mom to bring me fishing gear. I was going to go Tiger hunting. For three afternoons I threw everything I had in my tackle box to try to entice a return visit from ‘Tigerback’. I casted spoons, plugs, jitterbugs, and Mepps around those docks with not , so much as, a swirl from its tail. When I was not working  - I could be found at the docks casting like a mad man.

Captain Ahab would have been proud.

After several days defeat, I visited the waterfront again – without my fishing gear. I thought some swimming would get my mind off the behemoth fish. After a relaxing swim, I started to towel off my hair when I noticed Tigerback swimming some victory laps in the shallow end again.

Oh, if I only had a harpoon!

I left the waterfront in disbelief as I watched the wary bass swim back out into the river.

Two weeks later I returned with a new battle plan. Six of my campers wanted to try fishing. They had never done it before. We raided the craft cupboard and found some 20lb test line and a package of hooks.

It seems destiny favored the creative.

Then, we found some sturdy sticks that we could tie 6ft lengths of fishing line on to. The final touch consisted of some worm hunting in the camps flower beds. With a dozen, or so, worms in a coffee mug we marched down the waterfront hill and started fishing with our rustic equipment.

The kids loved it. Their eyes were wide with amazement as perch and sunfish would swarm their hooked bait. I would spend several minutes that afternoon going over the parts of fish, identification, and hook removal procedures.

I forget which kid it was, but suddenly, we had an issue. One of the kids said, “I am hooked on something!”

As we peered over the edge of the dock I saw old ‘Tigerback’ with a hook coming out of his mouth. The 6ft line did not leave room for a fun fight. I simply helped the kid pull the brute out of the water and on to the dock. The kids swarmed around the lucky angler and watched with gaping mouths as held ‘Tigerback’ by his bottom lip and unhooked him from the small hook.

One of the kids remarked that they swim with that thing and hinted that his final afternoons at camp may be spent canoeing and not swimming. With some more questions and pointing, the kids waved to ‘Tigerback’ as I released him to the dark depths.

These kids became hooked on fishing from that day forward. That was the secret of old ‘Tigerback’.

No one has seen him since.

I suspect he is still out there.

Somewhere.

If you want to catch him. Take a kid fishing.

*My reloaded blog posts are some of my favorite previous posts made current again.