Montreal fishing spots

Montreal fishing spots

Montreal shore fishing spots click here.

Sunday, May 31, 2020

Mid spring fishing during Quebec deconfinement - May 2020

As the province of Quebec slowly deconfined travel, a lot more spots fishable opened up. Weather for much of May was still cooler than normal, until a heat wave at the end of the month brought the water temps up to where they should be this time of the year.

With the nice weather and extended cerb payments from the government of Canada, there were a lot more people out fishing that I have seen before. Seems like many will take advantage of the free money giveaway to put in some more time outdoors...

Fishing wise, I ended up having some success, but not having access to a boat, and low water levels at some of my spots, I didn't do particularly well as far as numbers go. However, size made up for the lack of numbers when it came to most species I targeted, with a some nice surprises as well.

Pike season opened in the first week of May around Montreal, I took advantage to chase some from my float tube. Honestly ended up landing a lot more bass than pike, both largemouth and smallmouth. However, I did manage to find some small pockets of pike as well.




One of the outings yielded a couple of surprises. Towards the end of the day, I hooked into my biggest freshwater drum. After a nice fight, I had it alongside my float tube. As my son was on shore with the scale, I tried to tow it back in the water to avoid manipulating it out in the open air while I paddled back using my fins. Unfortunately, it shook the hook about 100 feet way from the shore, so I wasn't able to get the exact weight, but I estimated about 7-8 lbs, beating my previous best of 5.5 lbs. Luckily, I took some "in action" pics with it while it was fighting.



On my way back to the car, Ari and I crossed a shallow bay, where he spotted a large dead musky floating. Curious, I made my way over to find the biggest musky I have ever seen. I towed it back to Ari using a spinnerbait, and was brave enough to lift it for a pic. We measured the monster musky at 59 inches, close to a record fish for the St Lawrence river, where they rarely exceed 60 inches in length.


Carp fishing ended up being extremely slow of my usual spring spots, likely due to very low water levels for this time of year. However, when I did venture off to my trophy spots, both produced some nice carp for Eli and I.



Entering the month of June, summer is around the corner. Have a few local outings planned before heading up North for the bass opener at Mijocama. Luckily, the government has allowed them to open, and being that my cabin is all family, we should be in the clear as long as current rules remain in place.

2 comments:

Giorgio said...

Hi I paid for your carp spots a few years ago is there any updates on new spots for carp fishing

Freshwater Phil said...

No recent updates