Rice Lake Report July 7, 2011

Spent the morning on famous Rice Lake, located just south of Peterborough, Ontario Canada. The blog is not easy to write because the fishing was the pits! Really, it was so slow. I did find out a few thing. One, the milfoil weed beds are thicker that I ever seen. The water is a horrible colour too. Rice is known for off-beat water especially during a bloom, but this was different. The water was a colour of a long espresso. Light brown near the surface and a dark, oblique a few feet down. The weeds seemed healthy; either a tan brown or lush green. So the fishing should have been good.

Water temp was 73 F is the morning and by noon hit 76. Spoke to a few cottagers who where in ear shot and they said it got cool last night. The first fish I caught was cold as ice. Strangely, the first 5 bites were all lost. They would hit the bait and then spit it like a flash.

The morning went like this:
7:21am
Launched out of Bewdley 

7:30am
Hit my first stretch of bank. Missed a small bass on a Chatterbait and my dad missed it again with a flipping tube. Two hits and two outs. 

8:13am


Lots of this stuff and more in the main lake! Yikes

Moved to next spot. Full of milfoil and looking good. Again, nothing for the longest time. 
9:10 ish am
Hit the first bass. About 14" long and cold. Came from a weed mat that was blown in with last night's wind. Dad misses two in a row. A weakish hook set along with timid bites was giving my dad fits.

9:20 am
Whack a nice one. Came off a line of floating weed mat. Hit it with the flipping stick and a Reaction Sweet Beaver and it jumped and battled well. I was about to boat flip it and it came off. Again, another lost fish. Not going well.

The two fish and a few missed bites came
from this type of cover.

Moved down a bit and hit another one but much smaller. This one fell to my dad's flipping tube.

10:00 am
We start looking for banks with more sun to warm up the bass. Funny thing was the amount of turtles sunning themselves in the deep water. I guess they were cold too.

10:00 am to  12:00noon
Tried about 6 more spots with only two bites and one bass about 11inches. My dad voes never to come again. We are spoiled on some of the other lakes we fish were 50 fish days are the norm even when the weather is poor.

Noonish
Returned to the spot were we caught a few and started further down the bank this time. I switched to a Zoom craw and 1 1/4oz weight to punch the weeds with the Flipping rod and a 7'2" rod was used to pitching the lighter grass. This one was rigged with a 3/8oz jika rig and another craw. One pass and we nailed a 2 pound smallmouth hiding in the inside grass line and another tiny bass sleeping by the roots of the grass. Both on the jika rig, nothing on the punching rod.

A few too many missing fish and
lost craws.

1:09 pm
Boat on the trailer and the clouds look dark and the wind switched. Rain? Wasn't interested in getting wet.

Passed by my friend Wilson who runs the Chip Shop and Rental boat place. I hand him some small posters and chat about fishing. He said the water just turned that weird colour yesterday and the fishing has been difficult for the novice anglers due to the weeds. Skilled anglers were still doing well. 

Wilson's place.

Pass by and rent a boat or grab a burger on the weekend from Wilson. 

Sorry the morning wasn't full of beasts but the fishing has not been fun for me. I never saw another boat catch a thing. No rock bass, walleye not even a sniff.

Till next time.