I got lost meeting up with FFF who was patiently waiting for me at Trafalgar Rd and the 401 for 6:00….unfortunatly I was at Martingrove and 401. Can’t figure out how I screwed that up. Got to Trafalgar around 6:45. I’ve got to start writing things down.
Next stop Fishing world in Hamilton for minnows. Closed until 10am.
Next stop the Niagara Bar. Finally after a couple of years of not getting out of work or boat problems I was able to make the journey. Yahoooooo.
Ran into Legend at the launch who heard the guys were doing good at the bar on the lakers. Perfect. We make our way down the river to the mess of boats and try our luck. Never saw any familiar boats but saw a number of fish being caught. Us, nothing.
Kept trying for a while with no success and then decided to try a few drifts in the river. Did one little drift at Queenston and that was enough for me with all the other boats and shore anglers I felt we better get out of here. Saw Legend was still there and a quick hello to Squig and his daughter.
We then tried what I think was the long drift (more my style) slow and easy and not a lot of traffic. No luck there either so back down river to the bar.
Got set up and was even more anxious to get a laker. This time the boats around us were knocking off the fish pretty steady. Us…..nothing.
Saw some familiar faces this time around with Skooter, Crash and Hoover. Got a tackle tip from them and so Martin tried Skooters 'secret kolbasa' on the white tube. Still nothing.
We did see Hoover hook into a bonus bow and got this pic shortly before hitting their boat. I couldn't talk him into standing for the picture.
A little later ran into Simon and Ransome and an unknown that called me by name and couldn’t for the life of me figure out who it was. Sorry Bunk I would’ve made a bigger deal if I would of known it was you. Simon gave us some reassurance in regards to the white tubes we were using most of the day but still no luck.
Not too long after that we met up with a boat full of guys who will remain nameless until their report is posted. They too gave us some tackle tips and some tackle and several demonstrations on how to catch these fish. Finally all their help paid off and I finally got my first Niagara Bar laker.
We were going to quit at 3:00 pm but I wanted to get Martin into one before we took off. A few more drifts and I got a second one about the same size as the first. Around 3:45 we gave up and headed back up the river and ran out of gas about 50 yards from the launch. Choked the motor the rest of the way in without incident. Phew.
Thanks for joining me Martin. Even though we were the only boat on the water not getting into the fish it was still a good day as always and at least the boat saw a few fish. . Thanks again to the 3 'nameless dudes' for getting us onto the fish. Without your help we were heading to Skunkville.
I still think it is pretty cool just to be open water fishin on Dec. 28th
No need for apologies, I was in cognito in the zone trying desparately at that point to put a second fish in the boat. Good seeing ya, and next time I'll kick ya in the kiwis and say "It's Bunk" so there is no question to my identity. Hope to see ya at some point before Sturgeon 07.