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.

Fisherman finds body in Lake Scugog

By Sharon Lem ,Toronto Sun James Martin caught more than he bargained for when he went bass fishing Monday night.

First posted: Tuesday, July 5, 2011 3:02:16 EDT PM

Police search for the body of a missing man who was ejected
from his boat after a collision.
(Photo: James Marten Toronto Sun)

The Whitby, Ont., man and his girlfriend were fishing for large mouth bass in Lake Scugog Monday at 7 p.m. when he came across a body in the shallow water on the shore in the west side of Lake Scogog near a cottage dock on Washburn Island.
The Durham Police Marine Unit had been searching since Canada Day for the bodies of two men who drowned after colliding their boat with another watercraft about 200 metres east of Scugog Island’s north shore.

Sometimes You See Strange Things

You see strange things on the water sometimes. Practicing for a recent tournament, I was buzzing the bank and came across a super clean dock. This is nothing weird but on Lake Scugog, a weed choked lake, it is a bit unusually. Scugog is home to thousands of geese and ducks who like to loaf on docks and poop like crazy. I've seen cottagers storm out of their house thinking they were going to blast me for fishing under their docks only to thank me for spooking the geese.

HAPPY 4TH OF JULY!

Top Bass: Lake Scugog Tournament Sunday July 3, 2011 Standings

Tournament Totals
SCUGOG SCUGOG Jul 03,2011
Weight Team Fish Bass Captain Last First Last First
1 19.56 1 5 4.96 MACNEIL MICHAEL ANDERSON PAUL
2 18.42 88 5 5.01 WILLIAMS MIKE JACOBS DUANE
3 17.70 51 5 4.91 COLE CHRIS WALKER JUSTIN
4 17.29 24 5 4.59 RUSSELL AL PERRAULT DAVE
5 16.62 18 5 4.56 STAKOS LEO MILLS GRANT
6 15.50 8 5 5.2 SCOTT GREG BARTON JEFF
7 14.73 57 5 4.93 LANZINGER RON DAY ANDREW
8 14.71 76 5 0 MCINTYRE MATT IRONS KARL
9 14.33 44 5 0 EARLE GREG STRICKLAND BROSE
10 13.93 90 5 0 AUGUST JEROME AUGUST TYLER

Top Bass: Lake Scugog Tournament Sunday July 3, 2011

By Luigi De Rose

Lake Scugog is a strange place. A horse-shoe shaped natural lake located about 1 hour north east of Toronto, Ontario Canada, it can get a lot of fishing pressure. Choked with weeds, this lake is rich with cover. Docks, pads, cane, weed flats and two rivers provide anglers with a lot of choices. Unfortunately, it offers no breaklines, drops or defined bottom structure. If you're a deepwater, hunt with your depth finder type of guy, keep driving right past this place. It is not for you.

Go Fish ... It's Canada's National Fishing Week!

Fishing is an integral part Canada’s heritage. Across the country we have the National Fishing Week program and in this province we have Ontario’s Family Fishing Week.  Both are a full nine days in 2011 – and it all starts tomorrow July 2^nd and runs until July 10^th.  During this time, Canadian residents do not require a licence to fish in Ontario.   Many choose to try the sport and introduce their kids to it, during organized fishing events close to home. There will be numerous kids fishing events across the province and seven Urban Fishing Festivals in the GTA during the July 9, 10 weekend.

SUMMER @ IBASSIN.COM: TOURNAMENTS, ICAST AND MORE!

Sorry for not blogging much this week. Finishing up work, practicing for an up-coming tournament on Sunday at Lake Scugog and planning for ICAST has been taking up a lot of time.

What to expect this summer?
Ibassin.com will be changing gears this summer. The Bassmaster Elite tour is now complete and FLW has taken a summer break, but we have not. The focus will be on the northern tournaments. Several friends of ibassin will be competing and we want to provide really focused, in-depth tournament details. Unlike the top tour level tournaments where information is shared very liberally, these semi-pro angler are a bit more tight lipped. Usually, the fishing patterns are quite similar year after year and with respect to the winning anglers who have taken years to hone their skills, it would be tournament suicide to reveal everything to us. So, I will try to provide good tournament cover from several tournament trails within Ontario, Canada and a few larger American tournaments along the entire summer.

ICAST

This is the world's biggest fishing show. ICAST is where all the companies reveal what will be hot and new in 2012. Yeah, hard to believe we are thinking of next season. For many Canadians, bass fishing just started. I haven't even got to really try the cool lures I got from last year's ICAST. I will be taking a lot of photos, some video and trying to get it to you. Some blogs will be pure promotion of product while other posts will be more how-to. ICAST is about selling and we have to play that game a bit. It starts in 10 days and will be a blast. Judging from the volume of emails from vendors, there will be cool stuff there.

Expect to find a bit more oddball stuff here. I love the unique, especially if it Japanese. Last year there was so many cool things but it can get overwhelming. Keep tuning in because you'll see stuff here the more mainstream websites will miss.

FISHING
I will also focus many posts just on fishing. A day on the water with me and friends. These should be more photo essays. The point is that fishing is why we love the outdoors and I'll be trying to escape the office and hit the water a lot. I got off the water yesterday at 8:10pm and this tournament might be a strange one. I am not fishing a whole circuit, so points mean nothing to me. It will be a hunt for big fish. Wish me luck!

HAPPY CANADA DAY!