"How's business, Pete?"
"Unbelievable!"
When you're in sales, the above answer pretty much covers it all. The same holds true for fishing. And our most recent fishing trip was definitely One Of Those Days.
In case you've forgotten, Friday was that brutally cold and windy day. We were told we were nuts to go fishing, which was perfectly acceptable for us. When you live on the side of a cliff for a week or two at a time, or crawl around muddy wet caves, you are used to receiving such slurs. It only hurts because it is mostly true.
We arrived at Picton Harbour to find the place covered with a thin layer of skim ice. Unfortunately there was a big slab of ice that had abutted against the base of the launch ramp, and it wasn't about to be moved. We next checked McFarland's Conservation Area, and found the ramp to be coated with a layer of ice from a nearby groundwater seepage. We weren't going to launch there either.
Glenora Marine would have let us use their ramp, as they had two boats before us. However we planned to be out well after dark, and couldn't count on the other boats icing up the ramp for us. It's a tough pull for a regular van.
So we crossed the ferry, and the launch ramp on the east side looked pretty good. Instead we settled for Adolphustown Park, because of its gentle slope. It's a bit of a disadvantage because the water is quite shallow, and you have to be careful about starting the motor. It's almost impossible to slide the boat off the partially submerged trailer, so once I got the motor well warmed up, I fired it into reverse, and off it flew. I at least was away.
But with such shallow water at the ramp, it's pretty much impossible for my dad to enter the boat without hip waders, so I picked him up at the base of the little point to the east.
We headed out into the bay, and after turning the point were subjected to the full force of the 60 kph winds. Our sonar chose not to work this day, perhaps the connections were frozen. We started out in the area of the yellow house trolling into the stiff wind, and before I had the second line fully in the water, the first had a fish on! It was the trusty Picton Special on the side planer with no weight.
We started pulling the first line in, and damn if the second one - a deep diving silver-black Reef Runner straight out the back on 14-6 Fireline - didn't have a fish on it too!
So meanwhile the boat has been blown back over top of the lines, there are three-footers crashing all over the place, we're laughing our asses off and pulling in the fish. After a couple pix, we toss 'em, and start trolling again.
Well I'll be buggered [and so will she if I can catch 'er] if we don't have the two lines out again, and there's a fish already on! We only had time to turn into the wind, and meanwhile we're blown another 1/4 mile downwind as we wrestle in the next pair. Unbelievable!
The fifth fish we caught blown completely past the point, having started in front of the yellow house about a mile upwind. Somewhere in this clusterfrig of lines we lost a planer board, and had to chase that through the raging surf to recover that. And at some point, I was untangling lines twisted together and wrapped around the prop, trying not to get tossed over the transom in the waves! Unbelievable!
Forget the downriggers, man - by this point they were coated in about two-inch-thick ice, and we weren't about to unthaw[sic] them that day.
Fortunately the action slowed down enough for us to eat our subs and drink some coffee. Of course, as my dad was digging through the bags to find the food, there was yet another fish on one of the rods. "Here," said I, "hold this, will ya." So we're drifting downwind and I'm trying to straighten the boat, and after holding the rod for the better part of a minute he's like, "Hey, is there another fish on this?" And I'm like, "Yeah, I think it's your turn to pull it in!"
And get this - we've been out for a solid hour, and I
still haven't had a chance to put lines #3 and #4 into the water because we're too busy catching fish! Too funny!
The killer lures that sunny cold and windy day were silver-black deep divers - it didn't matter what make or model, and we never bothered with snap-weights. The "flat" lines out the back caught just as many fish as did the side planers. We only caught the one fish on the Picton Special up shallow, though - everything else came off deep divers.
The bite suddenly slowed, and we headed across to the far side to try to get into the lee of the strong NW winds. We nailed a few in front of the house on the shallow point about a mile east of the ferry on the south side, and then one or two more as it was getting dark up by the waterfall close to the ferry on the south side. The ones near dark came on dark Fire Tiger Deep-Diving Husky Jerks.
We finished up with eleven fish, having missed a couple. Of course, you have no idea how many you miss on the side planers since there's no way to tell if you get a strike and a miss. Two were eleven-pounders, the others were averaging seven to eight. We kept the four smallest, and had a superb repast the next night. There are plenty of fillets left over, so I won't be keeping any more big fish for a while. With any luck we can nail a few smaller ones.
We quit when the fish did, at dark. My how times have changed. Ten years ago it was hard to catch fish in the daylight, now you can't buy one after dark. We returned to the point near the boat ramp where I slipped the motor into neutral and carefully coasted the boat into shore, jumped out, grabbed the bow of the boat and gave it a mighty heave to send it back out into deep enough water. My dad proceeded to put the boat into gear -
forward gear! - and grounded it out. Unbelievable! Fortunately it was sand bottom with no rocks. Even more fortunately, it was
he who did it. If it had been
me who had done it, well, you know how it is with dads....
I'd take the time to post up the photos, except I'm packing for going back tomorrow. I think we'll bivi near the Picton Bay boat ramp tomorrow night, so if you see a yellow North Face tent or a bivi sack out on the grass, stop and say "hi", eh?
I've been telling yous guys all along the best fishing is yet to come. This December is shaping up to be a superb month weather-wise - the
14-day temperature forecast is showing temperatures WAY above average - with a projected high of 9C on Boxing Day - so with any luck we'll still be fishing open water until Christmas, and most likely right into the New Year!
Woo-hoo! Bay of Quinte December walleye fishing at its finest! Be there, or be square.
Cheers and beers,
Pete [and Ron]
P.S. Sorry for the delay in writing this report, but I've been busy with my Christmas shoplifting....
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. I know you're a big believer in conservation. In any case, if I recall the MNR announced it right before the opener this year and all of the guides were already printed. Next year's will more than likely be correct even if they haven't updated it in the PDF as it's still the 2005 - 2006 version. I for one didn't mind the slot and actually still throw back most over 19" (unless I'm out of fillets and I've had a particularly bad weekend on the water 
) Nice day on the water by the way.
