Springtime Brook trout

Personally for me the most exciting time to fish for brook trout takes place in early spring. After a long winter, dotted with only a few ice fishing expeditions I'm ready to go for the spring opener. And my favorite spot for catching brook trout is in northern Ontario. For me, this usually means an 8 hour drive along the 400 Hwy and north on Hwy11. At New Liskard we know we are almost there, and the excitement starts to build for that last hour and a half, driving in to the cabin.

Upon arriving at the cabin the usual tasks have to take place, like taking a shutters down and checking for any damage. And then it's unloading out vehicles and putting everything inside the cabin in its proper place. After that it's down to the lake to get the boats in the water, that have wintered changed up on the shoreline. Then it is to the small shack that we store the motors, life jackets, and many other necessary accessories that we need to make your lives a bit more comfortable for the upcoming days of trout fishing.

The lake that our cabin is situated on is a real gem. It has a cobblestone bottom, and consists really of two lakes join in the middle with a river that runs between the two. Over the years I've seen the lakes water level drop as much as 3 feet and then back up to what was a normal when I first went North about 35 years ago. We have local residents of loons, merganser ducks, black bears and even moose. You'll also see the odd mink traveling the shoreline looking for food.

This is where our main focus is, but we do a lot of different day trips to the surrounding lakes and streams that dot the landscape around are cabin. These northern lakes very in size from half an acre to maybe several acres or even hundred of acres. Some of these other local lakes offer up some great pike and walleye fishing.

The first thing that we do when the boats are in the water is to take our minnow traps over to the beaver huts and lower them into the water. You would think this would be an easy job, but if you don't get the traps in the exact right spot, your minnow trap will be empty when you come back. On a calm day this is not a problem because you can see the part of the beaver huts that extends below the surface to the bottom of the lake. But on a rough windy day it's hard to see, exactly where to put the minnow traps. We use a lot of minnows while fishing up in our northern hideaway so it's important to catch lots of minnows. One thing you need to do for sure is check the minnow traps every day.

Timing is everything when it comes to fishing for Brook trout in the springtime. Come to early the lake is still frozen. Come too late the water has started turning over in the lake, which causes the water to be very low visibility. In either case you're not likely to catch many fish. Because if the ice is still on the lake it will be very thin and unsafe to try ice fishing. And if the lakes turning the low visibility makes it hard for the fish to find your lure or bait. But get it right you can have some of the best trout fishing of the year.

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