we could well be spending a family holiday there this summer, maybe for 3 or 4 weeks, enough to try some fishing! Any recommendations welcome. Perhaps someone knows this area and could recommend a "base". Nice lake? Anyone had good hospitality/ accommodation out there? Not worried about species, I will be happy fishing for anything!

Though we will arrive in toronto we would not be staying there as we are not city dwellers or lovers. Elora area looks good and out towards the lakes. Just inundated with info on the web and not sure where to start! Any/all advice welcome! Thanks in advance, Keith.

Good choice! I go to Southern Ontario around Elora most years. It is the first equal in my all time great fly fishing destinations. Get a provincial C&R permit, hire a car, get a map, and take a #3, #6 and #8 rods and you will have access to fishing in little streams, rivers small and large, and puddles to great lakes. You can fish anywhere except those places that say "no fishing" (called posted there). In 5 days in 2010 we fished for carp, salmon (pacific lake stream run), pike, largemouth bass, small mouth bass, browns, rainbows and brookies. The Grand River is famous and most anglers from Toronto head there and nowhere else. Go west beyond the Grand and you will have the place to yourself. Stop where you want and fish and walk just a little way from the road to find complete solitude. In one small stream we caught browns in one pool, rainbows the next and brookies in the riffles. All wild and totally perfect. I use generic scruffy english dry flies in the streams, poppers and pollack flies for the bass. Big nymphs, damsels etc. are good for larger trout and carp in the rivers and lakes (bass will take them as well).

A.

Hi Keith
Just had an email yesterday from my good friend Kevin from Bethany in Canada, he just spent the weekend in a heated hut out on Lake Scugog catching pickerel with his son who lives alongside the lake, pickerel are very good eating by the way.
He reckons there is now at least 12" of ice under them, we both nearly went through the ice 5 years ago in late Dec., the same day a local guy went across the lake on a snowmobile!!!.
Lake Scugog is near Port Perry which is a really nice old fashioned colonial style town.
It has a Canada Tire Depot where you can get all manner of cheap fishing tackle (and bullets for your handgun or rifle if you need them)
Port Perry also has a fish and chip shop that specialises in fresh fried halibut, it is superb.
The region around Kawartha Lakes is top notch for fishing, the only problem if it is a problem is you are spoilt for choice.
Even in the height of summer there are thousands of areas you can have to yourself it is so vast with so many lakes and creeks to choose from.
There are plenty of motels around this region but it really does pay to ask around because they can charge anything from 25 dollars a night to a $130 plus.
There are some huge muskelung up there but you need local knowledge to connect with them, I find most Canadian anglers are only too happy to tell you where to fish in fact I think most Canadians fish, but you will just love the place.

Phil.

hey there,
My wife and i (and two small children) are heading out to Canada this summer too. We're heading to Toronto for a week visiting family and then we're going to hire a cottage in the Muskoka lakes. it looks great. I'm going to take a spinning rod and my nine & half foot 7/8# fly rod. can't wait!


we are using this website to look at cottages

Muskoka Cottage Rentals

but i'm sure there are 100s of others. good luck

alex

Canada is a VERY big place....To give you an idea it is further from Toronto to Vancouver than from the UK to Canada, Eastern Canada tends to be mainly spinning as does the plains region. If you want some real fly fishing action then you need to be in British Columbia (even that is 1400kms across). You will need an Alien licence even if sea fishing and quite a lot of the fishing is now catch and release.
Don't forget that Canada is a wild place with wild animals there are mountain lions that would look on your children as dinner and both black bears and grizzlies that will do the same as well as try to claim your catch.
I know some good guides in most regions of BC and it is a fabulous place to fish though it is no longer cheap. If there are a group of you I can recommend http://www.kimberley-lodge,com it is luxury , will sleep 16 people and is very close to St Marys, Bull and Elk rivers plus around 30 lakes. If you need somewhere smaller there are plenty of places I also know.
Take care and have a fabulous time

It's a little bit amusing to see "this area" in reference to all of Canada. Canada is the second largest country in the world in terms of land area. I believe it's 90-some times larger than the UK. At the same time, I think the statistic is that 80% of the population live within 200 miles of the US/CA boarder.

So what this means in practical fishing terms is that Canada is vast, virtually devoid of people, and there are thousands upon thousands of lakes and rivers. It is perfectly probable that there are lakes in Canada that have never been fished with a rod and line.

Bottom line is this: Could you narrow it down a bit? Are you wanting to stay within a few hundred miles of Toronto, or are you going to travel a bit? What type of fishing and how much time do you plan to devote to it? Does the family intend to fish as well?

I can't agree that you have to head to BC to get into decent fishing. BC's claim to fame is sea run fishing like Salmon and Steelhead. All of Canada has fishing opportunities, it's just that your fishing horizon has to be broader than just trout.

Ontario has some great opportunities for trout, steelhead, brook trout, lake trout, walleye, smallmouth, pike, and other species. Beyond that, the sky's the limit.

Again, could you be more specific about your wants and needs?

Grouse

thanks famous grouse ( PS we live 3 miles from the famous grouse distillery, formerly glenturret)...
Area, probably close to Elora. No way can we get to BC much though I would love to. We might head to Muskoka, as I have found some very nice cabins there. We do have relatives near Elora, but they don't fish! Its only me that would fish really and I would be lucky if I got more than 2 morning or evening sessions in other than if we have a cabin on a lakeside, than that lake too! Gear? Depends in species available, I like the idea of river brook trout. Also like the idea of carp fishing in St Lawrence, but thats diff gear. Maybe a light / med spin set up for pike/ panfish etc. I am happy catching. Species are in fact unimportant. Whats there and whats fishing best at that time of yeat (July). K.

Wow in my experience in BC you can fly fish for all these Game Fish
Arctic Grayling
Black Crappie
Brook Trout
Brown Trout
Burbot
Chinook Salmon
Chum Salmon
Coho Salmon
Cutthroat Trout
Dolly Varden & Bull Trout
Kokanee & Sockeye Salmon
Lake Trout/Char
Lake Whitefish
Lingcod
Mountain Whitefish
Northern Pike
Pacific Halibut
Pink Salmon
Pygmy Whitefish
Rainbow & Steelhead Trout
Rockcod
Smallmouth Bass
Walleye
White Sturgeon
Yellow Perch
Salmon and Steelhead are what BC is famous for with trophy fishermen most of whom fish the Pacific and Northern BC . Most of the above species are available in lakes and rivers in The Okanagen, East and West Kootenays as well as the Pacific and Northern regions. As I said in my earlier post Eastern Canada fishermenn seem to favour spinning over fly fishing

It sounds like your fishing time and the amount of distance you'll be able to roam will be limited, so I would focus on warmwater species like pike and smallmouth bass simply because fish like these are present in numbers in almost all waters in the area you'll be in.

Don't take this the wrong way, but July is the one month I WON'T go to Ontario. It's the combination of the heat bringing on inconsistent fishing and then there are plagues of blackflies and deerflies in some areas. This needs to be taken with a grain of salt however, because bad fishing in Ontario is still better than fantastic fishing in many other places. The bug problem varies widely depending on where you are.

I would certainly take (or buy when you get there) a 7 foot medium action spinning rod with a decent reel. There are a lot of species like walleye and so forth that are far more efficient and effectively fished using spinning gear and basic tackle like jig heads with twister tails and small crankbaits. I generally prefer to catch fish rather than to fly fish and catch far less simply for the sake of fly fishing.

I've heard a lot about the Lower Great Lakes carp and smallmouth fishing action, but to make the most out of that I think you'd need a guide and to go out on a day trip probably on the guide's boat.


Where did I say you couldn't fish for other species or that the weren't present?

My point being that your earlier post seemed to suggest the only place to catch fish in Canada was to head 1500 odd miles away from where the OP was landing.

Not sure I agree about your assessment of fly vs spin in Canada. My observation is that the BC'ers seem to have raised gear chucking, hardware hurling, and iron mongery to the level of a high art form. They might be fishing for trout and salmon, but there's no shortage of meat-flinging, hamburger-hocking, bottom-dredging, and ovarian hackle tossing being done by BC locals.

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Grouse

I have a good friend who lives less than 50 miles from Elora (Paris On.)
A fly fisherman and a gentleman.
e mail me at churchillsporting AT gmail DOT com and I'll introduce you - he'll happily advise where, when and what

Brian

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