Our first shoot of the year was a great success… thank god! It all took place just outside of the town of Dunnville on the Grand River. Mike, Brent (our cameraman) and I set out on a Catfish excursion in hope of discovering an Ontario alternative to Manitoba’s famed Red River. What we found was exactly that! The Grand is Ontario’s answer to the Red. Now although we didn’t catch any of the mid to high 30 pounders, we did score some great fish.

Upon arrival we met up with Steve Hardcastle of Fishmaster Ultimate Charters www.fishmastersultimatecharters.com. Steve’s a fishing nut-bar… he lives for the sport of fishing. He’s the type of guy that would rather be guiding every day of the year than having any time off… that’s hard core!

The previous reports Steve had given me were astounding, lots of fish and big ones to boot. Of course as soon as we arrived the water temp skyrocketed up and the fishing started out very slow. Add to that the bites we were getting were literally “nibblers”, they just wouldn’t take. We figured these were small fish because anything that we eventually caught over 5 pounds hit with aggression.

As time went on, Steve told me about his summer Cat hole so I said “what the heck, let’s try it, we’ve got nothing to lose and it sounds just like the stuff we used to fish in Manitoba”. From then on, the fishing was fantastic! We not only pounded big fish, but we consistently doubled up on them.

As far as gear and technique are concerned, we used the following:

• heavy duty baitcast and spinning gear
• 3 ounce egg sinkers (sliding type)
• Bait holder and circle hooks
• Cured sucker meat
• Shad
• Minnows
• Worms

We would simply heave a big cast out into the channel, let the bait sit on bottom and wait for a bite. It’s not the most exciting way of fishing but when you get a big one on, the enthusiasm quickly changes.

Thanks to Steve for a great outing.