Nothing beats the discovery of finding section of water that holds enough ‘hook-yearning’ fish that give your reel hand a monster set of cranking blisters. The same feeling holds true for those of us who find, or own, a plot of land that oozes wild game from bushy shadows.

We call the spot our own and like sly foxes our eyes make a quick sweep of the area to ensure the secrecy of our newly added GPS

The view below at one of my secret spots

way-point. If your are like me, this hunting or fishing ’sweet spot’ becomes one of our most closely guarded secrets. It remains unknown to all but a few close friends.

Herein, lies the potential problem with good fishing and the dilemma that it causes in my mind.

It is so easy to get wrapped up in keeping our secrets with ‘the few’ – that we forget the benefit of sharing the experience with ‘the many’.

I am guilty of this. Big Time!

An angler approached me, before a local fishing  tournament, and asked me to mark some great fishing spots on Vernon Lake. At first, I marked all my favorite spots except for one. I struggled for several seconds before I could get my hand to mark the last and most secret of my spots.

Why?

I think it was because it is nice to have that spot on a lake where you can go and expect to catch some fish – without having to worry about another angler being there before you were. With my new found love of fly fishing, I can really appreciate the importance of solitude in your favorite fishing spot. After all – it is part of the experience of fishing.

I guess what I am wrestling with is how can we as ‘anglers and/or hunters’ expect to propagate the excitement we enjoy (and cherish) in our conservation activities if we become tight-lipped about where all the ‘good’ spots are?

Am I alone? Possibly. Ask yourself this: Could you easily hand over a GPS coordinate list of your top 5 fishing spots on your favorite lake? If your answer is yes – stop reading.

Imagine if the NHL, NBA, or NFL expected to share the excitement of their sports by keeping the venues for these high impact sports for just a select few of the population who happen to know where the next event was taking place? Does it seem realistic to expect future anglers to get ‘cranked’ about fishing when their first experiences are spent ‘fish-less’ in the great wide open of a new body of water?

Some of you are now saying, “What about the enjoyment of the experience of, the newcomer, learning to find their own fishing spots and techniques?”.  I can’t disagree with you. I am just wondering if that is making fishing one dimensional? Could we also add to the teaching process of the outdoors a clause that encourages us to share that extremely productive bend in the river with someone else – without the need to be tight lipped? This would, in turn, encourage a more complete 2-dimensional fishing  experience because it has been shared and enjoyed by others who caught just as many fish as you did.

This is not sour grapes. As the keeper of my own secret spots and a fantastic technique for catching lake trout in Algonquin Park, I am still thinking this through. I’d appreciate your thoughts.

Is it time to end the secrecy and let others enjoy the fishing in your spot?

Somewhere in Northern Ontario...

“May your day be surrounded with the ones you love and enjoying something you love.” – Muskoka Outdoors

With a pending ice fishing season looming, how can a soft water angler survive until ice out? Do not fear anglers of the open water. There is hope. I have been tracking my progress while dealing with the SWW (soft water withdrawal) syndrome below.

Week 1

Pike On The Fly will help fill the open water void.

Having just spotted the first ice hut on Mary Lake, my sunny day turned blue. I waved to my ice and cold-loving fishing brethren as I drove past the lake’s scenic wharf. They politely waved back across the glassy water without skipping a beat on their jigging patterns. The cold – is not an issue in the least. This time of hard water is yours. Returning home, in a slightly depressed state, I resorted to watching some fishing DVD’s I had in my collection. Three hours later I was feeling better about myself and my self diagnosed condition. One movie in particular stands out in my mind as being very well done. If you have not seen or purchased it – please consider it. It’s called, Pike On The Fly, by Barry Reynolds. It has a perfect combination of instructional items and heart-pounding pike fishing action. There is a large number of huge pike caught in the movie and 8 of them are over 50 inches!

Survive Week 1 by watching, buying or renting some fishing videos.

Week 2

The videos were great. This week, my issue has been, the ‘call to action’ the movies have inspired within me. Dust off your fly tying equipment and tie these trout flies recommended by expert anglers and fly fishing authors I have had an opportunity to interview on my blog. I asked them a simple question: If you could only take one or two flies on a body of water you have never fished before – what would it be?

Mark Williams (author of So Many Fish So Little Time )
“It’s hardly fair to take away from me the boxes and boxes of flies I’ve tied and collected over the years. Rivers change hour to hour and you’re going to stick me with just one fly? Fine. I’ll take a size 12 Ausable Wulff and I’ll catch plenty of trout. But I’m stashing a Rio Grande Trude in one pocket and a beat-up Goddard Caddis in another.”

Rick Passek (author of Freshman Flyfisher Series)

Adams Dry Fly from Wikipedia

“This can be a tough question for me because I would research the stream before I went, But let us say I didn’t. I would take a Hares ear Nymph (picture right) and a Tom Thumb, why you ask, simple. The hairs ear and the Tom Thumb are an searching patterns. They don’t represent any one insect perfectly, but represent many insects well. These two flies will be taking by trout as Caddis Flies, May Flies, Mosquitoes, Midges, along with many others.”

Ed Quigley (author of In The Company of Rivers)
“Probably the Muddler Minnow because of its versatility. If gooked up with floatant, it can be used as a dry fly with what I call the ‘plunk-and-twitch’ effect on smooth water. In other words the plunk gets the trout’s attention; the twitch says, “I’m alive!”. Without the floatant, it becomes a streamer cast either upstream or down-and-across.”

Randall Kadish (author of The Flycaster Who Tried To Make Peace With The World)
“Initially, I would have two choices: An Adams, which takes fish on any river, or a Woolly Bugger. Because, I don’t know the stream, and because most takes are subsurface, I’d choose a Woolly Bugger and cover as much water as possible.”

Pace yourself through Week 2 by tying these effective fly patterns.

-To be continued-

They can be the beaters and junkers of any freshwater fishing fleet. Practically indestructible and sinkable metal fishing boats have seen a ton of action. For those of us who use them (and the small outboard motors that accompany them), metal boats have one significant flaw. They tend to be mobile noise amplifiers. If you understand where I am coming from – these fishing ‘tips’ are for you.

How not to catch fish in a metal boat:

1. A dropped anchor malfunction
2. Complete a Tackle Box Fumble
3. Allow your teen to bring a sub-woofer stereo system for their iPod
4. Watch Mr. Bright Idea set-up a metal lawn chair over the middle seat
5. Tie a metal stringer somewhere on the outside of the bow
6. Pursue lightning strikes on the horizon
7. Leave pike slime on the bottom of the boat
8. Spill the minnow bucket and try to keep the minnows away from the floor cracks

Fishing Pro and Canadian Fishing Show Star, Dave Mercer recently made Major League Baseball history by being the first person to “cast” the traditional game opening pitch across the plate.

A video of the event can be seen below. Dave is the star of Facts of Fishing.

The fishing trip on Lake Opeongo that became a survival trip – before it even started.

Calamity would be another descriptive word for it. In reflection, we should have canceled the trip before we even left the driveway.

It would have saved us from feeling Opeongo’s fury.

An hour before we left dad and I made a last minute check of the boat. Fortunately, I noticed that the Lowe’s drain hole plug was broken. The metal rubber expander was split in half. We purchased another one and I proudly screwed it into a hole into the boat’s stern. With everything else in order, we pulled out of the driveway and headed for Alqonquin Park’s – Lake Opeongo.

Within minutes of sliding the boat into the water, I was told (via running messenger) to get the trailer back down to the ramps -� fast! The boast was filling up with water. My mind immediately started wondering if my plug replacement part was the right size. With only moments to spare, we managed to get the boat back up on the trailer and out of the water to troubleshoot. Dad quickly pointed out the plug was missing and we began to look for it at the waters edge. I left the search early because something was not ’sitting’ right with this whole debacle. I turned my attention to back of the Lowe saw that we had not ‘actually’ lost the plug.

This truth brought no relief. Sheepishly, I had to announce that I had put the plug in the live well’s water exit hole.

Go ahead and laugh. There were 3 possible holes back there and my excitement about the trip caused a momentary lapse in my judgment. I began to feel the burn of Opeongo’s impending fury.

Once the jokes, pseudo-insults ended and an inventory of wet gear was completed – we fired up the motor and headed for the north arm of Lake Opeongo. The north arm of the lake was ’supposed’ to be the most sheltered part of the lake. It also holds beaches that may be suitable to land our fishing craft.

It wasn’t.

Alternating bow smashing waves pounded us the whole way up the lake. If we were not so excited about the possibility of an evening fish, we probably would have considered returning the sanctuary of our land based homes. Anything dry – quickly became wet.

The posted weather forecast warned us about the impending snow activity and corresponding freezing temperatures. When we left the Opeongo store’s dock the temperature was warm and pleasant. By the time we found a possible camp site, we could see our breath in the crisp, swirling air.

The fury continued to build.

The pine stand that sheltered our camp site from the force of the howling wind did nothing to soften the noisy air. It was like an infinite loop of the sound that comes from the inside of a seashell – only amplified 1000 times. The plan for the next couple of hours was for my sister and I to set-up camp and attempt to get supper ready. Dad had to make a second trip down the lake to get my brother in-law (and their gear) from another camp site.

Soon, the crackling of a fire and the rustle of windblown tarps and tent fly’s brought a sense of ‘normalcy’ to our epic struggle for survival. It was almost enjoyable until I noticed my youngest nephew testing the ‘waterproofing’ limits of my new tent. He felt the outside of the tent was closer than a short walk to the outhouse…

My fury started to build. I tempered my reaction with a walk to the water’s edge and scooped a cup of water from the lake.� It was cold and gritty – just the way I liked it.

*End of Part 1