Fishing tips for your Ontario fishing adventure at
Gathering Lake Outfitters
Here are a few tips from the guides that are employed by Gathering Lake Outfitters. Feel free to bring any tackle you wish as sometimes different lures and techniques can help.
Walleye:
It is hard to beat a jig while fishing for tasty Walleyes at Gathering Lake. In spring light jigs (1/8) work well along the shoreline when fish are more aggressive. We like the bright colored jigs such as white, chartreuse and yellow. We recommend spinning rods & reels with 8-12# test. Many techniques work in this area, but casting and back trolling seems to product fish all the time. Experiment with different techniques and see what works best for you but remember jigs are the go-to bait for most days.
Remember when you arrive, we are going to know what and where the fish are hitting. Our guides know all the honey holes and there are a lot of them. Don’t be afraid to ask where their favorite fishing holes are. Some days you can find big female in the dark water at the edge of sand bars. In this case bring some trolling rods and reels with Husky Jerk type baits to troll or Rapalas not to mention Thundersticks. Another great technique is bottom bouncers with a slow troll and a crawler harness. This work well with any type of weather conditions.
One of the best times to catch walleye is in the Spring so book now with us at Gathering Lake Outfitters and enjoy the incredible excitement associated with Ontario Walleye Fishing.
Northern Pike:
Along with trolling spoons, jigging, fishing live or dead baitfish can be the only thing that produces sometimes. We recommend trolling and casting rods & reels for Northern Pike fishing here at Gathering Lake. 10-14# test is good and of course you’re going to need a wire leader for these toothy critters.
Spoons such as the DareDevil, Williams Whitefish and Five of Diamonds have been the go-to lures around here. Often the fish are so active that surface baits and bucktails will provide endless fishing excitement. Casting or trolling will work on all most any day structure requires the same level of familiarity to fish. Grinding bottom Sometimes trolling outfits rigged with twenty-to-forty-pound solid wire to stay deep at low speeds, typically between 2 and 4mph. Pike love to tuck into ambush points and this is a great technique to target those areas.
Swimming lures like Jigging Rapalas and Salmon Chubby Darters are very deadly. When trolling deliberate snaps and pauses make pike go nuts at times. They’re a magic lure, too. They’re called ‘swimming’ lures because the harder and higher they’re jigged, the wider the area they’ll circle in before eventually coming to rest back under the hole again.
Perch:
Live bait works best for all times of the year. Small micro-jigs and ultra-lite tackle is also great. We find the best setups are live bait rig with 1-2 hooks, sinker and bobber. Minnows are great live bait but a small piece of night crawler works well to. Sooner or late your going to run into some nice jumbos while fishing our lakes so it pays to have a pole rigged up for perch. Spinning rods with 4-8# test is good along with gold hooks. Perch spreader is also an awesome setup.
Lake Trout:
Think depth when fishing for Lake Trout here at Gathering Lake. Spring brings the fish shallow so trolling spoons in 5-15 ft of water is key. We like to use Williams spoons or the tried-and-true DareDevil or Five of Diamond running off a 3-way rig. If you have portable downriggers, then we recommend you bring them especially in summer when the fish move off to deeper waters. We still love to use spoons in the summer also so bring a good selection. Bait casters or trolling rods & reels work best with 8-12# test since most of the fish are taken while trolling.
Whitefish:
Light tackle or fly rods is the name of the game for these taste northern delights. 4-6# test on spinning rigs is recommended or your favorite fly rod setup. When the hatch is on then fly rods with Mayfly setups work great. Once the hatch is over the fish go deep just like Lake Trout so we recommend trolling with a 3 way setup and Zero Mepps or Blue Fox and troll very slow in about 60 feet of water.