im trying to plan a trip to simcoe this season so im looking for any and all advise/information you guys can give me i wouldnt mind getting in some perch fishing but im mostly interested in whitefish in lakers cuz we dont really have them in ns aond ive never caught either species
Hi Shienar! For my money, best bets for perch are Beaverton harbor just off Beaverton, Cook's Bay off Gilford or Keswick, Innisfil Beach area, then a bunch of shoals around the islands (Thorah, Snake Island). If you head a bit north, there is incredible perch fishing on Lake Couchiching, off Orillia, at the north end of Lake Simcoe as well (home of an incredible perch festival every spring). Best tactics are jigging spoons like our own Flutterfish & PK Spoon in 1/8th and 1/4 sizes (might be a bit biased there), minnows, maggots & spikes on small jigs, minnow imitations like the Rapala Jigging Rap, and the smallest vertical crankbaits like Salmo Darter. If you're fishing Cook's Bay, you might want to keep a second line handy with a big minnow or a pike jig -- there are some real bruisers cruising the shallows in that area.
If you're chasing lakers and whitefish, best locations are pretty much anywhere in water 80 feet or deeper, although you can pick up both types of fish in pretty shallow water in the spring just before ice out. Best bets for location are off Oro Beach, Kempenfelt Bay, Big Bay Point, Long Shoal, north of Fox Island, and the waters west of Thorah Island. You really should purchase a hydrographic map if you're going out on your own and fish structure when you can. Best tactics are live bait, jigging / fluttering spoons like our Flutterfish or PK Spoon, (larger for lakers, smaller for whitefish), Badd Boyz jigs, and big white tube jigs particularly on slow days. Work the baits SLOW, especially if you're marking fish that don't hit.
One tip if you're going with a flutter spoon or jigging spoon and you're using sonar. If you mark fish, always twitch the spoon slowly AWAY from the fish. If the fish is above the spoon, twitch down towards bottom to mimic an escaping baitfish, and slowly "rock" the spoon on bottom (let it rest on bottom and lift just enough to raise the head of the spoon, then let the head fall to stir up some sediment like a hiding or feeding baitfish). If the fish is hugging bottom, twitch up. Giving the fish too long to look at the bait before it's forced to make a decision makes for a frustrating day of marking fish but not getting hits. If the fish hits, you've won. If the fish turns away, it MIGHT come back to look at the bait again, but NOT if it gets so close it can sense the artificiality of the lure. Once it gets a good whiff of "fake", it won't quickly return. These aren't two year old perch, they're the "old wise men" of the lake, and they've seen their share of baits. Twitch AWAY from marked fish.
Last winter was hard on Simcoe -- not enough ice on the deep water to get the hut operators out -- and numbers of solid fish should be high this winter based on last year's limited harvest. Here's to hoping that we get hard ice! Best of luck, Shienar! Here's a pic of a nice laker on one of our nickel Flutterfish.
