Rock Bass

Posted on July 5, 2009 by Jonathon Marshall

1 Comment

My Trip to Springwood Cottages

About a week ago I took a trip up to Springwood Cottages with a few friends. We planned this trip perfectly for the opening of bass season here in Ontario and wanted to visit a lake that wouldn’t see much boat traffic. Opening season on some lakes near Toronto can be brutal in terms of the number of anglers on the water. Since Springwood is about 4 hours from Toronto is was both close enough and far enough to provide good fishing and low angling pressure. On top of that Springwoods cottages and services were both top notch, I was so pleased that I decided to review them, which makes this the first cottage review we’ve ever posted.

Springwood Cottages is a beautiful cottage resort open all year, owned and maintained by Cezar Spirala, located on Kennebec Lake in the Land O’ Lakes region of Ontario (near Napanee about 4 hours from Toronto). There are several cottages spotted around this beautiful piece of Canadian Shield land and each is very well maintained and clean. Each cottage also has its own personality and extra amenities, some of which can get pretty luxurious including things like flat screen tv’s and jacuzzi. The decks surrounding the cottages were also in tip-top condition. The area is nicely landscaped and the staff are young, energetic and very friendly.

Continue reading my review of Springwood Cottages

After the review you should also check out the album of photos from my trip to Springwood Cottages.

Posted on August 20, 2006 by Jonathon Marshall

No Comments

Smallmouth Fishing With Guest John Marshe

John Marshe and I headed out to a small lake about 3 hours from Toronto, it’s one of John’s favorite spots to fish. The lake was comprised of several canals chained together, and the structure and vegitation could change drasticly from channel to channel. The rocky channels seemed to be the most productive and held a great deal of fish, whereas most of the weedy channels seemed to be so weedy and shallow that we couldn’t find even a single bucket mouth anywhere near the slop. Our intentions were to fish for musky, but after an hour or so of no success we decided to switch things up and target smallmouth instead. We caught quite a few in the 1-2 pound range and even spotted some 3-4 pounders cruising in the deep weeds.

John Marshe works with MeegsOnline, “Ontario’s Most Favorite Jig”, and a is frequent contributor to OFN.

Thanks again for taking me out on your boat and sharing with me some of your secret fishing spots and tactics.

Posted on August 7, 2006 by Clive Mathias

5 Comments

London Fishing Report, August 6 2006

The weather has been extremely hot since Gillian and I moved to London, Ontario. In our little, un-air conditioned apartment, life was rather miserable for about 48 hours. We stayed at my sisters house to escape the heat, which was nice, but it meant fishing was out of the question, since there was nowhere within walking distance to go. Yesterday evening was the perfect day for us to head out to the river and find some fish. Thanks to some helpful tips from our readers I knew there the river holds several species of fish, and I had a basic idea where to start searching.

Within the first few minutes of fishing I had a short strike from a fair sized bass. I used a small #3 Mepps spinner bait to coerce a nice little smallmouth bass minutes later. The little guy put up a great fight as all river bass seem to do. At first glance the fish looked nice and healthy with a good sized belly. As I removed the hook I noticed that the fishes mouth was badly damaged and one of its eyes were missing, perhaps the result of a foul hook or an attack from another fish. On the next cast, I hooked another fish, this time a small rockbass, We headed up river for a few minutes before calling it a day. Hopefully our next visit will produce some larger fish.

Posted on July 10, 2006 by Clive Mathias

7 Comments

Bay of Quinte Report, July 9 2006

Gillian and I decided to take a quick trip to the Belleville, Ontario to do some shore fishing in the Bay of Quinte with a couple friends. Very windy conditions and heavy boat traffic made locating walleye and bass very difficult. We ended up targeting small pan fish. We caught a variety of fish, including rock bass, sunfish, bluegill and for the first time I caught a goby. The goby is an invasive species that can be found throughout the great lakes. They take over prime spawning sites traditionally used by native species, competing with native fish for habitat and changing the balance of the ecosystem.

We fished well into the darkness and my friends landed a couple nice bass and a big crappie before we packed up and headed home for a few beers.