Splake through the ice..

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Doug
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Re: Splake through the ice..

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Malyon18 wrote:Was out on dog today, the report of the 1 to 2ft of snow with 6" of slush below it is very accurate lol. If you stick to the skidoo trails you can make it a good distance with minimal effort. Caught some fish however did not get any splake, but we only gave splake an hour of our time.
Nasty that the slush is still present. I was on Upper Rideau on Wednesday and Charleston today, and found almost zero slush, it has frozen (as our augers attested). If you don't mind me asking, where did you go on?

Doug
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ganman
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Re: Splake through the ice..

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If the splake are something like a brook trout pond they will act like brook trout and you will catch them in 15 ft.. Dog is a complex fishery and had lakers up to 20 years ago. The splake are more like lakers and Dog has big schools of open water baitfish like cisco and shad which is why grow so big. We would catch them in 40-60 ft. of water.

Go just east of Knapp Island. Never caught anything at the end where Gilmour Point is. Lot's of easy access at that end and not a far walk.
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Doug
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Re: Splake through the ice..

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ganman wrote:If the splake are something like a brook trout pond they will act like brook trout and you will catch them in 15 ft.. Dog is a complex fishery and had lakers up to 20 years ago. The splake are more like lakers and Dog has big schools of open water baitfish like cisco and shad which is why grow so big. We would catch them in 40-60 ft. of water.

Go just east of Knapp Island. Never caught anything at the end where Gilmour Point is. Lot's of easy access at that end and not a far walk.
I have fished there in a boat, but never on the ice. Do you get onto the ice off Moore's Lane?

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Re: Splake through the ice..

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Doug wrote:
Malyon18 wrote:Was out on dog today, the report of the 1 to 2ft of snow with 6" of slush below it is very accurate lol. If you stick to the skidoo trails you can make it a good distance with minimal effort. Caught some fish however did not get any splake, but we only gave splake an hour of our time.
Nasty that the slush is still present. I was on Upper Rideau on Wednesday and Charleston today, and found almost zero slush, it has frozen (as our augers attested). If you don't mind me asking, where did you go on?

Doug
Got on the ice from ormsbee rd at the launch, followed the plowed road out to the end fish around there for a bit then followed the skidoo trails out past the little line of 3 islands that borders the deep part of the lake, fished there for an hour got one bite but nothing came from it.
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Re: Splake through the ice..

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back to Malyon18, thanks for that.

I have a buddy (who is in St Lucia this week) that has a hut out in that area, and I had told him it was probably frozen into the slush. Sounds like that is likely. It will be a SOB to get that shack off by 15 March! :|

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Re: Splake through the ice..

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ganman wrote:If the splake are something like a brook trout pond they will act like brook trout and you will catch them in 15 ft.. Dog is a complex fishery and had lakers up to 20 years ago. The splake are more like lakers and Dog has big schools of open water baitfish like cisco and shad which is why grow so big. We would catch them in 40-60 ft. of water.

Go just east of Knapp Island. Never caught anything at the end where Gilmour Point is. Lot's of easy access at that end and not a far walk.
The Ganman doesn't say much but his wisdom is true. I wouldn't fish less than 45 FOW on Dog. They are bait chasing fish over that deep water. Another thing I'd do is never fish the bottom.

I've seen two photos of Lakers in that last 3 years that made my knees crumble, Grandpas from Dog. :shock:

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Re: Splake through the ice..

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Thirty pounders were caught in Dog at one time. If you knew the Lake Trout fishing we've lost... you'd cry.
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Re: Splake through the ice..

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ganman wrote:Thirty pounders were caught in Dog at one time. If you knew the Lake Trout fishing we've lost... you'd cry.
Makes you wonder if the lake is not a good candidate for stocking of lake trout instead of splake! When I first started fishing on Dog about twenty years ago, there were reports of twenty pound plus lake trout being caught every year.

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Re: Splake through the ice..

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Possibly but lakers need slightly colder water and the depths of Dog may not have enough oxygen. It is not a big difference but enough. It gets quite an algae bloom in summer. Also lakers grow slower and in a put, grow, take fishery and the thought is why stock lakers which will take twice as long to get to catchable size.

The reason why the lakers are gone from many of lakes was when water control dams were put on them. That is what happened at Pike and Bob's Lake. Many lakes had water drawdowns that left spawning shoals high and dry.

But we are still dealing with habitat degradation. More paved roads don't help. We have some improvement with sewage handling but the New old MacDonald is running roughshod over the land. Most of the family dairy farms are gone, so are the hayfields and pasture. They've been plowed under and tiled to grow corn. They are dry by mid April. A meandering creek that had water in it all summer with frogs and minnows has been straightened and is dry most of the time. Nothing lives in it anymore. Everything effects downstream.
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Re: Splake through the ice..

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Hey guys, really great info on the lake in this thread.

Going to try once more tomorrow. Anyone have info on snow/slush conditions of the lake?
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Re: Splake through the ice..

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I was out today on Dog to help a buddy remove his ice hut, down off Ormsbee Road.

Skidoo tracks make for good walking, but there was about a foot plus of snow, and in some places slush underneath that. And where people get on to the ice there is a stretch of about fifty yards or so of DEEP water on the ice, probably close to two feet at the deepest point. That was at 10 o'clock this morning, I reckon it is very bad there now and possibly the shoreline ice at that spot might be gone. It was pretty warm here in K-town today, and sunshine for most of it.

Out away from the shoreline there is probably two feet of good ice, lots for vehicular travel where we were. Not that I drove MY truck on the ice............ :roll:

We spoke with one fellow who had been out for pike this morning but got blanked, and he also said he had experienced a disappointing winter on Dog. Pretty much what I have been hearing from most ice anglers.

Doug
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Re: Splake through the ice..

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Doug wrote:I was out today on Dog to help a buddy remove his ice hut, down off Ormsbee Road.

Skidoo tracks make for good walking, but there was about a foot plus of snow, and in some places slush underneath that. And where people get on to the ice there is a stretch of about fifty yards or so of DEEP water on the ice, probably close to two feet at the deepest point. That was at 10 o'clock this morning, I reckon it is very bad there now and possibly the shoreline ice at that spot might be gone. It was pretty warm here in K-town today, and sunshine for most of it.

Out away from the shoreline there is probably two feet of good ice, lots for vehicular travel where we were. Not that I drove MY truck on the ice............ :roll:

We spoke with one fellow who had been out for pike this morning but got blanked, and he also said he had experienced a disappointing winter on Dog. Pretty much what I have been hearing from most ice anglers.

Doug

Crap, it's a big drive for us. Don't know what to do now. We were planning on heading out from Burnt Hills Road again. Hmmm...
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Re: Splake through the ice..

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If I were going out on Dog, yes I would almost certainly go in from Burnt Hills Road. BUT............

You might take ganman's advice, looks like he knows the lake a lot better than most.

Sorry my own splake "intel" is stale dated.............

A buddy was on Loughborough yesterday and it was a $hit storm as soon as he got off the skidoo trails - deep snow and nasty slush under it.

I do not know where you are there, sam-I-am, but maybe Muskrat Lake at Cobden would be an alternative. (IF the season is open, IF the access is good, etc, I DO NOT KNOW)

Doug
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Re: Splake through the ice..

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Doug wrote:If I were going out on Dog, yes I would almost certainly go in from Burnt Hills Road. BUT............

You might take ganman's advice, looks like he knows the lake a lot better than most.

Sorry my own splake "intel" is stale dated.............

A buddy was on Loughborough yesterday and it was a $hit storm as soon as he got off the skidoo trails - deep snow and nasty slush under it.

I do not know where you are there, sam-I-am, but maybe Muskrat Lake at Cobden would be an alternative. (IF the season is open, IF the access is good, etc, I DO NOT KNOW)

Doug
We're comin up from Niagara Region so Muskrat Lake at Cobden is a little too crazy for us! hah

So it looks like Ganman is recommending this area:

Image

Is there parking/access on Moore Lane?
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Re: Splake through the ice..

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I have no idea. I asked the same question on 28 Feb...............

Doug
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