Spring Has Arrived!!! Where Is My Boat?

It was the first day of spring on Thursday and the sun was shining brightly. This combined with a post I read yesterday by @brian.rrr has gotten me excited for the new season. What season might you ask? Fishing Season! Unfortunately, where I live we experience 5 months of winter and it makes it tough to get out on the lake fishing when the lake is frozen. There are some places around here where you can go ice fishing and that can be fun but for me, there is no substitute for being on the water. Fishing in Ontario can be fun and exciting. Before moving here, I had never fished for many of the species I currently have the joy of catching. Even a bad day when the fish aren't biting just being out on the lake makes it a great day.

I grew up in Halifax, Nova Scotia where lake fishing was secondary. We would occasionally go to a lake and fish for lake trout but when we said we were going fishing it was to the wharf or some rocks and we were ocean fishing. We would spend hours on hours pulling a whole variety of different fish out of the water. Our favourite though was Mackerel fishing. Mackerel run in large schools and when a school runs by the wharf everyone fishing starts getting hits at the same time. The excitement is unreal. The best part is when you have multiple lures on your line. You can sometimes have three fish on at the exact same time. It is quite the exciting fight getting them in. My kids got to experience this last summer when we took them to Halifax. They also liked catching the squid off the docks as well.

There are a number of different species we can catch here in our lake. The big three that people are after are Bass, Walleye and Pike. These are my favourites to catch. All three hit the lure really hard and are fun to fight in. The best is when the bass comes jumping up out of the water. It's an exciting moment. Pike is such a powerful fish and will fight really hard. They can get pretty big as well. I have lost several Pike right before getting them into the boat because they never seem to stop fighting. There are also some smaller fish that are in huge abundance. There are yellow perch and sunfish which can sometimes steal your bait when you are trying to catch something a little bigger but they are easy to catch so the kids love it.

I had never caught a bass or a pike or a walleye before living in Ontario. A few years ago I had the opportunity to spend a week out fishing with some family here and I was hooked right away. After spending a little time catching these fish I knew it was something I wanted to do more regularly. I searched for places to fish from shore but had limited success. It was never the same as being out on the water. Floating around on the lake where you can cast off and fish in any direction or move yourself to any part of the lake. After a year spent doing this I knew that I had to get myself out on the lake where I was seeing all the guys having so much fun.

I wasn’t able to afford a boat but last year, we got lucky and were able to get a boat. It was my partner's parents boat that they could no longer use. They knew how much we loved fishing and how much the kids enjoyed it and wanted to see that boat getting used again. We were so thrilled! We transported the boat here from up North where they live. I got my boater’s license and we were set to get out on the water. It’s not a big flashy boat. There are some amazing looking boats that I see out on the lakes that are big and powerful. They have all the bells and whistles. They are equipped with special seats, live storage wells and expensive sonar systems. My boat is a simple 16ft aluminum boat with a 15hp engine and I’m as happy as a clam that we have it. It gets me everywhere on the lake that those big expensive boats go and I can catch the same fish they do. They just spend more money doing it.

As I said earlier, it was the first day of spring this week and I have been talking about the boat here at home for the past several weeks. Driving my partner crazy, to be honest, but she puts up me because she knows how much we all love being out on the water. I am hoping to get it out of storage this week and start getting it tuned up. It should be any day now when the town reinstalls the docks at the boat launch and I want to be ready the moment we can hit the water. The lake still does have a little thawing to do yet but not much.

Until then, I think I’ll hit up this gem of a spot that I found right here in our little town. Our lake here funnels into a river that runs right through town by the old mill. At this time of year the water is super high so the fish flow downstream and fall over the couple of small waterfalls we have. There is a slow spot at the base of some rapids where lots of big walleye and bass hang out. Might be a field day there right now.

Happy fishing season everyone!

Images: 1, 2
All other pictures are my own