Sat July 29: Bonus Day in Orillia

Rick here: I finally went fishing!!! (Mel here: As our faithful readers know, Rick, who claims to like to fish and has ample fishing gear on the boat, has not really fished at all during our YEARS on the boat). In my defense, it has been a combination of passing through multiple jurisdictions all requiring a different fishing license, and a need to focus on operating the boat and navigating to our destinations.  In any case everything combined to keep me from  fishing (I think I’ve had my fishing pole out once or twice).  

Well, no more!  My goal this year was to fish in the Georgian Bay, as everyone says it is an angler's wonderland.  So, to get an idea of how to fish in these northern climates, for my birthday Melanie found a fishing guide - SR Fishing (Steve Rothbottom) - based in Orillia.  Steve came right to our dock on Saturday morning at 7 am and took me out for a half day fishing in Lake Couchiching.  (Mel: I got to sleep in, and eat a cookie for breakfast!)

It was a rainy, gloomy day but, as they say, a bad day fishing is better than a good day doing anything else.  Melanie got her dream day - sleeping late with rain pattering on the boat roof (Mel: and then I got to clean the bathroom and do laundry) We started by trolling for Pike, but didn’t have any luck.  We then changed over to plastic worms and had great luck with Largemouth and Smallmouth Bass.  We also caught a few small lake Perch and even a small Rock Bass.  The lakes up here have many different species of fish - Muskellunge, Pike, Walleye, Bass, Perch, and lots of different types of small minnows that are food for the predator fish. The area is also well known for ice fishing in the winter when Whitefish is what everyone wants to catch. 

Largemouth Bass

Steve caught a 4 pounder

Another Largemouth 

Smallmouth bass

Oddly enough, we were using the same type of rubber worms that I use to fish in Georgia!  So no real mystery on how to fish, I guess.   Steve gave me some tips on how to fish for Walleye in Georgian Bay.  I’m looking forward to fishing lots more and the nice thing about it in this area is that I only had to buy one fishing license - for Ontario, Canada.  It was a terrific morning, thanks to Melanie for arranging and my mom for funding!

Back at the marina the weather had cleared up and EVERYONE had gotten in the Mardis Gras mood (the town had declared this Mardi Gras weekend, as a good excuse for everyone to act like Canadians in summer).

We walked around the town for a bit and then came back to the docks to find the partying had stepped up a notch, even though it had seemed to be a 10 out of 10 when we left.  During the night they even went to 11.  It was a bit hard to sleep, but we do understand the urge to get Nauty when the sun shines!