Mike and I just finished another Fish’n Canada shoot, this time with the “Fishmaster” Steve Hardcastle. Our intentions were to get out and fish Lake Ontario for early season Chinook Salmon, more commonly referred to as Springs or Kings. Steve charters out of St Catharines every spring and has been tearing up the water so to speak for the past bunch of seasons.
 
In setting up this shoot, I told Steve that I would really like to bring up the Princecraft for this one but also stated that we don’t want to put downriggers on it. He said “no problem” since a lot of his fish come on leadcore, copper and Dipsy Divers. All we needed on the boat were rod holders… DONE!

The day before the shoot I talked to Steve and of course he had the bad news that the fish have all moved deep… about 150 feet! I said “can we still try it?” and he said lets go for it.
Long story short we caught a small King in shallow water and Steve, being the Fishmaster that he is said we need to re-locate. So as to not scratch the entire shoot we agreed on heading to the mouth of the Niagara River and hope for Salmon or Trout.

The proceeding days had strong winds really churning up Lake Erie which in turn empties into Lake Ontario via the Niagara so the water had some color to it. The good thing was there was a few various mud-lines created. A mud-line basically is a separation of dirty to cleaner water.
As we started trolling we decided to try shallow as well as deep. When we hit the ultra clear water we started to see Lake Trout swimming under and around the boat and in no time we were catching them. The freakiest part of it all was the fishing method.
Our best success came from the rods directly off the back of the boat with Dipsy’s dragging in the sand while pulling spoons! It must have been the sand being raised up… I guess??? Regardless we probably caught 10+ Lakers on this crazy method with one pushing 20 lbs.

If you want a great day on the water for Salmon, Trout, Walleye or Catfish, get in touch with The Fishmaster Steve Hardcastle, when the going gets tough, he finds em!

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OK I guess I could be classed as lazy… no blog for so long… hey, winter’s a depressing time for an open water angler!
We just got back from the Detroit River shooting an episode (Mike & I) with Sean Patterson, a Durham police officer that has lived part of his life in Windsor. We met him at a kids fishing event last year. Angelo and Sean hit it off quickly and before we knew it, a shoot was set up.

The Detroit is a very odd fishery. Dead in front of Windsor is some of the best Walleye water in the country and right across is the amazing city of Detroit. There is a big misconception that Detroit is a hell-hole, eye sore that no one needs to care about however when you look across from Windsor, it’s one of the most beautiful cityscapes I’ve ever seen!
Now comes the twist though, at either end of these great cities (both sides of the river) is an industrial oasis that would make any heavy-metal band want to produce their next rock video there. This… is a very unusual locale for Canada’s favourite eating fish, the Walleye. Normally this great fish is associated with pine trees and rock shores having very little boat traffic. On the Detroit, 200 yard long ships, coast guard vessels and a wide array of smaller boats are the norm.

As for the Walleye fishing, although we hit it only mediocre, it can be phenomenal. Our biggest fish would have went between 6 & 7 pounds. The biggest killer for us was the weather; hot and sunny one day, cold and windy the next with coffee colored water (with a bit of milk of course).
Sean has had many 100+ fish days with his largest fish being a male over 11 and a female which I believe he said was over 12 or 13!!! Those are big fish in any water.

A couple of weeks ago we travelled to BC for a double trouble trip looking for Bass and Sturgeon. We hooked up with Justin Rempel and Vic Carro in search of our quarry. Again weather affected us but this time even worse. With Bass in the spring, everything has to be perfect for both the fishing and shooting a show. A huge front blew through and we were essentially at mother nature’s mercy. We did however find some great fishing areas like Hatzic Lake and Mill Lake, as well as Justin showing us a phenomenal little area that we will definitely be back to hit at a later date.
Getting a Princecraft/Merc set up for Bass fishing in such a “trout” oriented area is nothing short of nuts, but with the help of Wayne at Cascade Marine, he had us in the perfect BC Bass rig; a beauty 165 with 4 stroke 50 Merc and a trolling motor… all we needed to search out this unfamiliar to BC species.

As for the Sturgeon, Mike and Ezio Sbrizzi from Coleman Canada took the stage and got their strings pulled but again weather had dirtied up the river so bad that even these bottom feeders were put off. Vic from STS Guiding did a great job as usual by putting the boys on to fish in such bad conditions. It was great to see a guy like Ezio tangle with a fish that essentially “fights back” so-to-speak. In average Canadian fishing situations we fight a fish with angler dominance, however when you battle a 4 foot+ river dweller, the fish usually sets the stage for the battle. Ezio’s first fish took him totally by surprise by ripping out drag and making some great head shakes and death rolls!
We stayed at the luxurious Above and Beyond and were again 100% pleased with this outstanding facility. Their name truly epitomizes both the “house” as well as their hospitality. Thanks D.
Thanks to BC Tourism, Allison Jack & Kevin Poole of the Mission Regional Chamber of Commerce, STS Guiding, Above and Beyond, Justin Rempel & Cascade Marine (Chilliwack)

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I love this blog thing, I don’t even have to write about fishing!!!

I had to go up into an attic this past weekend to check out a problem with a bathroon exhaust fan. To make a long story short, I donned the coveralls and sniper-crawled across the joists totally replacing the tubing and the fan. Now if anyone has had this same problem you well know that something more than likely has gotten into the vent hole and decided to winter or breed in there. I’ve seen this many times. On this adventure I found 3 dead bird carcasses along with what looks like a Robin’s egg. The plastic tubing was shredded apart and the birds even started nesting between the joists in the insulation. Not 5 feet away from all the avian carnage was a huge bee hive hanging from the ceiling joists. I felt like Marlin Perkins up there!

And you people thought all we did around here was fish!!!

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