Quinte Fishing

Another great day on the water! Mild temps, moderate winds, perfect. Hardly needed my gloves on all day.

We had been out last the week before on Wednesday and Thursday December 13-14 and had managed to catch a total of 13 fish. So we had high hopes for this day.

We launched from Picton and passed one or two boats fishing in the area of Merland's. There are probably fish here this time of year, but we headed east past the ferry where we could use two lines each. We started in the area of Pull Point and trolled east along the dropoff. We also fished the area just west of the point perhaps as far as the yellow house. We didn't get up anywhere near the ferry.

We ended up catching eight fish, the biggest being about 12 pounds. A couple more were in the eight pound range, and then amazingly [at least for us this time of year] we caught a few smaller ones that will actually taste really good.

There was no killer lure, pattern nor location. We tried everything, we changed frequently - speed, depth, direction, location, colour, lures. If there was any consistency it was that we caught three fish on the Picton Special off the downrigger down 30 to 40'. We took our time playing the fish to bring them up slowly and since they weren't too deep, they were easily released with no air bladder problems. I really like going retro-90's and catching so many fish off the old favourite. My one Picton Special has just been bit to pieces - you just gotta love all those teeth marks.

Other fish came on Reef Runners off the planer boards in various colours. I have one that is a shiny finish - silver-yellow-gold - fairly similar to the Picton Special in colour, and this nailed at least one. We tried snap weights a bit but I don't think I caught any - the fish seemed to be up a bit higher - just long-ass leads behind the planer boards. I think we nailed one or two off of Mann's Stretch 20+. Like last week dark green seemed to be the colour. Nothing off the Dr. Death this day. Despite having a cool name, my new Blueberry Muffin failed me. As did the Rebel Queen Reef Runner. But they sure look good in the tackle box. I think we got at least one off the silver Reef Runner.

Although it surprises me, I can't deny we seem to catch more fish trolling a bit faster than slower, up in the 2.2 mph range. But I would boost it to 2.5 a times, and also slow to 1.5 or less to see what happened. I drove the boat in lazy turns left and right to speed up the planers on the outside, and slow down the planers on the inside, to try to see which speed worked best, but again there was no correlation. And like last week, we got one double header when we slowed to a drift [probably still about 1 mph in the strong winds!] and the fish hit the slow-moving lure.

What can I say? Git out there and try it! Have a look here at the fourteen day temperature forecast! With such mild temperatures continuing, we should still have plenty of open-water action.

If you have quit fishing already, you are really missing the boat!

Anyway, have yerself a Merry Little Christmas!

Cheers,
Pete

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Self-unemployed and available for fishin' mid-week most days.

I'm thinking the Reef Runners are the new goto lures. I was going 1.8 to 2.3 mph and did well. My previous trips I was down around 1.3 mph and only managed 1 per trip. Hopefully I can manage more than a measly 3 hours on the water next week. I gotta remember to renew my license in case January is still fishable in the open water Hope to see you on the water.

cheers and Merry X-mas
Ken & Joanne