Beauty Smallmouth

[GoldenLakePete]

I haven't been out fishing for a while due to some health issues and lousy weather but got out for a few hours on the Bonnechere Friday afternoon.

Caught this beauty on my 7 wt with a #6 black beadhead Wooly Bugger. Not all that big but fought like the devil. What must they be like on a 4 wt?!
Carefully released, by the way!

[efryters]

Nice catch!! How is the fishing overall on the Bonnechere River nowadays? I fished there as a kid 40+ years ago, went up with a friend's family that had cabins on the Bonne in Killaloe i think. Then the fish were plentiful, lots of walleye, pike and bass and the occasional musky. Is it still like that?

[JMatthews]

Nice catch! Must have been fun fighting with a fly rod.

[GoldenLakePete]

Welcome to the Forum, efryters!

It's not like it used to be. I have never caught a muskie in 15 years on the Bonnechere.
The walleye were pretty much wiped out by the 1990's. Golden Lake and the Bonnchere were closed to walleye fishing for 5 years while the MNR restocked. When it reopened in 2008 the walleye fishery was amazing! But, as usual, people were piggy about it and kept too many breeders. I only caught 1 walleye this year (carefully released).
There's still lots of pike and judging by the number of "hammer handles" I catch - the population is thriving.
The bass population is so so...there are an awful lot of people fishing the Bonnchere in the summer and they mostly keep everything they catch.
Lots of sunfish, rock bass and perch and nowadays - crappie. There are some huge crappies! They were illegally introduced a few years ago and are really thriving - to the detriment of the walleye, unfortunately.

[simon]

Interesting observation about the crappie... I had no idea. I have heard reports of crappie in lake Dore now as well. Are they being caught in the Golden lake end or the Round lake end of the Bonnechere? Any in the lakes themselves? Might make for a new ice fishing destination if they were.

[GoldenLakePete]

Interesting observation about the crappie... I had no idea. I have heard reports of crappie in lake Dore now as well. Are they being caught in the Golden lake end or the Round lake end of the Bonnechere? Any in the lakes themselves? Might make for a new ice fishing destination if they were.

Sorry, don't know about Lake Dore or Round Lake. I've just caught them in the Bonnechere River upstream from Golden Lake. So if they're in the river they must be in Golden Lake too.

[pikeseeker]

Very nice looking smallmouth. I'm glad to hear that you carefully put him back in the water. I was out today and caught several smallmouth on a # 6 brown wooly bugger with a fly rod in the Susquehanna River. I have to admit your bass was quite a bit larger than mine. I fished a few places in Ontario several weeks ago. I was at Elephant, Benoir, Loughborough Lakes, and the St. Lawrence River. The St. Lawrence gave up the most pike. They were all released. Loughborough was pretty good for bass.

[Hunter John]

That's a great bass Pete.

[M_P]

Nice fish Pete. I love it when I hook into a smallie while fishing off the dock with the kids and the ultralight.

[RTRonthefly]

Beauty indeed !!!