Quinte Fishing

My buddy and I headed out to Picton in the early morning of the 27th for a short stay at Merland Park and one last shot at some trophy fishing. We couldn't have asked for better weather. Sure it was cool and we endured a couple of snow squalls, but overall the winds were low and that made boating easy and uneventful.

Can you believe this picture was taken on December 28th? Where's the ice???



While we didn't catch all too many fish, their quality more than made up for the small numbers. Our first fish came at 3:30pm as we were trolling with planers near Pull Point. I was running around a 100' of line, with a planer using a 3 way swivel with a deep diving crank bait and a Perch coloured X-Rap. We were in 25' of water when instead of a walleye, this huge log of a Quinte pike inhaled my X-Rap. He took the lure deep (hence all of the blood) and barely put up a fight. But we let him go in hopes that he'll fight another day. He did swim off and dove into the deep, so there's always a hope.



This is my PB pike and he measured in at 36" in length with a 15.5" girth. As my net man points out, it was that girth from head to tail. And real pig to land!

Our next fish came at 5:00pm near the Cement Plant in 40' of water. My buddy was planing a single Clown colour X-Rap with around a 150' of line when he hooked onto this really nice walleye. Let's just say that his old PB walleye got shattered by this 31" fish with a whopping 18" of girth.



Later on that night, we headed out to the harbour to see if we could keep up our run of luck. During our second pass, while we were making our turn just past the boat launch, my buddy got into big walleye #2, flatlining the same Clown X-Rap from his earlier catch. Again, he had a fair bit of line out (over 100') and the fish was big, measuring in at 30" with a girth of 17.75".



Needless to say, I was green with envy as both of these fish bested my own PB walleye! I think it's also safe to say that my buddy is now a firm believer in late fall fishing on Quinte!

Our second day didn't go as smoothly as we were jinxed by circumstances beyond our control. To the guys that towed us back from Thompson's point, thanks again for the ride home! Life adrift on Quinte wasn't all that fun so we were relieved to see some friendly faces.

After a quick pit stop, we headed out again, but sadly our motor had enough and died as we were exiting Picton Bay. We trolled around Picton Bay until night fall, but I really wanted to work the cement run using floating lures at night. Oh well, that's what next year's trip is for right?

By the time we were headed back to camp, Picton Bay was starting to ice up fast so I think we hit the water at the perfect time. I can't imagine how thick it must have been on Friday morning as by 6:30pm, we were steadily breaking ice even as far out as the middle of the bay in front of Merland.

On a whole, the trip was great. Only really being able to fish the way we wanted for a day, we were really pleased with our catch. A PB pike and walleye in a matter of hours was pretty sweet on any trip and it definitely whetted our appetites for another December run in 2007.

And again, it was DECEMBER 27-28 AND WE WERE OUT ON THE WATER FISHING!!! That's wild!

Thanks again to the folks at Merland Park for the great cottage and friendly service and still being open this time of year. I am already looking forward to next December!