The last few years I’ve spent my July 4th weekend in the Thousand Islands.  My wife’s family has a wonderful cottage on the water.  Each trip I learn more about the region, especially the fishery.  Every year I experience quality fishing and this year was most productive.  Even better, I didn’t spend the majority of the day searching for fish.  Fishing for 4 hours a day, I managed to land an average of 20 or more largemouth bass, smallmouth bass, pike and the odd perch/rock bass.  My  best day included 6 pike and two dozen bass, as well as a sight fished tailing freshwater drum.

A neat aspect about the Thousand Islands is that you may catch fish on foot, from a canoe, in a kayak, john boat/skiff or whatever vessel you have available.  Fancy bass boats are great if you have the money, but fish don’t care which craft you fish from.  As someone who has owned a saltwater bay boat http://www.maycraftboats.com/ and a flats skiff http://www.mitziskiffs.com/, I attest to the value of a quality fishing craft.  Yet, I don’t miss the maintenance and cost of operating these boats.  Perhaps most compelling, is the special charm and ease of using an old aluminum skiff w/ a forty year old 5 -stroke Evinrude Motor.  This is the family runabout skif.  It has plenty of wear and sure manages to help me catch fish.  This is my go to vessel, especially when I range more than a mile from the cottage.  A final advantage of this unassuming skiff is that it burns little gasoline.  Over four days, we only used up four gallons of gasoline.

Now, back to the fishing report.  I used an 8wt w/ a clear intermediate line and threw chartreuse clousers, puglisi baitfish patterns or a brown goby/sculpin/crayfish pattern that I’m not yet ready to share.  Nearly all of my fish were taken around the points of an island, or along wind troughs.  Often, bass would jump on my fly as it was still sinking.  Every fish was caught in five to fifteen feet of water.  Ledges, rocks, contoured weed mounds  and structure were places that I prospected.

The trip highlight was spotting a large tailing  fish within 40′of the cottage.  Initially, I thought it was a mammoth smallmouth bass.  I didn’t have my gear as I was watering nearby potted flowers.  I frantically ran back to the boat house, grabbed my gear and then couldn’t find the trophy fish.  Looking at my rod, I frustratedly realized I had a frog popper on the line.  I rapidly tied on my brown goby/sculpin/crayfish imitation.  Walking a few yards upstream, I again spotted the fish.  It was tailing, perhaps rooting for crayfish among the rocks?  I crouched low, crept forward and managed to flip a cast towards this hefty fish.  On my second cast, I observed the fish gently move to the side, twitch slightly and I strip set. Next, I was bulldogging with a freshwater drum.  Very cool to watch the take and bring this guy it.  The drum actually grunted as I was releasing it and the entire experience reminded me of  previous redfishing experiences.  If nothing else, it was my first freshwater drum on a fly.  Give the Thousand Islands a try.  You never know what you might catch!

[View with PicLens]

I fished w/ an 8wt intermediate clear line and a 7 wt floater.  During the trip I landed  7 pike up to 28″, several dozen smallmouth up to 3lbs and a posse of scrappy rock bass and perch.  Most fish fell for a chartruese clouser or some type of leech/crayfish imitation.  Anchored up or slowly drifting, I was able to catch fish between 3′ and 20′ of water.  All of the pike hit on weed edges and I only used 12lb flouro leader, only breaking off 2 pike the entire time.  The flourocarbon leader provided more hook ups over wire, and smallmouth were more likely to hit w/out the wire.  The smallmouth seemed to prefer broken structure/mottled bottoms and transition areas.  Oddly, my two best smallmouth each fell for a tiny 1.5″ clouser.

It is worth noting that I did miss a hefty 5-6 lb smallmouth that taunted me within feet of our Island (where we stayed).  In addition, I spooked a hog of a muskie one night as I was admiring the sunset and taking pictures.  There certainly are bigger fish around.  Next time you have a chance, consider making a short trip to the Thousand Islands.  This regional warmwater fishery w/ a fly rod is very manageable and there are plenty of perch/rock bass/sunfish/smallmouth/largemouth/pike to target.