Quinte Fishing

As the fall approaches and big walleye start to show up it got me wondering about their seasonal migration. Winter, early early spring and fall are pretty clear. The BOQ holds the big girls in winter as they stage for spawning at the headwaters of the rivers and spring and fall the migrate out to the open lake through the reach. The remaining walleye in BOQ caught in the summer are the yearlings (up to 3) with the occasional stragglers which are a bit larger. My assumption would they will spend the summer in in the deepest areas of the open lake and use the available structure in the lake for daily migrations.

Do the make it all the way to main ducks or further south? Do the stage in Prince Edward Bay or the shoals south of amherst island? Anyone have any success catching big ones through mid June to mid August in open water?

Not looking for spots or anything, just curious what people's knowledge is on their seasonal migrations. Would be nice to occasionally target the big ones every so often on a nice hot summer day.

lots of theories on this one out there. should be a good thread but its been done many times if you were to search previous years.

That said, i personally have no clue, my guess is they head to deep water in Lake 0 or the St Lawrence. Havent heard of anyone that targets them from June-July with any success. The big lake shoals start to turn on in August and do until Sept when they begin to roll into the reach. Atleast thats what ive seen. i do beleive there are some big "residents" that live in the bay all year though. No reason to think that all of a sudden when they get past 5 lbs that they start to go to big lake. I would assume they stay where they've always been except likely go deep and arent as active as they youngins.

My .02cents

_________________
Bob MacMillan
Owner/Operator
Kingston Sport Fishing
https://kingstonsportfishing.ca/

The spring session the MNR held at the bellville rod and gun club had a biologist speak to the migration process. It was the biologists position that the majority of eyes over 5 lbs would follow currents from the bq, Down through the narrows, out past adolphus reach and into lake o, some going as far as Oswego. Obviously, not every fish does this, some stay, some go up into the st lawerence, but the majority of the big girls do. This would explain the bigguns that are caught in Picton Bay and area in the fall and opening weekend.

That's what I figured to be the case. The big girls are out there in the open water structures, likely at the thermocline, or below depending on light and weather, and out of reach of the majority of presentations. Would be interesting to see if there was anyone who patterned them throughout a full season and where they had success. Even in the heat of June and July they will move to reachable depths when weather is stable and light is low. Would be hard sledding to figure out exactly when and where all the time though and the obvious challenges of making it out to the wide open areas of Lake O during the summer winds.

There is a lot of spawning action that takes place outside of the bay of quinte and I strongly believe these fish never really travel very far out and away into the big lake.These fish are catchable all year long off of kingston on most of the shoals.Water clarity plays a major factor in what depth they are feeding in. Most evenings all summer long you can catch these fish trolling in 25' of water or less. The Ice . Fishing used to be great for walleye off these same shoals back in the days of long could winters that would support safe ice to get you out there. You could catch big perch all day long and then the Walters would move in at usual prime time in the evening.Its just been to dangerous these days to reach these shoals such as Penitentiary and snake island. Etc.In summer as stated above the wind is always a major factor.The Bay of Q and surrounding Lake O has some truly world class fishing for sure.

Snaggle it's funny you mentioned Penitentiary Shoal, My fathers biggest Lake Ontario walleye (13 lbs) was caught while ice fishing in 13ft of water off Penn shoal in January, mind you this was many many years ago! I've always wandered if the ice ever got thick enough again what kind of success would be had at these shoals in the winter these days.

Not to take over a thread with a new topic, but I was wondering if the walleye that migrate to the Bay spawn twice. I noticed in both the fall and spring last year that the big girls would thrash along the shore line. In the spring I knew that they were spawning, however I would have to think that they were doing the same thing in the fall. Last year at night around November they would be so shallow that their backs were out of the water.

Now if they were spawning does that mean that we shouldn't fish them?

Ktown If it does freeze up I,ll be out there.Freaky current as you know.Not a spot to mess with unless we have a lot of ice.I would bet my pay check it would be awesome fishing through the ice.Mountain , I have seen walleye in real shallow water up north feeding on frogs in the fall but have never seen it on the big lake or quinte , that's pretty neat. Pretty sure they weren,t spawning though.

Yeah Snaggle, my father also mentioned there was 14-16" ice close to shore, but 3-6 out near Penn shoal, and his homemade heavy jigs he was using were still almost sideways when he dropped them down the hole! I think the good ol' days of driving accross to wolfe island are long gone!