hardcorefishn

2009-04-18T04:01:00.000-07:00

Well, it's been while since my last post - mainly this is due to my lack of internet at home. We moved out into the bush almost three years ago now and the only available internet is dial up, and I refuse to pay for something that slow. I'll start updating this blog as time permits, but I'll start adding some of my hunting adventures as well.

2006-08-01T09:29:00.000-07:00

LAKE SUPERIOR (off shore fishing)
June 18, 2006

Myself and my wife spent the afternoon fishing along the shoreline of Lake Superior in downtown Thunder Bay. The weather was nice on this day, a little windy but the sun was out and it was warm. We walked along the shore of the small bay and we were successful in landing a couple of small "Hammer Handles", but nothing big. We then decided to make our way across to the small break wall and fish the sheltered waters between it and the shoreline. We found a nice spot to stand on the rocks and fished a drop off right out in front of us. Here we landed a couple of larger Pike, Amanda caught a nice thick 28 incher that put up a nice fight. We landed a couple of others and then they all decided that they had enough, that was it no more, they stopped bitting. We started heading back when I decided I wanted to try wading out a bit further to see if the fish were out deeper, I was wrong. I wadded out past my waist (just shorts and sandles) but I think I was on the wrong side of the river mouth. I ended up catching nothing that day while wadding, but it was a hot summers day, nothing wrong with getting a little wet!

2006-07-04T09:10:00.000-07:00

LAKE SUPERIOR
June 15, 2006

What a day on the lake, myself and my cousin Ronny headed out on Lake Superior early in the morning in hopes of hooking into a few Salmon. We got out past the breakwall, set up our lines, and then trolled around for about one and a half hours. After we had trolled for the hour and a half the motor died on us, we were able to get it to start and run, but it just wouldn't troll any more. We attempted to troll over and over again until we were so fed up that we decided to go and drift the harbour for some Pike. So, we headed to a dock in the harbour and drifted casting smelts for Pike. We had no luck at the dock so we decided to head to the mini break wall in front of the marine, while we were heading there I happened to see a fish swim away as we were heading over a weed bed. We fished by the rocks for awhile, Ronny hooked into a nice Pike, but I didn't have any luck in this location. I suggested that we go and try where I had seen the fish in the weeds and so we did. Once we got back there we were able to see fish swimming in pairs on the bottom, we could see the fish coming out and hitting our lines, and we could see the fish follow our lines to the boat and then turn away as if they were not interested. We were limited for time, so we only stayed long enough to catch a few fish each.

Later that evening I took my other cousin Jason and his two little girls down to the same fishing hole and we got into the Pike again, this time we caught a few larger ones. We drifted all over the weed beds casting smelt rigs and spoons, landing fish after fish, we must have landed 20 - 30 fish that evening. The largest that I caught was 32.5 inches and it was a beauty. Jason kept two fish that his girls had caught for the smoker, and all the rest were put back to be caught another day, and I will return to this little hole.

2006-07-04T08:52:00.000-07:00

LAKE X
June 10, 2006

Myself and Steve headed up to Lake X in his vintage 1962 Chevy Impala 4 door with a boat, motor, and trailer towed behind. We headed straight to where we have had success in the past, and sure enough we got into the Walleye pretty quick. Unfortunately the wind was terrible and our anchor was too small to hold us so we ended up moving around trying to get out of the wind. We managed to get 5 decent sized Wallys before we had to move, so we were doing well already. We ended up finding our way to the end of the lake and exploring the outflowing river system, found a couple of holes that would probably be good early in the season, we'll be back. After exploring the river we decided to head to a sheltered bay for some Pike action, and did we ever get into them. We didn't catch any trophy Pike, but there is something about pulling a buzz bait across a lily patch and watching a 3lb Pike come rocketing out of the water, missing your lure, and then as soon as he hits the water again he smashes your lure and the fight is on. Wow, we had a lot of fun pulling in Pike after Pike, we even managed to catch 5 that were large enough to keep. Before we called her quits for the night we drifted across the front of an Island where again with the buzz bait, we pulled 4 decent bass out of the trees and rocks that lined the shore. They were nothing huge, but you can't keep any over 13" this early in the year. We headed back to the launch where we packed up and headed home to clean the fish that we had just caught.

2006-06-06T20:00:00.000-07:00

LAKE SUPERIOR
June 4th, 2006

Left work early tonight to go and enjoy a beautiful evening out on Lake Superior. I met my cousin Ronny at his house and we took the 14 footer down to the Current river to launch and head for for some Salmon. Good thing the weather was nice, otherwise it would have been a terrible night. We caught no fish, but thats OK, at least I got out.

2006-05-31T16:39:00.000-07:00

MARKS LAKE
May 31, 2006

Myself and James got out again today to take his little guy Jordan out in the boat, and hopefully to get him on some fish. This time out Jordan was a little more realistic in his estimation of how many fish he was going to catch, unlike the other day at Hazelwood where he said he was going to catch 100 fish, today he said he was going to catch 18 fish. Unfortunately he still came up short of his goal, but he had a great time on the lake while trying to catch his 18 fish. To start the trip off Jordan received a gift from his father, James had picked up a new Abu Garcie rod and reel combo for Jordan, a big kids rod! Jordan liked his new fishing gear, and it didn't take him long to figure out how to cast it out.

The day started off pretty slow, we anchored in an 18 foot hole expecting the fish to be deep in the hot windless weather. Unfortunately the fish didn't think the same as we did and none of them were there to bite our hooks, so we headed across the lake to another hole just inside a weed bed. This is where Jordan got to reel in the first fish of the day, a small pike, we threw him back. Shortly after the pike was caught I hooked into the first Walleye of the day, it was a decent size for eating, so we kept him. Jordan threw his line right into the same hole that I had just pulled the Walleye out of and within seconds his bobber was pulled beneath the surface, the hook was set and Jordan reeled in his line to find another small pike at the end, we kept him long enough to get his picture taken and then we released him. For the next little while the action stopped, we moved around a bit, explored a bit, and James eventually hooked into and landed another small pike. We decided to head across the lake again and try some trolling, and then it would be time to head home. We trolled along the shore in 18 - 20 feet of water, snagged a couple of 12 foot humps, but didn't catch anything. After trolling the deep water we started to troll a little shallower, about 7 - 8 ft of water, and thats where Jordan got to feel the strike of a Walleye. Jordan set the hook, very well, and the fight was on. I reeled up my line to grab the net, and as he pulled his rod tip up I was able to net the fish, good thing for the net because just as I got him in the net he spit the hook. We continued to troll up the shore line a bit further, and as we came to a shallow area James set the hook and watched as the fish that just hit his line broke the surface and did a nice little dance for him. I grabbed the net and we successfully landed a nice 16" Small Mouth Bass, we kept him long enough for a photo, and then we released him back into the lake. By this time it was almost time to go home so we ran across to the other shore for one last kick at the cat before we left. We managed to find another hole, and we managed to find a couple fish, but they managed to take our minnows and not the hook. That was it for today, we headed back to the launch to load up and head home. On the way home we got to see some wildlife, we spotted a Ruffed Grouse in the trees, and then we seen a Bear a little further down the road, he didn't give us any time to take his picture, but we all got the chance to see him. Until next time... ...maybe next week.

2006-05-31T16:28:00.000-07:00

CLOUD LAKE
May 30, 2006

Went out to Cloud Lake with my wife today, fishing was slow, but the weather was nice. We hit the lake around 3:00pm and fished the shore lines for some bass, we managed to hook into a couple and the largest was 16 inches. We left the lake around 6:00pm to go and visit a near by friend, but we did return to the lake around 7:30pm. By this time the wind had died down and the black flies were out in full force, we didn't last very long on the lake the second time, our sun burns from the afternoon were killing us and the black flies were eating us alive, so we decided to call it a night. On the way home we decided to go the back way and just as we crossed a bridge I heard a rustle in the bushes and turned to see a Moose standing on the side of the road. I stopped the car and grabbed the camera for a few pictures when I noticed a little one coming out from the ditch, this had to be the smallest Moose I'd ever seen. I was able to get a few photos before the Cow and Calf made there way across the road and into the bush. So, we may not have caught a lot of fish, but it was definately worth it to see the very young calf and it's mother out for an evening stroll.

2006-05-27T10:13:00.000-07:00

HAZELWOOD LAKE
May 27, 2006

Went out fishing this morning with James and his son Jordan, we took Jordan to Hazelwood lake in hopes that he would hook into a few fish. He had high hopes when we first arrived, he said he was going to catch 100 fish, it would have been nice but it didn't happen. We did manage to get him hooked on 2 fish, the first was a small pike that got off the hook right at the shore and the second was a small perch. He also missed one early in the day, didn't lose his minnow but it sure received some war wounds. While we were there we came upon a snake making it's way through the trees, I was able to get a decent picture of it as is remained motionless in amongst the pines. We are planning an outing next week with the little guy, hopefully we can get him on the 100 fish that he wants to catch... ...you never know.

2006-05-23T09:59:00.000-07:00

May Long Weekend 2006
Brightsands River
hardcorefishn adventure 2006

Well, another May long has come and gone, this year we had 6 in our group, 3 that have been out on a Hardcorefishn adventure before, and 3 newbies. The ride up to Brighthsands wasn't looking to promissing, for weeks prior to our departure I kept hearing horror stories about the condition of the road into Brightsands, and how bad it would be to attempt the 93km trek. We had even decided to head back up to Majata, but on the day before we left I got word that the road had improved and that they would be spending the day on Friday grading and repairing the road for the opener. SO BRIGHTSANDS IT WAS. We left saturday morning around 11:30 am, the weather was off and on rain, but it kept clearing up. It wasn't until we were half way to brightsands when we realized how terrible the weather can be on the opener, we hit a snow storm while travelling on the highway and the snow continued off and on straight through til Sunday. It was terriblty cold when we arrived at the lake and started to unload our gear, it was even colder travelling across the lake in the boats, but that was nothing compaired to how cold it was at night. We headed across to a large Island where we decided to set up camp, hoping that being on an Island meant that there would be no bears, and there were none that we seen. Shortly after setting up camp we headed out on the lake to where we had done good in previous years, unfortunately with the early spawn and the cold front the fish were not as easy to catch, and the were not where they were the years previous. We moved around and eventually found the fish, we were able to catch enough for a good fish fry for dinner and decided to call it quits as I couldn't feel my feet anymore. We headed back to shore and built a tarp covered fire pit area and had a nice shore lunch, fried Walleye in beer batter and beans, nothing better than that! When I got up the next morning, I exited my tent to find a blanket of white stuff on the ground, yes snow, it was cold enough over night that the snow actually stayed on the ground. Sunday was a cold and windy morning with a fairly decent afternoon and evening. We fished all day, kept a few for a shore lunch, and then headed back out in the evening to catch some fish to take home the next day. Between the four of us that were leaving in the afternoon on Monday, we kept 12 fish to take home, we figured that we should have no problems catching the remaining four in the morning. Two of us, myself included, decided to stay out past dark for some late night lunker fishing, we had our head lamps and flashlights to find our way home. We stayed out until just before midnight and had only caught 3 fish in the dark, the largest being a 20 inch Walleye, we released them all. We were half way back to the camp when all of a sudden my outboard died and a big puff of white smoke came billowing out from the engine cover, what happened I'm not sure, but I did know that we would have to paddle the rest of the way back to camp. By the time we got back to camp, everyone else was getting ready for bed and I still had to clean the 6 fish we had caught earlier and we still had to make some dinner, so we didn't get to bed until 2:30am. The next morning we woke up a little later than we had anticipated and we were a little cramped for time as we wanted to be home by supper time. We decided that myself and Pete would head out for an hour or so to see if we could catch the remaing 4 fish we needed for our limits, we succeeded, but it took longer than I thought. When we first got out on the lake we fished the same flat that we had been fishing the night before, except today was sunnier and warmer, the water temperature had even risen by 2 degrees. So we ended up trying some deeper water and they were there, we caught a few more decent size Walleye in 26 - 32 feet of water. Once we had our 4 fish we headed back to camp so that we could pack up and head home, wouldn't you know it, the day we have to leave is the only nice and sunny day with tempuratures in the double digets, oh well... ...there's always next year.

2006-04-04T19:41:00.000-07:00

MOUNTAIN LAKE JULY 2 - 6

My Wife and myself spent 4 days camping at one of my favorite lakes in Northwestern Ontario. MOUNTAIN LAKE, we started caming there about 9 years ago and we try to get up there at least once a year. The Lake has Smallmouth Bass and Lake Trout, the Lakers are small but very tasty. This year we had our three dogs with us and with them being Huskies we had to camp out on the island, they don't like to stick around if we camp on the main land. The fishing this year was a bit slower than usual, hard to catch the lakers and hard to find any decent sized Smallies. The May flies were in full hatch and the fish along the shores and in the bays were surfacing all day and night gobbling them up, so I spent a lot of my time wading along the island with my fly rod. The water in Mountain Lake stays cold all year as it is a spring fed lake that gets as deep as 214 feet, but that didn't stop me from grabbing my googles and snorkel for some swimming with the fish. Mountain Lake has crystal clear water and you can see through the water quite easily, so I like to go snorkeling for snagged lures and just to hang out with the fish and see where the like to hide. The Island that we camped on was nicely set up for camping, perfect flat surfaces for pitching the tent and lots of room the move around, the one side of the Island was deep enough to jump off the rocks to go for a swim, and the other side had a nice rock bar for wading and Fly Fishing. Unfortunately I didn't get too many pictures of fish from this trip, most were too small to take pictures of, but I did get a cool picture of a Cow and Calf Moose swimming across the lake on our way home.

2005-08-02T17:03:00.000-07:00

DRIFT LAKE JUNE 25, 2005

Myself and another fishing buddy decided to head out fishing for the evening, we only had a few hours so we had to go somewhere relatively close. We headed out to Drift Lake, Drift seems to be a good day trip lake as the camp site seems to fill up with lots of people on the weekend. We left town sometime around 3pm and were on the lake fishing shortly after 4. I had intentions of fishing one particular spot but there were 2 boats already in there when we arrived, so we headed straight across the lake and drifted the shoreline. We fished the shoreline until we noticed that the other boats had left the other spot, and all we were able to catch while drifting the shoreline was one small Pike. We headed across the lake to a point and decided to drift across the shallows to see what we could pick up, there were a couple other boats on the lake and they didn't seem to be catching anything either. We drifted across the point once and then while trolling back up to drift again we caught our first Walleye of the day, nothing big, but at least we knew they were there. So we decided to drift the same area again and we were successful in locating more fish, while we were drifting another boat came out and dropped anchor just up from where we were drifting, so we decided that we should drop anchor. We were anchored in about 14' of water and jigging right off botton with light jigs and twisters tipped with minnows, we were able to hook into quit a few Walleye. We spent the remainder of the evening anchored in the same locations picking up about 30 Walleye, 8 of which were decent enough to bring home for dinner. There were a couple other boats that hung around trolling up and down the shoreline and even anchoring nearby, but they all seemed to have troubles hooking into anything, one other angler on the lake informed us that we were "kick'n ass" and asked what we were doing that was so special. I don't have a problem sharing information with others so I told him exactly what we were using and how we were catching them, unfortunately this did not help him:) It seemed that we were the only boat that was successful on this day (according to the anglers that I talked to).

2005-07-25T21:50:00.000-07:00

LAKE X JUNE 13th, 2005

Lake X is a small inland lake north of Thunder Bay. I'm calling this Lake X because there are some people that would be upset with me if I start giving out the names and locations of these small lakes that are fun to fish and totally unpopulated. A few years back we started fishing Lake X and we were pretty successful, we would frequent this lake about 2 times a week, we rarley ever caught anything over 18" but we had alot of fun catching and releasing the smaller guys. As you can probably tell by most of my posts, I'm not a trophy hunter, I fish in lakes where I know I will catch fish because I enjoy catching fish. I also like catching good eaters to bring home for dinner, and I also like to provide my Grandparents with some fish from time to time.

This day out at Lake X was a warm day, the temperature was about 28 degrees celcius with very little wind and no clouds in the sky. There were six of us in 2 boats and we started off at an old hot spot around 8:00am. After some time and very little fish we decided to head up the lake to fish some structure. We found a couple of humps on the bottom with the fish finder and dropped anchor, we started to catch a few right off the start. Funny thing though, it was mid morning, clear and sunny, very hot, and yet we were catching fish in 8 - 10 feet of water and couldn't find one fish in 20 feet of water. But, who's complaining, we were catching. We spent most of the day anchored in this spot and with three of us in the boat we were able to catch 9 fish big enough for keeping. After the fishing slowed down we decided to cruise a few small bays and try some surface lures for pike, we had one guy in our boat that didn't think we would catch anything in such shallow water, but he quickly changed his mind once the pike started flying out of the water after his lure. We had to be back at the launch and ready to leave by 1:00pm so we had very little time for pike fishing, but the few that we did catch and the few that we missed were definately an exciting end to our fishing day. We made it back to the launch in time to load up and leave, and also to find out that we outfished the 3 in the other boat, maybe next time...

2005-07-21T21:44:00.000-07:00

BRIGHTSANDS JUNE 4th - 5th 2005

As I mentioned in my previous post our hardcorefishn adventure was short listed to two people this year, not only that but we also shortened the trip to 2 days. Myself along with my fishing partner for this trip Steve left rather late on the Friday night, there were a few sceptics about wether or not we would make it out there (it was dark, I had only been there once, and we had no spare tire for the 92kms of dirt logging road). We proved everyone wrong as we pulled into the campsite around 12:30am. We had plans of setting up our tent and spending the first night on the main land, but just as we were pulling in there was a group of Americans in the process of scaring off a bear from the camp site, they informed us that he had been hanging around and had done some damage to some of their camping gear. So, after sitting around the fire shooting the s_it with the Americans we decide to sleep in the cab of the truck and look for an Island to camp on in the morning. Well, that was an uncomfortable sleep, between the people yelling at the bear all night to Steve hitting the headlights with his knee setting off the audio alarm, I think we may have slept for maybe 1 hour. The only good thing about the bad sleep was the fact that we were able to get an early start on the day, we were packed up and on the lake by 6 bells. We crused across the lake to check out a few Islands and we found a nice little Island just big enough for the two tents and a fire pit. It was nice on the Island, no bears and the breeze from the lake kept the misquitos away. We got out on the lake fishing by about 7:30 - 8:00am, and within the first half hour Steve was happier than a pig in s_it, he had already caught more fish than he had caught all year last year. We were catching a few fish, nothing big, but lots in the 17 inch range, we even hooked into a few larger Pike. We kept some fish for a fish fry, so for lunch we had our secret "Fishheitas" and boy were they tasty. After lunch we decided go out for some catch and release fishing as we already had enough fish for dinner. We again got into the Wallys pretty good, but again nothing big. We decided to head back to the Island for some fish and beans dinner and a little relaxation around the fire, unfortunately with the early morning comes an early night. The next morning we decided to head down the lake to the portage past the falls to another lake, this is where the Americans were fishing and they were catching Walleye in the 3 - 4 pound range. Once we got to the portage and were introduced to the millions of misquitos that were there we decided that it wouldn't be worth it to spend our last day portaging through the bush. So we headed back up the lake and fished our usual hole, boy were we glad we didn't portage to the other lake, the fishing was excellent, lots of Walleys and a few close to the 18 inch marker and 1 that was over. We even caught some very aggressive 30+ inch Pike, one even had a Walleye that was on my line swallowed all the way back to his dorsal fin. With the fishing this good we had no trouble catching our 8 fish to take home, so we finally decided that we should go and pack up so that we could get home in daylight. And believe it or not, we made it home without any problems:)

2005-07-20T19:21:00.000-07:00

HARDCOREFISHN ADVENTURES

In the past few years I have been going on a 4 day hardcorefishn trip with the boys from work. We normally try to find a lake that is good for fishing and fairly safe to camp, the past couple years have been a little interesting with the increase in the bear population.

Four years ago we started the annual trips with a fishing adventure out at Cheeseman Lake, we had a couple of Southerners join us for the trip and the fishing was pretty decent. The largest fish that weekend was about 2.5 - 3 pounds and the rest were all good eaters. We got an extra treat that weekend as there was a large forest fire in the area and we got to watch 5 waterbombers fill up numerous times, they were flying so close to us that we could see the pilots and their engines would rattle our oars in the boat.

Our second hardcorefishn trip was spent out at Brightsands, we were a little concerned about the 92 km treak up a logging road, but it really wasn't that bad. We camped on a point right beside the in flowing rapids (some call it a waterfall), this was one of the nicest camping spots that I had ever been to. The fishing was again very good, nothing huge, biggest again about 2.5 - 3 pounds and a lot of good eaters. There's nothing like a can of Bush Beans and some fresh fried Walleye. This trip was a little rough on me though, I lost my voice for the first 2 days (no one else seemed to complain) and then after a few beer and going for a swim, I may have drank a little bit of water which resulted in some possible Beaver Fever, I was very ill that night (I even stopped fishing). But all in all this was probably one of our most enjoyable and memorable hardcorefishn adventures.

Our third hardcorefishn trip was held at Majata, we had the usual 5 guys and we recruted one more. This trip was full of mishaps and misfortune, we had a bear that got into our cooler on the first night eating our cream and salads and a pound of bacon, while repositioning the vehicle that night to scare the bear away we accidentally ran over the chain saw. The next day we woke up to the bear again outside our tent trailer looking for food, he wasn't very aggressive but he definately was persistant. The two individuals from Southern Ontario didn't arrive until our second day out, so someone had to go pick them up at the airport, that took half a day. Oh, and we forgot to pick up gas while in town picking up the two from the airport so we had to run to the Kab Lake Store to get gas. More misfortune, while travelling to the store we got a flat tire, and to top that off, the store was closed so we had to go to Gull Bay. Besides all the bad luck, the fishing was good, nothing big just a bunch of good eaters. Did I mention the weekend was full of misfortune, the weather was also terrible, it rained, it hailed, it sucked!

Our fourth hardcorefish trip was held this year, unfortunately due to health reasons our group was short listed to myself and a new recrute. We decided to go back to Brightsands where we had to camp on an Island to stay away from the bears. The trip this year was good, no problems getting there, no problems while there, and no problems getting home. Again, the fishing was good, nothing huge just some good eaters and a few 30 inch Pike. I even had a large Whitefish on but I had no chance of bringing him in with the current we were in. The weather was nice, and good thing we were on an Island because the flies on the main land were brutal. Hopefully 2006 will be yet another successful hardcorefishn trip, and hopefully we can get the original crew back together.

2005-07-20T13:37:00.000-07:00

Welcome to hardcorefishn, the name hardcorefishn was given to me and a fellow angler a few years back due to the amount of fishing we were doing that year. We fished in the rain, we fished in the snow, we even had a canoe out on the lake in mid March during a snow storm! I'm an avid angler from Thunder Bay and I mostly fish small inland lakes for Walleye, I don't consider myself an expert in the field of fishing but I do hold my own when out on the lake. I've recently purchased a digital camera and I bring it with me on all my fishing adventures, this page will be my fishing trip diary where everyone can see where I've been, what I caught, and even the wildlife that I've seen. My first image that I will post will be my hardcorefishn logo, the logo was made up a couple years ago by myself, half of the logo was borrowed from a graphic that I found on the Internet, and the other half was hand drawn by me. Hope you enjoy my Blog.