Leaderboard

Seasons closed

Black Bay salmon populations have been dropping for years. In its heyday 15 yrs ago Black Bay was the go to spot. Not anymore. The last 5 years have been pathetic and getting worse every year. The Steelhead population has crashed in Black Bay, so it was only likely that the salmon would follow. Black Bay is now a place to go target big walleye. And its very good once the water temperatures warm up. The walleye and perch populations have exploded over those years. Harvest on the perch, especially during the winter has knocked the size back, but their numbers are still pretty high, just not the size we used to enjoy. I don't know if we will ever get the salmon numbers back that we used to have. Lowering the limit in the lake might be an option, from 5 to say 3 per angler. Trust me, I have a lot of money tied up in salmon gear so I can understand the desire to "make a trip worth it". What would make more sense, although less popular, would be to protect the spawning fish that do make it back to the rivers. We protect a lot of different species during their spawning run through seasons or sanctuaries. It might make sense to put the limit to zero after say the 15th or 30th of September. That way anglers could still fish the rivers when the salmon are still fresh and possible table fare, but when the actual spawning activity really gets going, the spawners would have some relief to do their thing. It would be nice to see the OMNRF open up the walleye fishery north of Bent Island in Black Bay, and open the season in Nipigon Bay. Those green meanies are recovering in their native areas and eating a lot of salmonids of every species. Wishing I was Fishing! AB

Sturgeon bay and mink bay are both in full swing! Friends went out and limits!

Where is mcvicar? I cant find it on google maps

Where is micvicar? I looked on google maps but I can't find it

There are probably several factors at play here but reduced stocking is probably the main culprit. As you probably know, pink salmon and chinook salmon were introduced to the Great Lakes. One of the main factors that lead to stocking chinook salmon was the over-abundance of alewives. Pink salmon do not rely on alewives and they have adapted well to life in Lake Superior with no need for supplemental stocking. As I understand things, the alewife populations in all of the Great Lakes are drastically reduced and that has lead the fisheries agencies to cut back dramatically on their chinook stocking efforts. While there may be some natural reproduction by chinooks in Lake Superior tributaries, they have never really gained a foot-hold like the pink salmon have. So fewer stocked chinooks means fewer adult chinooks returning to the tributaries in the fall.

Well I tried bannons( cams) bait. cheapest in town, fresh bait, minnows are great size, good count and $5 a dozen! can’t go wrong!

So just to add to this, I did go into white otter, it's definitely a rough road, it's not great theres no denying that but let's be honest here, to say you can't make it without a side by side or quad is not true, I made it in a full size 2019 ram 1500 that's not a beater, and once I got to the launch there was a small car, SUV's, and a bunch of way nicer trucks then I have, it's passable and you can go slow enough to not destroy your vehicle or boat, I didn't meet another vehicle on the road so that was good because there's only a few spots where you can move over. But it is passable and it's just time consuming to get into, but it was a better option then paying well over $100 for the parking/portage/boat launch fees in my opinion as I didn't damage anything, and we had a great time at the castle and fishing was good to!

Canadian tire gas station is 2 dozen for 9.99 I would have thought it would have been the same at the other Canadian tire…guess not I know I’m a little bit off but that’s 6$ in savings. Either way after that bait shop sent me paragraph after paragraph absolutely loosing their mind on me for calling his mediums minnows expensive, trying to get me to essentially come fight about it, im not sad it isn’t there no more😂

Naming public places on this forum directly helps aspiring fishermen to experience new and successful areas. Clearly you are new to this forum. If you live and are from here, there isn't too many secret spots that people don't know about. I even mentioned that I have my own "honey holes" but I doubt very much that they are secret. At the same time, the spots I named, are EXTREMELY known, and even if they aren't, easily attract new people just by looking at google maps, or any older forum on this site. I've been ethically fishing here and most of North Western Ontario for 35 years I don't need to be told what is and isn't appropriate when trying to assist someone in their "quest" for being successful at fishing. Glad to see you mentioned the Regulations up top as a subtle jab at user "Big Guy: in regards to his 5 fish under the size "limit" but what you failed to do was go further with the regulations and read on about the EXCEPTIONS in regards to Stocked Lakes which he clearly mentioned he was fishing (Tuesday Lake). This forum is for friendly fishing community members helping each other out and sharing experiences Your elitism has no place here. You don't like my friendly/helpful post? Too bad. I hope it was helpful to member "Clueless" and anyone else that may have been reading.

Why are people still bringing their animals there? I wouldn’t be surprised if your mount “went missing” like many peoples have over the years. Hopefully you get it back. I only use Dan at boreal tales, definitely worth the wait.

With this warm weather, I think around midnight (with dipnet) would be when they'll be trickling in, but as it cools down, like, probably next weekend will be more fish around right after dark. (I haven't been out, yet, atha, but I'll post once I have.) To the OP: It's not uncommon to limit out in an hour, at peak. I've got my net mounted on a telescopic pruning pole, to work further from shore to have better footing, avoiding injury. Last year I got a muskrat by accident. It came out of the net fine. A bit ticked off, and surprised i bet. But do bring a light to be safe.

it's a pretty secret spot not surprised you haven't found it, keep looking tho you'll get there...

You can catch them on small spoons, jigs or spinners. Most people use dip nets for them.

One from a couple years ago up 527, il be a tease and not say where it’s from pretty common to see a blue tint to walleyes in certain lakes the area then some other lakes you’ll never see it.

My question was where does it say ‘illegals are poaching’ that’s what I asked.I pointed they used the word ‘foreigner’ and asked is that word offensive. Seems like you’re implying all these other facts. I see people poaching, the guys in the video see people poaching. You’re implying a lot of BS and turning the narrative of the poaching. But this what our society does nowadays.

Apparently, the targeting of people for their color and country of origin time is here, too. Crime doesn't have a color. Posting this "Illegals are poaching." racist crap should stop, and anyone doing it should be called out for it. I'm all for going at poachers. Just recognize, and emphasize, it isn't about the color of their skin or their country of origin. That includes posting an article that targets ONLY illegals for a behavior that has no color. You should be better than that. We all should. I'm an immigrant myself. The only reason I'm not suspect, nor would I be in the eyes of people who post bigoted crap like this, is because I'm a white dude. I could be pulling out snags and people wouldn't look at me twice, not in the way these folks are targeted. We need to bear this in mind when we're targeting groups like this, because it can and does lead to violence, targeting, and racism. I hate poaching, and poachers. We absolutely need to solve that problem. But post articles that aren't just racist dogwhistles, please. Or I can find another forum. One where this isn't supported. I left America to get AWAY from this bigoted bullshit, not to find its new home.

There are a couple signs but not as many as we should have. Its just annoying because he is about 2 meters from a building on the property that's a solid 10 meters from the ordinary high water line and if the dock was in the water he would be an easy 3 meters inland from the dock. Makes it a little pointless to invest in a lake property when you could be sitting down by the lake and just have some random person walk past you between you and the dock. I get nothing can be done. Its more of a respecting peoples space thing to me. I was raised to respect other peoples land and space.

My teenage daughter works retail in Thunder Bay. Theft is so common that (as she tells me) the police have told the store manager not to call unless there's a weapon involved. Apply that anecdote to your own situation as you see fit....

Found a rod and reel left at the shore last weekend. If you think it is yours, tell me the fishing spot and make of rod/reel and I will try to get it back to you.

I’ve noticed a lot of people in our area like to make signs “disappear” and the next guy along never knows because he never seen one.

Ive been looking all over for a while now, post after post, fish on line site, even just went to some rivers to see if i could get a bite, but nothing. Also need some advice in terms of how exactly to catch them. Any advice is appreciated.

Thought i'd post a few pics from my Tactacam . Cow and calf spent 2 full days hanging around on 2 different occasions.

Lookin for more people to fish with and make some friends I fish every weekend and free time and maybe learn some new lakes

Ive had a flat in my fridge from end of june. Still good to go and I did nothing other then remove handfulls at a time.

They know of the issue and will be allways watching. I know of many fines being handed out especially during the pink salmon run.

There is a lot more then one Dam that controls water level on the Kam. Any time of the year Ontario Hydro must maintain a level that will not effect the eco system of the river. And then comes the weekend of tourist traveling and stopping at the park hoping to see large amounts of water coming over the falls. This is a agreement between Hydro and the Provincial parks to keep levels where tourist are not disappointed. I pick High bush cranberries at the baily bridge at the Stanely on the islands. Most years I can walk across with my canoe and fill it up but this year the current and water level is pretty strong and caution needs to be taken not to slip on the rocks and get taken down stream.

Our stocking program is a joke. Out of all the salmon I’ve caught I’ve never seen a hatchery fish.

If they open the dams, water goes up! if they close the dams, water goes down! we had lots of water in may June, levels in dog and shebandowan were high, so they controlled the lake levels by the dams. go look at the macyntyre, and drive up the shore and have a look! your dog won’t get swept away there!

2 weeks ago

My friend was there and there were 13 trailers!

Was at Arrow Wednesday night to mid day yesterday. Didn't fish much this trip. Was too hot so did a lot of swimming. Water temps ranged from 75-80 degrees in West. Caught a lot of smallmouth off shore and the dock. Did go out one morning and found a hump that isn't on any lake maps. One of the better pieces of structure I have found in West so far in my 2 trips to the lake. Marked fish on it and had two large bait balls on it. Trolled over it several times with a stick bait, spoon and swimbait and only caught smallmouth. We got a couple on top of it and even picked 2 up off the edges in over 60'+ of water. There has to be 5,000,000 smallmouth in this lake. They are every place we have fished so far. Probably wont be able to get out there again till late September.

When and where. I’m down!

The road is about the same as it has been for the last 10 years or so. The deep water hole is not that deep hot through no problem. It’s common to see 18 footers at the boat launch

Right turn. Road is about 500m long. Park at end. Quad trail takes you to the river. Watch for bears…they like to hang around there.

I went in last year and it’s definitely the roughest I’ve seen it. I imagine with all the rain this year it won’t be too pretty. It was very slow going with my 3/4 ton on 35”s.

I drove my new Nissan frontier towing a 16 foot boat last august right to the lake. Couple of shallow holes but better then some parts of the boreal.

We went in there 15-16 years ago. It wasn’t a horrible road it had some mud and rocks it was slightly wider than a truck we hauled in a 16 foot boat on a trailer. Was a few 17-18 footers in there. You backed down a hill it has some rocks and kinda like a granite landing was an island out front and a shoal. We used the Ann’s bay road. My dad definitely takes care of his stuff and he took his truck in there and went slow. Was even a couple suvs in there. I definitely can see it growing in and I couldn’t see the holes getting any smaller in 15-16 years.

Zack....you can offend all of the people some of the time, some of the people all of the time but you can never please all of the people all of the the time. The printed studies that I read suggested that Black Bay would have trouble supporting both species left "as is ". Certainly the expense of refurbishing the dam or removing it became political with both sides lobbying hard. As for salmon fishing....I never did figure those things out. After 15 years of pounding it I honestly believe water temperature was the most telling thing for me. If we had a stable , consistent south west breeze blowing into thunder bay the fishing would pick up . Seemed thermocline and stratification stability caused bait fish to consistently be at predictable depths. One big wind and rollers disrupted everything. Knowing what depth to set cannonballs at was a huge plus. For me..32-45 feet was the sweet spot. However ..my two biggest 19 and 17 pounds came after a storm by pulling up one cannon ball completely while setting the other down to 70 feet where I marked a huge baitball . One cannon ball and downrigger allowed me to zig in and out following them for as long as i could. I truly dont know anything about salmon other than they are voracious feeders ...hence targeting large schools of baitfish. As for lure type, color, speed ..Im sure its relevant. The whole beach had their favorite lures that seemed to be cyclical. Williams whitefish and Gibbs Krock in silver caught the two biggest but didnt work as well shallow. Truthfully...I sent those down trying to get a laker for dinner. Provisors, nasty boys, J plugs all caught fish but.....one 5" long "no name' spoon in purple/silver fished at 36 feet out fished all by 5-1 . I will say this in closing, between 2003-2008 it was normall to get five in an afternoon. I found the best times of day 11 am and 2 pm . I'd be willing to bet every fisherman has their own go-to pattern and I would also bet that the pros are laughing at this posting [me] saying even a blind squirrel finds a nut every now and again . Can't catch a fish if your lines not in the water is my motto

My understanding and the articles I’ve read is that Black Bay was a Walleye and Perch fishery years ago. After commercial fishing decimated the native species, salmon, rainbows and Coasters moved in. Ever since the commercial fishing slowed right down and the closing of walleye north of Bent Island the walleye have rebounded and the other species have suffered tremendously. I can’t see the MNR ever putting restrictions on Salmon in Black Bay after bringing the native species (walleye and perch) back to good numbers. They’re non-native to Lake Superior and I don’t think there’s enough income generated locally around Salmon fishing for the MNR to actually do anything. I do agree, it sucks seeing something we’ve enjoyed for so long getting so bad but I don’t know what could really be done? Does anyone know where the majority of the local Salmon spawn? I’m assuming most local salmon head east to spawn but who knows for sure. The spawn on the Kam River is pretty much non-existent, 30 years ago there was a good run and our local stocking program doesn’t seem to help with bringing up the salmon population from what I’ve seen and heard. I’ve caught 2 clipped fins in my years of salmon fishing.

Nice little catch from Tuesday lake this morning.

Perhaps if the 21 day rule was enforced that would help the issue as well. The Kopka “boat access” is much larger now that it was 25 years ago.