Thousand Islands Report - Mother's Day Weekend

[npetersen]

I'm a few days late with the report but haven't had time to do it until now.

Weather this weekend was awesome except for a bit of rain on Sunday morning but it didn't change any of our plans. Hubby had to clean some chairs Saturday afternoon at the restaurant as part of us staying up there for free and then had to finish off everything on Monday morning. No work on Sunday as all chairs/cushions were needed for Mother's Day brunch and dinner which left a free day for fishing.

The pike and bass were biting as usual. I tried a red and white spoon when we were fishing in about 10 fow and caught a few pike in the 20-23" range. Pike were a mixed depths between 8 ft down to 26 ft. They were taking the jigs deep but I was able to get them out without any problems. Most of the pike were pretty beat up which I assume was from the spawn. We caught about 20 pike total and kept 2 that were 28" and 2 perch which were 11.5". Hubby also caught a 6lb bass which made his day.

Here is one of the pike we kept. When I was fileting it, I checked to see what it had been eating and found 1/2 of a 6" gobie and not one but two 6" plastic wacky worms in its stomach. Does anyone know if it would even be able to digest these or would it kill the fish??

[npetersen]

Here is the 6lb bass which was quickly released after the picture.

[admin]

Great report and you had a great day out there..
I am heading to the area this weekend, and will try to hook-up with some pike.

Good question about the plastics in the fish bellies. I noticed this as well while cleaning some fish (notably they were also from Eastern Ontario). In some smallmouth I found large tubes and plastic worms. Some of them looked like they were there for some time. Some of the newer plastics boast about being bio-degradable but I'm not sure. The older plastic lures for sure can last forever in the environment and even with the the acids in a fish stomach - I don't think they can be digested. A fish stomach can hold large volumes, as can be observed from the whole prey that are found inside at times and there is probably enough room for food and the odd plastic worm, BUT if the plastic gets lodged in the intestines somewhere, then it can block the fish digestive system and kill it. I have wanted to send a few pics to the MNR of some of the lures i've found in fish bellies to get feedback from them. I know for a fact that in some smaller lakes it is a problem as nearly all fish cleaned have plastics inside - MNR should maybe ban use of plastic baits in those waterbodies.. end of rant..

[npetersen]

That is the first time I had seen anything other than baitfish in a fish's stomach but one of them looked quite old. I'm sure your right that there is enough room in the stomach for the extra plastic but may become a problem if too much plastic is eaten or it gets past the stomach as a whole piece. If you ever get around to contacting the MNR, I would be interested in their answer.

Have fun on the long weekend and hope you get some pike as well. They are hungry right now!!