Fishing Articles

  Winter Rules 1. Under 36°F, seek low-gradient river segments and slow sections of pools. 2. Steelhead may avoid overhead cover in the coldest flows. 3. Water levels determine extent and distance when steelhead run. 4. Make successive drifts in tighter increments—short first, long last. 5. Slow the drift and hit their nose 6. Carry a thermometer.   Driven by high winds across an open field, snow came over the ridge above us in vast sheets and clouds. It curled as it hit the dead air of our protective hideaway and settled on us where we sat warming our fingers....

The external temperature gauge on my Dodge was reading -20C (-4F), while we were parked along the shoreline of Owen Sound Bay.  Two hours had to pass before the sun would peek its burning face above the frozen horizon to the east. Ice had finally arrived in our end of Georgian Bay. According to satellite imagery, record-breaking cold temps of the week before had locked up a massive chunk of Lake Huron for dozens of miles.  Safe ice wasn’t an issue; the locals knew what was going on and another truck was parked beside us contemplating the pre-dawn walk out to...

  Neither Julie Roberts nor Tom Cruise has starred in movies about ice fishing. Hemingway never wrote about the big two-fisted frozen lake. Not even Jack London in his tales of hellish winters in the Yukon dared explore the jig, the tip-up or the ice-fishing shanty. It could be that those of us who do decide to don heavy boots and parkas to fish on frozen waters see art before the artist. It could be that our soul-stretching triumph over the elements is beyond language. Or it could be that we're crazy. That thought does cross one's mind, a half-mile...

 It didn’t take a rocket scientist to quickly realize that Doug Stroud had that special “something” when it came to catching Lake Erie yellow perch. I hadn’t even tied the anchor rope off and settled my 27 foot Mako into a holding position and Stroud already had two jumbo perch resting on ice in the cooler and another two being lifted up and over the side waiting to be unhooked. Perch-hungry or just plain enthusiastic, my guest for the day was obviously showing me his stuff and it was pretty impressive to say the least. The cooler lid was hardly...

A fellow from Missouri called me recently to ask about fishing in Northwest Ontario. I began to describe the waters he wanted to visit during the fall period and suggested he might not be able to get out on the water every day in a bass boat. He sounded perplexed. “These lakes you’re describing can’t be that big,” he said. “I fish Table Rock most of the time. Now that’s a big lake.” “Do you have an atlas?” I asked. He said yes, so I asked him to find it. “You see Lake of the Woods, there? That’s about 6...