Well, it's that time of the year again, the interim period between the ice fishing season, and early May, when sport fishing species like pike, re-open for fishing here. With the exception of carp and a few other species of "rough" fish like gar and bowfin, there isn't much interesting fishing going on in the immediate Montreal region right now.
As such, I generally like to target different species of trout and char in April. These species prefer cool to cold water, which make casting or trolling for them quite effective. Additionally, our neighbors to the South are quite keen on stocking them into their lakes and rivers in large numbers. Being that Both New York and Vermont are close enough to drive to for a day trip, and that both states stock many thousands of trout into their waterways, the drive down is usually well worth it, as long as the weather and fish cooperate with our plans.
For my first trout outing of the spring, I caught up with my friend Mike. We last fished together for muskies during the fall, so it was nice spending the day together on the water after a long winter. We headed down to Lake Champlain, to fish for lake trout. Incidentally, lake trout are actually members of the char family, and they thrive in near freezing water temperature better than most of their trout cousins. Either way, trolling for them right after ice out is a lot simpler than during the summer, as they are mostly up in less than 20 feet of water, gorging themselves on smelt and alewives in Lake Champlain. Being that Lake Champlain is bordered by both New York and Vermont, both states stock the lake, and as such, both states have a reciprocal license agreement, meaning that either license will let you fish most of the shared basin of the lake, which would be our target fishing area. A daily fishing license in New York is $10 for non residents, Vermont is $21 for the same, so I obviously opted to pay New York.
Lake Champlain is well over 100 miles long, over 10 miles wide, with a maximum depth of about 400 feet. Big water by anyone's standards, and with a South wind gusting over 20 km/h, the waves and white caps made for a rough ride out to our spot. Mike's 20 foot Lund is equipped with suspension seats, which made the simulated rodeo a little easier on our lower backs. On a lake that big, you better be with someone that really knows what they are doing, and has the proper boat, equipment and experience to effectively put us onto some good fishing. Aka, Mike.
After a good 1/2 hour or so of a bumpy ride, we finally got set up to start trolling. Plan was to set the Minn Kota trolling motor on auto pilot and cruise control, in order for us to be able to both fight fish while running lines without anyone at the helm controlling the boat. Unfortunately, the big waves hitting the bow made the trolling motor go berserk, so he had to steer, as we trolled a few lines running crankbaits and spoons, some with the help of planer boards to keep a good spread on our lines.
After about 1/2 hour of nothing, Mike decided to run down to the end of our planned pass, and try a deeper pass on the way back up. As well, the troll would be smoother with the waves coming from behind us. Sure enough, we got the auto pilot set this time, and the rest of the day was a breeze.
It took less than 2 minutes for the the first hit, landed my first laker of the season.
Being that lake trout are extremely fishy, and quite polluted in Lake Champlain, the plan was to release them all. After a quick release, I got another hit, this time, the lake trout was a lot bigger.
At around 10 lbs or so, it ended up being the biggest of the day.
For a lake the size and depth of Lake Champlain, one would think there was a good potential for lake trout to grow very big, but in reality, the lake record under 20 lbs. Despite having caught many dozens of lake trout there over the years, my 2 biggest ones were both in the 12 lbs range.
Now, my hope was to beat my previous best during a hot bite, but that didn't happen. What did happen, was non stop action on every pass we made. in about 5 hours or so of fishing, we landed a whopping 20 lake trout, most in the 5 to 8 lbs range. Probably about 125 lbs or so in total, which made for pretty much non stop, rod bending action.
By far, the most productive day I've ever had on Lake Champlain. Well worth my $10 daily fishing license fee to New York state.
For my second April trip to New York 6 days later, I chose to target stocked trout in the Adirondacks region of the state. New York has a good trout stocking program in many of it's Northern counties, including the rivers in Clinton, Essex and Franklin counties, which are typically where I focus my efforts, being that they are the closest to home for day trips of this sort.
As in most of my previous outings to New York's trout rivers, I went along with Jimmy, to wade the frigid rivers. We fished 4 different spots over a good 5 hours or so, 3 of which contained brown trout. Rainbows were supposed to be stocked as well, but seems they are a bit delayed for some reason. One of our spots proved the most productive, with us landing about a dozen trout, and a couple fallfish. My last 2 fish of the day, were the biggest, caught them casting a brand new #4 blue fox spinner, before I eventually lost the lure to a snag.
The feisty brown trout made for some good fun using medium light in strong current, had my drag singing nicely. Kept some for the table, hope to cook up a fish fry over the next 24 hours.
Well, it's about that time of the year when winter flows into spring, and ice fishing seasons near there inevitable end. For most of the regions I fish in Quebec, the season closes on April 1st (for now), which means late March is my last chance of getting out to fish on ice.
After getting out on my float tube for a late winter outing earlier in the month, I was hoping to have the time, opportunity and cooperating weather for 2 ice fishing days in March. Sure enough, everything came together as planned.
For the first outing, I headed North, back for another attempt at some good ice fishing for bass. After staying away from the region for a couple months due manly to excessive snow cover, I made the trip with only a couple days left to winter's calendar date.
Morning started off quite cold, I trekked onto the lake in -17C temperature. Recent rain followed by a deep freeze had frozen the surface solid, and with very little snowfall in between, it was a breeze making it out to my first fishing spot.
Action was unfortunately much slower than normal, and the bass weren't active at their usual depths. After catching a smaller perch in deeper water, I eventually connected with a few largemouth bass where I would have expected to find them, jigging a variety of lures.
After the action slowed down despite my relentless drilling all around normally good spots on the lake, I eventually connected with the only smallmouth bass of the day in deeper water.
Nothing big, but welcome catch as usual. With only 6 bass and 1 perch to show for at the end of the day, I was ready to tackle my next spot the following week.
Now into early spring, and with a busy schedule, I set aside 1 last day for ice fishing to end my season, choosing to target a lake I had never fished on ice. This lake had been on my radar for a while, and is one of very few lakes in Quebec to offer winter / ice fishing for pike, muskies, and tiger muskies. Despite these species being recorded in the lake, their numbers are not strong, and populations likely dwindling.
I got started mid morning, by setting up a spread of flag lines, baited with a mix of mackerels, herrings and a hot dogs. Once set up, I jigged smaller lures with the help of my flasher. Fishing was very slow, and after a good 5 hours or so, I had only landed 5 tiny perch. I called my season to an end, broke down and stowed away most of my jigging gear, and proceeded to start pulling up my flag lines for the last time this season.
Getting to my first line, I felt some weight on it, despite the flag not being tripped. Sure enough, I came to realize that it had somehow failed, and I actually had a fish at the end of my line. A few minute later, I was holding my first ice musky of the season, and only second ever iced musky. Crazy enough, my first musky on ice came exactly 6 years to the day.
Needless to say, my 2026 ice fishing season ended on a high note. Looking forward to some open water fishing once the ice is all gone.
Quebec's wildlife ministry recently released the rules for the 2026-2027 fishing season. While some of the rules they have updated make sense, the zone has been chopped up into various segments in the zone exceptions, making them more complex than they should be. Personally, I think it would have been simpler to simply include the entire zone into the new system, being that much of the most fished waterways are now under the exceptions category. Leave it to the ministry to complicate things more than need be...
In a nutshell, much of the St Lawrence river and it's tributaries will be completely shut down to fishing during the last 2 weeks in March, starting in 2027. As well, most of these waterways will now have a slot size for keeping pike (56 to 70 cm), and walleye bag limit reduced to 2 fish. Walleyes and saugers will be under a mix of separate and combined rules, i.e. sauger opening 2 weeks later later than walleye, but combined total bags with a majority of saugers only. Walleye and Saugers will also be closed in these exception zones for most of fall (November 1 to December 19), and re-open for the now shortened ice / winter season. Segments of the Outaouais River, Mille Isles river, and even the Lachine canal fall into some of these new rules as well.
The exceptions are listed below the general rules for the zone.
The icon indicates a change from the previous season.
Looks like the conservation agents are going to have their work cut out, and no doubt many people are likely to run into some expensive "surprises" due to the confusion.
Lastly, don't forget to renew your fishing licenses that expire in 2 weeks. You can do so online, or at stores like Canadian Tire, Sail, etc.
Every March when the outer temps warm up above freezing, I try to plan my first float tube outing of the season. Most of the fishable areas around Montreal are still covered in ice, but the spot I go to has open water, due to the warm outflow of a nearby factory. The actual fishable area varies based on the level of warm water flowing in from the plant, and this year, due to reduced production, I eventually figured out that my target warmer water area, would be significantly smaller than usual.
Being that we are still in winter and that most of the area I fish is surrounded by ice, I wear thermal socks and long johns under my neoprene waders. Still, once I get into near freezing water, I'll feel the temperature drop quickly enough. In water that cold, fish get lethargic, and lures are far less productive, but being that I'm fishing from a constantly moving float tube in very shallow water, I don't have too much choice.
After spending the first couple hours casting spinners and jerkbaits at my normally productive areas, I worked my way back closer to where the warm water inflow is. Average depth there was about 2-3 feet, and with decayed weeds still present, I was left with little choice other than casting a topwater lure.
During my trip to Miami, I found an old Top Dog topwater lure while shore fishing the canal on foot. I owned one many years ago, and after my son Levi used it to catch a monster pike at Le Domaine Shannon a few years ago, I let him keep the lure. It's a walk the dog style topwater lure, about 4 inches long, with a wider mid section and loud rattle. I cleaned up the lure, and put some brand new, sticky sharp Gamakatsu hooks on it. No better time to field test it for the first time than mid winter...
Sure enough, within 10-12 casts, I saw a big wake follow the lure before hitting it. I was sure it was a pike, but to my surprise, it was a very nice sized largemouth bass. Landed the big bass, grabbed a couple quick pics, measured just over 19 inches and a couple ounces shy of 4 lbs.
Way to start off my 2026 float tubing season!
With more cold weather on the way, I'm hoping to squeeze in another ice outing or two before the season closes on April 1st.
Back from another trip to Miami, visiting my daughter and family. This time, I took along my youngest daughter and son as well, as it was his first time visiting Florida. We had many family events and trips planned all week, which provided for less fishing time than usual for me. No big deal, I've fished Miami and Florida plenty enough in the past, and no plans of stopping either. For the purposes of this blog, I'll stick to our fishing related adventures...
Before the trip, I had set 3 separate fishing goals:
1) Fish Key Biscayne for a day with a guide. I chose Captain Carl Ball who runs Awol fishing guide service. I've fished with him multiple times in the past, and have always been happy with his effort and quality of service. Being that Zev has never caught a shark, we figured we'd make it "easy" and focus our efforts on catching blacktip sharks.
2) Fish one of the piers with my grandchildren. Choice of Sunny Isles beach, Dania beach, or Pompano beach. I've fished all three piers in the past, with varying degrees of success. We'd make it a short outing, and combine with some beach time. Fishing with them has been on my bucket list ever since becoming a grandfather in 2020.
3) Spend the latter part of my trip fishing the Royal Glades / Snake Creek canal in North Miami beach, a short distance on foot from where we were staying. I've had better results on every trip since starting to fish there a few years ago, and it's mix of peacock bass, largemouth bass, jack crevalles, and possible snook, make for some tough but very rewarding fishing.
Goal 1:
We set out to meet up with Captain Carl at Crandon Park Marina, South of downtown Miami. We were on the water shortly after 6:30 AM. First order of the day was to check Carl's first spot for tarpons before sunrise.
Unfortunately, we couldn't find any tarpons, which we normally target by sight fishing. We headed off to make a run for the first shark spot of the day. Plan was to catch some ladyfish to use for cutbait. Ladyfish are very easy to catch, and make for good fun on light tackle, much like mini tarpons.
Sure enough, Carl hooked one on his first cast, and immediately had a shark come after it. Zev and I followed up, and hooked one each on our first casts. While I reeled mine in at high speed, Zev tarried long enough to get hit by a blacktip shark. Shot some footage of Zev getting sharked by "the taxman".
Next two casts with cutbait, landed back to back blacktip sharks. Quite small, but enough to get him some much needed practice.
3 sharks within the first 20-30 minutes was great. I thought we had it made, to where Zev would have sore arms well before the end of the outing. Unfortunately, the sharks and ladyfish both disappeared from the spot, and nothing else bit for a while.
We moved to another spot, and despite seeing some sharks, none were interested in our bait. Eventually, I started sight casting for barracuda, using a walk the dog style topwater lure. Using long distance casting and high speed retrieves, Carl and I kept drawing in schools of high speed chasing fish, but just about none were committing to biting. I eventually hooked a nice barracuda that gave me a couple blistering runs before spitting the hook.
We moved to another spot, where the cut ladyfish managed to draw in two decent size nurse sharks, as well as a bigger blacktip shark. They all came within inches of out bait in the shallow water, but none took the bait. I managed to hook a small barracuda while casting, but it quickly jumped twice and spit the hook before I even had a chance to reel down and set the hook.
Eventually, we hit another spot that was crawling with ladyfish. Zev and I hooked and landed a good 7 or 8 of them, and lost a few more.
Eventually, we called it a day without hooking any more sharks, but not by lack of trying hard. As I often say, "it's part of the game"...
Goal 2:
I've been waiting for a while to finally get my grandchildren fishing. At ages 3 and 5, they are both ready to get started on good numbers of small fish. While I can guarantee that sort of action back home around Montreal, it's quite another feat to achieve in Miami, being that most of the spots I fish there are rather tough. With a short fishing window of about 1 hour or less, I figured my best bet would be to take them pier fishing for bait using a Sabiki rig. Being that I had two rods, my plan was to hook one up for bait for a potential bigger catch, while hooking good numbers of a mix a pilchards, croakers, or other smaller fish near the pier's pilings.
For those of you unfamiliar with the Sabiki rig, it's widely used in pier fishing, at least in South Florida. A nice stretch of 4-5 feet of mono or fluorcarbon line, with 5-6 razor sharp small dropper hooks, tipped with a tiny piece of plastic that imitates fish skin. Clip a sinker to the bottom of rig, drop down, and slowly jig. When the bite is on, the bait fish swarm the rig, and it's common to pull up 2-4 fish with every drop of the Sabiki rig.
We decided to hit Sunny Isles beach before sunrise. After spending a good 90 minutes or so of beach time, we got on the pier. Within a few drops, I landed a small bait fish, possibly a pilchard. I hooked it up to a bigger hook. and got some pics with my grandchildren before casting it out as bait on my second rod.
I then proceeded to show both of them how to drop and retrieve line using my spinning reel. Frustratingly enough, the pier was surrounded by thousands of schooling bait fish, but none were remotely interested in my rig, nor any of the other offerings anyone else the was using to try to catch them. A throw net would have been the best best, but not what I was there for. We ran out of time, and headed off to next event of the day with my grandkids. At least I finally got my first outing with them done, next time we'll have to plan on more pier time with them.
Goal 3:
Last but not least, was fishing the freshwater canal near my daughter's home in North Miami beach. For those of you that follow my blog since a while, you probably have read my succession of figuring out how to successfully fish this tough waterbody. After many long days of trial and error using various fishing lures and tactics, my best bet is to put in many hours casting jerkbaits. As such, I brought along some extra Rapala Husky Jerks for Zev to fishing along with me, hoping to put him onto some more fish.
One of the major factors in finding success fishing the Royal Glades / Snake creek canal, is putting in time. When I'm alone, I'll often fish a good 8+ hours on foot, casting relentlessly, while covering a good 10-15 km per day. With 2 kids on the trip, and other responsibilities during my trip, I only managed to get about 8 hours over the first 3 days of fishing there, and only 1 small largemouth bass came to play.
I was sort of perplexed by the poor quality of fishing we experienced in the canal. Weather was seemingly perfect, ranging from 26C to 30C on the days with fished, along with sunny skies and moderate winds. What I did notice, was slightly lower water level than usual, as well as tons of dead iguanas and many peacock bass, due to a major cold front that hit the region a couple weeks before my trip. While I don't like seeing dead fish or wildlife, and of the dead peacock bass was by far the biggest I've ever seen in person, somewhere in the 22-24 inch range. At least I know there should be others in that size range or possibly even bigger in the canal, for me to try to catch in future outings.
For the last couple days of my trip, a cold front blew in, dropping night time temperature to 7-8C, with daytime highs around 15C. My guess was that fishing would probably shut down ever worse for peacock bass and jacks, but I had a small glimmer of hope that largemouth bass may get active, as they are more resistant to colder conditions.
By now, Zev had given up on the fruitless canal fishing, so I got out solo early morning with my kids sleeping in. 35 km/h wind gust had the wind chill down to around 5C, and I fished in a hoodie for probably my first time ever in Miami.
Casting into the gusting wind, I started getting follows from largemouth bass, and managed to land 2 of them in the first hour of fishing.
Eventually, working my way back to where I started, I was surprised to hook and land a feisty and colorful peacock bass, my first of the trip, decent size too at 15 inches.
Sure enough, my son in law was working a plumbing job working nearby and saw me land it. Small world.
Headed home for lunch around noon, and hoped to convince Zev to come back with me. He declined my offer. Too bad, as the bite continued, and I landed another peacock bass, and 2 more largemouth.
Headed home early again, but 6 fish landed in 5 hours was far better than what I was able to catch so far on my trip.
Next morning was our last day in Miami. I woke up early, and again, Zev chose to sleep in, with outer temperature just as cold as the previous day. I was hoping to put in around 3 hours for fishing, before getting home to get all my chores done before flying home.
Took me about half hour of fishing to hook and land another peacock bass.
This peacock bass had completely inhaled my lure, and had one treble hook in the gullet, with a second treble hook in it's gills. Those of you that have fished with me know how finicky I get about using sticky sharp hooks, and by the time I was able dislodge these, there was no chance this peacock bass was going to survive being released. Being that I was close enough to home in cold weather and having some frigid drinks and my backpack, I decided to harvest the peacock bass, being that I had never eaten one before.
Working my way down the bank, I landed my first jack crevalle of the trip about 20 minutes later.
Now, being that I was already going to be cleaning fish for lunch, I harvested the jack as well, being that I had never eaten one up until this point as well.
Feeling real happy about myself, things got even better within minutes. My lure chased by a couple tiny jacks, and both got hooked at the same time. While this happened to me with bass once before, I've come close to replicating it with bigger jacks and even peacock bass in this canal, but this was the first time I've landed 2 jacks at once, even if they were quite small.
To top things off, I found a frigid iguana, quite sure it was still alive and waiting to heat up in the sun before being able to move again. I got a quick pic and put it back when I found it,
Despite the fishing getting better, I was forced to make the difficult decision of leaving for home, with a very busy afternoon planned.
First in order was to prepare my fresh caught lunch. Fish were bled and spines snapped as soon as I kept them.
Next, I filleted and deboned both fish, making sure to trim off all the darker flesh and entire bloodline from the jack, in order to provide a cleaner / less fishy taste. I set them in the fridge to rest to a couple hours.
I seasoned some flour with a variety of spices, coated the fish in beaten egg, and dipped into flour mix. Didn't have any butter on hand, so I used a mix of canola and olive oil to pan fry them. Drizzled with some fresh squeezed lemon juice.
Plated the fish for Zev and I, along with arm pita bread and a well chilled, oversized beer. Found the peacock bass to be very tender and mild, while the jack was firmer and more flavorful. Perfect way to end out trip to Miami.
All in all, another fun and memorable trip, which won't soon forget. We got to spend a lot of quality time with my grandkids, daughter, son in law and his family. Some other fun outings included a trip to Basspro shops / Outdoor world, an airboat ride in the Everglades National park, trying my hand at golfing with the kids for the first time (at Top Golf), hitting the beach and some restaurants, and joining a group of about 40 family members for Monster Jam (monster truck competition) at Loan Depot Park, home of the Miami Marlins.
Would like to thank my daughter and especially in laws (Meir and Aliza) for hosting us yet again, their hospitality is legendary. Hoping to return sooner rather than later, for good occasions.
Not much ice fishing in January for me, with only two ice outings done all month. Finally got back out with my 13 year old son Zev to kick off February. Target species were stocked brook trout. A number of lakes in various regions in Quebec get stocked a few times per year, with various organizations running the stocking programs, which are often tied in with local derbies.
After one such derby on Saturday, my son headed up to fish the lake on Monday, hoping to find some of the trout that managed to avoid getting caught during the derby.
We got onto the lake in question by mid morning. Second hole I drilled produced back to back brook trout for Zev and I.
We then made our way around the area of the lake, drilling and fishing until we ran into a bunch of schooling brook trout in the 14th hole I drilled. Zev managed to pull 8 of 12 trout out of that hole over the next 1/2 hour or so, while I got a few more brook trout out of other holes nearby.
Most of Zev's hit on a small Kastmaster spoon tipped with a mealworm, while I landed a few on a small lipless crankbait. Big surprise was their avoidance of worms still fished on our secondary rods, only one brook trout landed on still fished worms all day.
Weather was amazing, sunny, no wind, and it warmed up nicely enough for us to shed out coats and sweaters for a while.
Unfortunately, we were not able to get to two bag limits, as the last 20 holes I drilled didn't produce a single fish. As well, the brook trout that got stocked were significantly smaller than I have caught there in previous years. That being said, free is free, and beggars can't be choosy.
Looks like we'll be eating well once I'm done cleaning these....
New year's 2026. Woke up to a lot more snow than forecast. High winds and blowing snow forced me to cancel my plans of fishing flag lines for pike near Montreal I headed up North solo instead, as my kids didn't want to attempt fishing out in the open in -25 wind chill.
I got to my spot mid morning, ground temperature was a balmy -18C.
Nearly half hour trekk on foot to my spot, towing the gear sled. Wearing that many layers, it takes very little time to heat up. It's crucial to avoid getting your underlayers sweaty, to avoid freezing later. As such, I remove most layers for the walk. Sometime, there is only one way to cool off.
I got started fishing not far from where I left off last week with Zev. Didn't take long to start catching bass.
Action was a bit more sporadic than last week, but I managed to catch a few nice bass up to 16.5 inches.
They were nailing those rattlebaits pretty aggressively. Mini Rattle n vibe from Yozuri, and Rapala Rap V blade tipped with mealworms did the trick again.
I made an effort to stay away from perch in deeper water. Despite some very nice ones in the lake, most are infested with worms. The few I did catch, completely swallowed my lures, and in these very cold temps, the delay in getting them released is likely to kill them after the release.
Day ended up with decent results, 18 largemouth bass, and 5 perch in about 5 hours of jigging. Left around sunset.
icon indicates a change from the previous season.
