Would I consider myself a professional Angler?
HELL NO!
I don’t enter tournaments, own a boat, or have ever purchased high end equipment. I would consider myself an enthusiast. My wife loves fishing almost as much as I do. She never fished as a kid growing up so she’s still learning. Every catch she makes is full of excitement for her. We live in midtown Toronto so we are always looking for decent shore fishing spots in, and around the city. We have found a few. I’ll share them with you, along with what we caught in this blog. Over the summer we take a few day trips out of the city to fish as well. This year we are adding Peterborough, Sandbanks provincial Park, the Bay of Quinte, and Minden to our list of places to fish.
Our first drive out of the city this year was up to Guelph Lake. The Guelph Lake Park and Recreation area doesn’t open until 8:00am so we began our day at a great little spot I know of. It’s only about 5 minutes from the Guelph Conservation area entrance.
The road 29 marker at the center of the picture is the spot. The East side of the bridge is the better location but both sides will yield results. Having a small dingy to get further away from the road is a real advantage for landing some really good sized Bass. My wife and I just casted spinners and spoons for a couple hours from shore. There are a lot of snags so precise casting is necessary from the East side. If you can’t control your casts yet, then there are far more open areas on the West side of the bridge. We spotted a few decent sized Bass breaking the surface about 30 feet further in from where we were fishing. I hooked a Bass that immediately got under a downed tree and shook loose. The time we spent there wasn’t for naught though because my wife landed a Smallmouth Bass. Just a little guy, but it was her first Smallmouth so she was thrilled. We packed up, and headed over to the Guelph Lake Conservation area shortly after that. It did not disappoint. There’s a small dock a little ways in toward the island access in the Guelph Lake Conservation area. We parked there, walked over to the dock and began casting spinners. My third cast in I hooked a decent sized Largemouth Bass to start my day. It’s the one pictured at the top of the Post. My wife had a solid strike just a few minutes later but wasn’t able to set the hook quickly enough, and it got away. It was about another hour before I landed another similarly sized Largemouth. Already a good day by our standards. The real celebration would happen another couple hours later. Around 1:00pm I had worked my way a little further along the shoreline and found an access point where I could comfortably cast alongside the shoreline. Maybe 25 casts later I got a heavy strike and set the hook well. Fish On! I’m using an Ugly Stik spinning rod with 8lb test monofilament, and a size 3 Mepps spinner. By the time I brought the fish within eyesight after working it out of some branches and reeds I realized that it wasn’t another Largemouth Bass. It was a Pike. Not the largest Pike, or anything worth bragging about, but thrilling all the same. My whole reason for coming out to Guelph Lake was to hopefully land a Pike. I didn’t land a single Pike last year. Not even a strike actually. I’ve caught Pike in this area before, and there was a lot of talk of decent sized Pike being landed in Guelph Lake recently. My day was a total success. The wife was thrilled because she had never seen one caught before. There’s something about the sleek lines of a Pike that just makes you think it’s a fast capable fighter. Needless to say that my wife is now hell-bent on landing one herself. We fished for another couple hours but the Pike was our final catch at Guelph Lake.
We took the 124 to Erin where our favourite little Pizza place is. Whenever we are anywhere near Erin we will go a little out of our way to buy a Venezia Pizza. Their signature pizzas are excellent. There are a lot of great pizza places in Toronto. What makes Venezia Pizza that much better is the crust. Thin but not too thin. Crisp without being brittle. The taste actually adds that little extra zip whereas most pizza crust is just dull. We took it to go, and made our way to Belfountain to try our luck at my absolute favourite fishing spot as a kid.
At the corner of Shaws Creek and River roads there is an access that takes you down to the credit River. I have never left this spot without landing a fish. Usually a great spot for Brook Trout, we spotted a school making it’s way upstream. We were casting Yellow spotted Panther Martins upstream into the current, and slow retrieving them. Basically we were allowing the current to carry the lures past the school, and just reeling them fast enough to keep them off the bottom. Took about 30 minutes of casting but we both landed what I originally assumed was a couple good sized Brook Trout. It wasn’t until after I posted a picture to the Fishbrain app that I was informed that they were actually Atlantic Salmon. I was happy when I thought they were Trout. Realizing that they were actually Atlantic Salmon made it that much better. I’ve never fished for Salmon. I was planning on fishing for Salmon later this year. There’s an area on the Don River that very few people fish that they’ve been spotted the last few years.
If you are serious about fishing, and are looking for places to fish. I would strongly suggest that you download the Fishbrain app. The community is very active, and like me aren’t afraid to share great fishing spots.
