Blast from the past #2: I love the French River

I found some old photos of me fishing at one of my favourite bass fishing hotspots in Ontario- the French River, which is about a 3 hour drive north of Toronto.  I can't quite remember when this photo was taken, but it was on a trip I took with my dad.  What I can remember is that, being of the old school, my dad was fishing jigheads tipped with live worms, and I was fishing the same basic jigheads tipped with live minnows. This was the point in my fishing life where I was slowly discovering that bigger baits mean bigger fish (though this is not always true), and I almost exclusively used this method for a few years.  It resulted in several fine catches, like the bronzeback pictured below.

I returned to the French River again in the summers of 2010 and 2011, and the fishing was even better.  Maybe this was because of larger stocks, or maybe because I improved as an angler- hopefully it was because of both.  In 2010, while I was there as a counsellor at a scouting camp, I had a lot of success throwing crankbaits.  Most of the big fish were caught in the early mornings, and perhaps the biggest one around 10am when there was a light drizzle.  My general strategy was to toss my lures from my canoe into empty pockets in weedbeds, the perfect place for a predator like a bass to ambush its prey.  I also learned, however, that it is possible to catch decent fish in shallow water even in the heat of the day.  During one trip away from our base camp, I started casting from the shore around 5pm when it was still really bright, sunny, and hot.  I was throwing a jointed rapala into some fairly thick cover.  The result?  A fine shore lunch.

In 2011, I returned with my friend Kolya, who had some fine beginner's luck on the trip.  Using a jighead tipped with a worm, he managed to snag a fine bass, also in the heat of the day around 11am.  He caught it hiding in the shade under a small cliff, a good place for a fish to hide on a hot day.

Kolya's bass

Aside from bass, the French River also holds some nice northern pike.  I learned this on my first camping trip in 2003.  Because we were camping in the woods on Crown land, there was no place for me to get live bait- and so this was perhaps the first time in my fishing life where I depended exclusively on artificial lures.  I had a good deal of success catching large numbers of small bass, but nothing to write home about.  On one of our canoe trips into the provincial park, we stopped to camp overnight at a site just above some rapids.  It was evening, and I was fishing from shore- throwing a lipless Rapala crankbait.  After a few casts, I started getting the lure near a small batch of weeds surrounded by some open water- again, a nice place for a predator to ambush its prey.  As soon as my lure passed this group of weeds, I felt a bit hit and the fight was on.  Eventually, I managed to swing the fish near the shore and landed it in a net.  It was my biggest fish of the trip.

I actually returned to exactly the same spot in 2011, hoping for similar, if not better, results.  Unfortunately, I only managed to catch a small pike, but it was an exciting catch nevertheless since I was fishing a topwater lure (Skitter Pop).  The one tip I would give to anglers when fishing such lures is to fish with your eyes instead of your ears. 

 

In other words, don't try setting the hook as soon as you hear the fish jump out of the water and attack your bait.  Sometimes the fish is just trying to stun its prey, and sometimes it simply misses its target.  Regardless, setting the hook too early may mean that you are actually pulling the lure out of the fish's mouth before it has swallowed it.  Instead, look and wait a split second to see if the fish has in fact taken the lure, and then set the hook.  You'll lose less fish this way. 

 

The French River has always been one of my favourite places to fish, and hopefully I'll find some time to get back there this summer.  If you have a chance to go there, I highly recommend it.  You won't be disappointed.

2003 pike

2011 pike (photo by Nicholas Kalimin: n.kalimin@gmail.com)

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