July / August 2009 Fish Report

It is always hard for me to get excited about the July and August fish reports; I have plenty of fish, just not many anglers out to enjoy them!!!!  So let me spend a couple of minutes on the summer fishing at Long Sault.

In May/June I have 25 to 35 Anglers out every week. In September between 12 and 20. For the whole of the July/August I had 19 Brits out on holiday! The fishing is virtually always good here. For example out of the 19 that come almost everyone who fished every day went home with between 50 and 80 fish in a week.. All got big 20`s and most one or some 30`s.

In the busy weeks it is a war zone out here, we are out at 4 or 5 am to get the best spots and keep my prebaited swims away from other anglers not staying with us. In the summer we have the place to ourselves. We sometimes fish two or three swims in a day. If the guys want to break for lunch, they can bait up heavily knowing the swim will still be available when they come back, and we have more time to help out any inexperienced guests. The fishing goes off in the middle of the day if the sun is high and hot, but we still get 20 runs per day on average. If it is your first trip to Canada this is the time to come.

So to the tale of the tape;

Last week June was a slow week, (still 40 fish average) and as normal after a poor week first week of July saw the fish back on the munch. Roland,  big Al and  John all had over 60 fish with Roland top on 67, the average size was a little down but all had a lot of lower 20`s and several 27`s and 28`s.

The rest of the summer was fairly consistent. Simon Crewe and family fished some and toured some, Simon doing the early mornings and the girls joining him after breakfast. Simon now has a new PB of 32:05 and 11 year old Jane a 27. Carl and Pete had 53 and 58 fish to 34, and the Holden brothers really had a bag up but did not keep score. Some days they had over 50 fish between the three of them and during the trip landed 4 over 30 and a bonus 29 Mirror.

What is it with cabbies ?? Every time I get a few London taxi drivers in they try to drink the place dry. MIRACULOISLY they caught fish. No early starts for these guys, but Greg had 48 fish Peter 57 and Norm 61. Pete taking the big fish honors with a 36. Their fish score was a long way short of their beer numbers and Grumpy took more money off them than I did !!

Linda and Allen kept up the “ladies tradition” at Long Sault. Linda beating the old mans PB with a 34:08 ( I just love it, it almost always happens guys bring their wives so they can use two rods, get a double hook up so the wife HAS to land one, and it is a 30) Trevor got amongst the 30`s with 3 to 32:10. Ray Fenton had it bang off doing late night sessions with 80 fish to 35. He had loads of 20`s but only the one 30.

Apologies to the following six guys, I cannot find their fish reports :

Andy, Chris and Rod. were first time visitors Andy`s view of the trip has been posted on the forum, but what he did not mention were the two days I arrived to collect the gang, only to find them packed up and sunbathing as their little arms were aching……Think of the fish count boys!!. All three were hovering around the 50 fish mark. From memory Andy was over and the other two just under. However Rod had been leading all week but went down with a stomach upset on the last two days. This I stress was from Grumpies beer and not my Marians cooking!!

The Hampshire family (Father , son and uncle) had less fish but Paul in particular had a great time, beating his PB several times and fishing one of our Hook and Hold`em swims which is challenging to say the least. One mistake and they are through the bridge and you are in trouble.

Whilst we are short on Holiday bookings through July/August we do get a lot of short two or three day visits, and four hour guided trips for holiday makers. Pat Houlette travelling through stopped of one one day and spent three days catching 25 fish and a 34.
Mr Minimal had a few nights on the Darren’s Island and had 19 fish. The previous week I had had 50 in two nights from the same swim. So thinking something was wrong, went back with my Nephew after Norm left and only had 20 odd fish between us in two days. (Although they were back again a week later) So much for showing Norm how it is done J
 Mike Leung stopped in for two nights with the plea ….Please put me on some fish it has been my worse year ever in the Toronto area. He had 30 odd fish and went home happy. A group fishing up in Peterborough called with the question are their any fish up your end” The answer of course was yes and they got more in the two days here than in the week in Peterborough.

On the guided trips we had some nice ones; Two Korean guys booked 4 hours and gave up after 2 hours with 12 fish caught and 8 lost, they didn’t want any more!! Three builders staying overnight at the motel and rained off site had 8 fish to 32 and had never cast a rod before. Young Craig on his birthday treat and first ever carp session had a 30. We have still never failed to catch on a guided tour!!

The locals were all catching as normal; the one that made me laugh was one of the three dudes who complained “I read on your website about these guys catching 30; 40 or even 50 fish in day. The most I ever catch is 10-15 fish!! Later I was thinking…….he only ever fishes for 4 or 5 hours at a time…….