Once again found myself up early and heading out for some Pike here in Southern Ontario. I was meeting up with a friend and his Dad who had travelled to our area from Pennsylvania for a vacation. Last year during their annual trip we met up for a fish on Sydenham Lake and had done very well with the Pike. This year we decided to try for a repeat performance once again on Sydenham.
Fishing went extremely well and we boated over 15 Pike on a variety of classic pike lures. Nothing big but still lots of fun.
Summer is nearly here in Southern Ontario and bass season approaches at a frighten pace. One week for crying out loud!
Only way to beat the stress of prepping for such a holy occasion is to break out the boat and relax with a little fast paced Pike fishing (my kind of relaxations). And that’s exactly what I felt like doing this dreary Friday afternoon.
With an eye on the sky and my mind on Pike, I slipped away from work in the early afternoon and headed home to hook up the boat. Pike was on the menu and the word on the street was Sydenham was hot this time of year. The plot thickened as one of my readers, Frank from Pennsylvania, had contacted me about a trip he was doing in the area and was interested in the pike fishing we have around here. Having spent time on Loughborough and Collins already, he was looking for a change of water and Sydenham fit the bill perfectly. The locals had reportedly informed him Sydenham is one of the best places to chase around these toothy critters.
With our destination set, we made the quick drive and met near the boat launch, which is located down town Sydenham, right behind the public school. After a quick introduction, we loaded our gear into the green machine and tore away from the launch. The afternoon found us fishing the south west part of eel bay to start, just past the old train bridge. It didn’t take long for Frank to tie into a decent 4.5 – 5lb pike. the fish was caught by pitching a large spinner bait into the weeds over 5 to 9 FOW with a vigorous retrieval. Nice Fish Frank!
Pike are slimy, slippery, toothy little buggers, but I wouldn’t trade them for a world! Luckily, we didn’t have to, because the bite was on in a big way and there were plenty to go around.
Pitching and trolling throughout eel bay, we kept hooking up with fish. At times it felt like we couldn’t keep our lures in the water for longer than 30 seconds.
Surprisingly enough, only 3 of the 17 fish caught were hammer handles (i am referring to small pike which resemble a hammer’s handle!). Numbers weren’t as high as we have seen them in the past, but I attribute this to the size vs numbers cycle I have observed in our area. It seems pike populations grow in pulses with tons of small fish for a couple years, followed by reduced numbers, but an increase in size for the following few years. Based on todays performance, id say we are on the upswing of the size portion of the cycle. From my experience I can also infer that our fishing success had a lot to do with timing. We hit the water immediately after 3 days of rain which in my opinion is the perfect time to catch pike. Moral of the story: Don’t be afraid to get wet because the gators certainly arent!
As always, I finish the post with some sort of plug for the local lake or area I am writing about; 17 decent sized pike in the span of 3 hours on a beauty of a lake, I don’t think a plug is really needed…………
Went out for another run at pike. This time we decided to give Sydenham Lake a try.
The lake is divided into two sections, a deep portion running east to west and a shallow portion located north of the deep portion separated by an old railway bridge.
Naturally as it is spring we crossed under the bridge and headed for the shallows.
Spinners and spoons did the trick with success in both trolling and casting.
We ended the day with a total of 12 pike and one out of season bass (which was promptly released).
The trip was not as good as Collins, but an afternoon with twelve fish is better than working or no fish at all!
The Wilds of Ontario 