Late fall is that special time of the year when it comes to fishing around Montreal. Long gone are the majority of pleasure craft, jet skis, water skiers and power boats, leaving our waterways to only ship traffic and die hard sport fishing fanatics. As the ships stick to the seaway, the rest of the river belongs to us now.
The water temperature around Montreal has dropped below the 10 degree mark (Celsius) , which can make even a relatively warm day feel chilly, even more so when the wind is gusting at decent speed, as typical this time of year. Layers of warm clothing used for ice fishing clothing is a must.
My friend Mark has had another spectacular guiding season, which had his schedule booked for most of the days that I was able to fish. I was finally able to take him up on his offer to chase some late season walleye yesterday, and I was more than ready to head out for some casting and trolling, neither of which I've done since September.
Headed out around 7:30 AM, with a North wind gusting at 20+ km/h. bringing in another cold front. Started off trolling, success was immediate, with me landing a few walleye and smallmouth bass.
Once trolling died down, we switched to casting soft plastic lures. Both drop shot and jigging worked, landed a couple more walleye in the 22 to 24 inch range.
Also managed a small sturgeon I didn't bother taking a picture of, as it was out of season, but still a nice fight on a light walleye rod.
After noon, we decided to try doing a but of musky fishing. Though Mark catches musky while trolling for walleye on a regular basis, and we actually had a couple muskies bite of our jigs earlier in the day. Marc rarely gets to actually target musky anymore, and as I've never fished for muskies with him yet, it was a welcomed opportunity for both of us, especially as I've never caught any muskies this late in the season.
Though our window of a couple hours of trolling was very short by musky fishing standards, the timing was right. I managed to land 2 or 3 muskies in what was left of the day. Though they were pretty small muskies, I was quite happy to get them, as I've hardly done any musky fishing all season.
And thus ended another short, but action packed day of fishing the St Lawrence river in fall with my friend Mark. Hope to head out with him again to chase some trophy walleye before the end of the season.
Marc still has open dates between now and first ice. For those of you die hards looking to fish trophy walleye in cold water, contact Mark by clicking: http://freshwaterphil.com/contactmark.cfm
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