Quinte Fishing

This Saturday morn. I watched an episode of this show during which the
guys were targeting pre spawn Lake Erie smallmouth bass.
This brought about an interesting question re: catch and release fishing
and species specific seasons. Seems to me one can ignore seasons
if you are planning to let the fish go anyway and you can go fishing for whatever you want, whenever you feel like it? Am I missing something here?

On the US side of Lake Erie there exists a May 1st opener for bass. It's a trophy fishery - I believe they're only allowed to keep 1 fish and yes it's a prespawn bite.

In Ontario targeting any fish not in season , weather you are releaseing or not is ilegal. The rule of thumb according to one ministry officer I talked with a couple of years back was if you catch more then two fish of a species not in season you are expected to move on to another spot, or leave alltogether. Failure to do this and you may get nailed for causeing undue stress to out of season fish. Funny you mentioned the show you saw this morning, it reminded me of the Hank Parker show last year when he was slaying smallmouth in reeds bay off Wolf Island. At the end of this show he shocked me when he told folks watching (hey folks if you get a chance next year you gotta try some of this smallmouth fishing , its fantastic, why not mark it on your calander and give reeds bay a shot , the first two weeks of June are unbeleavable fishing) NO KIDDING HANK your fishing out of season , last time I checked reeds bay was in Canadian waters?????

Please reply to my other question. I had a reply from a guy discussing how many questions i put on the disscussion booard and he said put one longer question and reply to all the replys do you agree

VICTOR WHAT IS YOU BEEF ABOUT THESE COLUMS???

VICTOR BOORD IS SPELT BOARD"YOUR WELCOME,JIMMY.

Did some reading in the 2002 Fishing Regs.

Firstly, to fish the Ontario Side of International waters you need one of the two below:

1) Ontario Resident Sport/Conservation License
2) Ontario Non-Resident Sport/Conservation License
Note: International waters is a body of water that borders on Ontario and the USA (i.e.: Lake Erie, Lake Ontario, etc.)

Since you must have a valid Ontario license to fish the Ontario side of the waters, you must following Ontario Fishing Regulation.

Since we are taking about Lake Erie (Division 2), the Bass season on Lake Erie is June 29 to Nov 30 (in 2002). There is no pre-spawn bass season in Divsion 2.

The ONLY divisions that are outside the norm are as follows:

Division 12 and 12A - Jan1-Mar31 and June28-Dec31
Divisions 14, 19, 20, 21, 22, 22A, 23, 24 and 25 - Open All Year

I hope that the Fish'n Canada guys and Hank Parker were following the regs. We don't need another Canadian Sport Fishing incident.

Cheers,

Mike

Hey guys, thought I should intervene. Pickerel’s post is correct. The US smallmouth season in that area opens in early may which is the time we filmed that particular episode. There’s actually a lot of people on the water fishing smallies at that time. It’s 100 percent legal and in being so, it creates yet another opportunity for a Canadian angler to experience something different.

Remember that most readers here including myself fish the opener of Walleye on Quinte, yet if we traveled anywhere else in the province (inland lakes) on that same weekend it would be illegal. It’s a matter of reading, understanding and abiding by the regs.

Hope this helps.

Pete Bowman