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Fall Fishing Tips and Tricks from Gord Pyzer | Fish Talk with the Doc
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Mar 26, 2025
Gord Pyzer, aka The Doc, was a mainstay of the long-running Outdoor Journal Radio Show hosted by Angelo Viola. Now, Gord's informative segment, "Fish Talk with the Doc," makes the leap to the internet, becoming a recurring segment on the Fish'n Canada Live Cast. In this new format, Gord is given even more time to answer questions and showcase his unparalleled wisdom. In this installment, the Doc teaches Ang and Pete a thing or two about Fall fishing. ► Subscribe http://bit.ly/youtube-fishncanada Don't forget to leave a COMMENT and give us a LIKE if you enjoyed what you saw. SUBSCRIBE for new videos and episodes released weekly! CONNECT WITH US -------------------------------- ► WEBSITE http://fishncanada.com ► FACEBOOK https://www.facebook.com/FishnCanada/ ► INSTAGRAM https://www.instagram.com/fishncanada... ► TWITTER https://twitter.com/angeloviolafnc/ One of Canada's longest-running fishing shows, Fish'n Canada travels from coast to coast in search of trophy fishing opportunities. First started by brothers Angelo and Reno Viola in 1986, The Fish’n Canada Show has been on the air for over 30 years. Today, Angelo is joined by lifelong fishing buddy, Peter Bowman, and the pair continue to travel across Canada educating anglers using the experience they’ve gained over the years
View Video Transcript
0:00
uh another great guy has been waiting patiently oh oh
0:09
hi you folks gord piser here for outdoor canada magazine and i want to talk about falling for
0:15
fish what i really want to talk about is fishing in the fall period you know i
0:20
love the fall probably my favorite time of the year for a whole bunch of good reasons if you
0:25
look over my shoulder right now i have the whole lake to myself all the prime spots on this water body
0:32
there's not another boat on them even better still in the fall fish behave exactly like
0:39
black bears you know believe it or not a black bear will feed for over 20 hours a day in the fall trying
0:46
to gain as n as much nourishment as possible to get it through that cool winter period
0:52
well walleye smallmouth largemouth muskies northern pike black crappies all do the very very same
0:59
thing they're feeding intensively to get them through the upcoming cold winter period
1:04
so what's the message don't put the boat to bed too early this fall
1:12
don't read all that good morning hey boys how are you doing well
1:20
good sorry sorry we're a little late there we got all caught up in this cormorant issue
1:27
i was listening and i thought you know what i think i'll talk crappies instead of crap
1:34
good one good transition gordy that's why you are the man right there brother uh first of all how uh how is the
1:40
transition period coming along up north how's the fall coming spectacular end
1:46
we had 19 degrees today and had i had i not been doing
1:51
but i was out two days ago for smallmouth and probably the probably the best bite
1:58
this year what guys you kill me every time you're on you're telling me you have the best
2:04
bite like do you ever have a bad day
2:19
tell us the story about that my buddy john um and he's he's not in the greatest of
2:25
health right there there's the fifth six pound test line a quarter ounce jig
2:31
and a crappie minnow can you believe it we go out with a million dollars of
2:37
tackle in our boat we've got 18 musty rods uh we we we're we're happy if we see a
2:44
follow yeah we go out with jake and the mineral fishing for crappies and and he he hooked on and then what we did
2:52
we spot locked he started yelling his knees were knocked and i was right beside him and so we i
2:59
pulled my boat up and we we paralleled each other spot lock and he brought it right in between
3:05
the boat and i got to all i had was a walleye net and i got it head first in the wall i
3:12
net three quarters of the fish was dangling over the outside of the net and i
3:17
brought him in the boat uh was 48 inches and change and but it was one of the fattest fish
3:25
i've ever landed i guarantee 34 35 pounds how how does that happen how
3:31
do you how do you land a fish that size on six pound test line like how with teeth
3:39
with teeth like a shark by the way on six pound test line right we were so so lucky because uh john
3:47
hooked it right on i could see the jig outside and this is gonna this is gonna blow your mind he lost a
3:54
mill about 30 seconds beforehand little tiny minnow he baits up another minnow drop so that
4:01
i positive that muskie was eating two inch crappie minnows
4:07
but here's the funny thing guys uh liam two years ago we landed
4:14
the biggest lake trout we've ever pulled through a hole in the ice and we were fishing for a yellow perch
4:20
and he landed that one on four pound test line and so many people said how how do you
4:26
land them and you know what the secret is never putting pressure on the fish
4:32
i honestly believe that muskie and the lake trout that liam caught i honestly believe neither of those fish
4:38
knew they were hooked yeah i yeah i mean angie you and i have done that up north on uh
4:44
fishing for walleye jigging minnow up in northern ontario you're looking for your shorelines and all of a sudden this 18 20 pound northern comes in and just
4:51
gives you that hit and you're thinking there's a walleye and all of a sudden oh what the hell is that
4:57
again this is the honest honest truth and i did not put this in my blog
5:03
we left that spot we went to the next area about 20 minutes later
5:10
pete i was doing exactly what you said i sat on a walleye about a 16-inch fish
5:16
all of a sudden down to the bottom and i had another muskie on oh hit the walleye
5:24
it was it could have been a two trophy day and we weren't even fishing for them
5:30
yeah yeah talk about that here's here's what i'm thinking here i'm i'm trying to draw this picture up and
5:35
it makes so much sense so the muskie are there feeding on no
5:41
think about it i love you i love your wheels turning like this the only man on earth that can get your
5:47
wheels turning like that by the way okay here they're feeding obviously on
5:53
walleye or crafty whatever you're what whatever it is that you're after that day they're they're on the outside perimeter right
6:01
just waiting for the opportunity to chow down on one of these other smaller predator fish if you will
6:07
why wouldn't they take the odd little minnow that comes swimming out of that school
6:12
you know what i mean opportunistic and if it's there and all i got to do is
6:18
open my mouth and eat it and and it's got a quarter ounce jig we were fishing black and yellow jig
6:25
and uh there's a minnow on them if there's no effort
6:31
so so then that leads me to ask this question guard why wouldn't you kind of change your
6:37
your game plan at that point and say hey there's musky in the area they're
6:43
obviously on the bite i'm going to switch my tactics up and go after these giant muskies
6:49
if i had muskie baits and musky rods on the boat i would have over walleye bass and wall and crappie
6:55
fishing i had unloaded everything out of the boat restocked it with the butt and your point is really well taken
7:03
i had so many folks afterwards and guys have been we we've had a really good this is this has
7:09
been a premier musky year and so i've had a lot of folks lately saying
7:14
what should i target and i i have two answers uh number one is muskies always
7:21
are where you find them uh i mean we love to be science about today you know rocky
7:27
points bars show those damn things are wherever you find them
7:33
and your point earlier was if you're walleye fishing catching walleyes
7:38
if you're small mouth and crappie fishing you can almost bet there's another bigger predator close by
7:45
whether it's a lake trout a big northern pike or a muskie i mean that's what they're feeding on
7:51
sure one other thing i've said to a lot of folks recently when when the guys were doing project
7:58
noble beast uh on the ottawa river and that's where muskies inc and and the boys were were actually
8:05
tracking uh big muskies and i spoke to the folks that were doing the tracking studies
8:11
and they said every third or fourth cast you should make out to no man's land
8:17
and if more often we would fish out in no man's land we would ca because they're tracking
8:24
these things and they just show up where they shouldn't be they're not points they're not on bars they're not
8:30
on wheat edges you know it's like that thousand pound gorilla where it can sleep
8:35
wherever it was lunch how true is that i don't know what boys i'd have to say i think that that
8:42
goes for all species and not just musky i do believe that goes for all fish be i've seen so many times
8:48
where i'll just fire a cast with a senko out the opposite way of the shoreline that somebody's fishing just a stupid cast is
8:55
engine it's not going to cat and boom a three and a half pound largemouth in the middle of nowhere no weeds no nothing
9:00
i think it happens a lot more than people would you know expect on all species you know and repeat you know what i
9:06
think it is is we on those other species we do find the really good structure and cover so we'll find a weed
9:14
edge the other day you and i we were talking last time about those deep weed lines
9:19
and how they move out to secondary tertiary points yeah but they're not just on that structure and that improves the outside
9:27
right fish they're patrolling around and exactly we get too finite we get a
9:34
little bit too specific i gotta have this bait i gotta be on this structure
9:39
no you don't no you know what a bass are a great species we'll move a little bit to that
9:45
especially in the fall and i have been noticing this a lot with garmin's life scope is that they rarely
9:51
sit still they're not like those ones that are out maybe one under a log yeah he lives under that log he stays in that covers
9:57
one on a rock or something like that individual fish here and there the majority of those fish are moving all the time always moving and hunting
10:04
and swimming whatever they're doing i don't know but they're moving a lot i i have a friend mark alford down in
10:11
in the ottawa area actually lives in a little town called griffith and i tell you right now mark is
10:17
probably the best open water uh white fish angler in north america no he
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he probably fishes white fish in open water 120 days a year
10:30
in open waters so nobody does that yeah he was he was fishing the other day
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and i think they got like 40 50 60 white fish and like almost simple size
10:42
oh he pete he said the fish were moving so quickly he watched them just swim right
10:48
through the sonar and your point is so well taken and especially in the fall right now
10:54
yeah they are on the move they they're moving from summer location to winter and for all the guys that fish for
11:01
muskies uh musky anglers there's a critical temperature i always look for and
11:09
john castleman dr castleman really was the one that got me on this and john did so much great uh musky
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tracking work when the water temperature when the water temperature hits
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59 60 degrees 15 celsius musky's home range breaks down
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and until it drops to five degree water temperature they are roamers they roam from
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15 to five or from 60 to about 40 so 59 to about 40 they can be any and
11:44
this is the time of the year so what do we always say we always say in the fall trolling is the best option
11:52
and you know what i hate trolling
11:58
the best fish i've ever caught have been trolling but i hate doing it yes i'd much rather cast but the reason
12:06
is those two moving targets muskies are moving you're moving you can't predict really
12:11
often where they're going to be two moving targets have a much much better chance of of meeting up and hitting each other and
12:19
i i think that can be said for all species though this time of year it's just a different mentality that you
12:25
have to be in and and you have to be on the move these fish and you just said to your point they're moving
12:31
and the way to have a really successful day is you got to move too more so now than during the summer period and even
12:39
to some extent the spring period you've got and trolling as much as we
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a lot of us don't like doing it it's the effective way right
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you look at those bayek walleye right now they're starting to make a major move right now right now that's not for
12:56
feeding it's for spawning but they're going to eat that whole entire trip until they get in there you know what i
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mean so they're it's all about movement right now really great point uh pete i've got a
13:07
piece coming out in outdoor canada tomorrow uh i've had so many writers actually i
13:12
answered a really good question i received from a writer and he and i he echoed what a five or six
13:19
other people have written in or emailed into the magazine and they're saying we can't find walleye anymore
13:26
and and places like the bay of quinte lake winnipeg with the red river lake of
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the woods with the rainy river and what walleye will do on those giant
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lake erie as well with the thames river what they do is they move in the fall it's actually a
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spawning move they move in the fall to winter out in front of where they will spawn next
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spring it doesn't make any sense to a fish to go through the winter and then all of a sudden swim 40 50
14:00
60 miles if it's full of eggs to get to a river they stage out in front so right now
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those fish are moving into the bay of quinte they'll spend the winter in there and
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trolling is a great great option but as you know throwing swim baits is probably the most
14:18
overlooked trick for those bay of quincy walleyes and more fun too and more fun more fun
14:26
we have a lot more people that love trolling than we think a lot of people are saying what do you mean i don't like drawing i love trolling
14:32
it's a very popular way of fishing for sure you know absolutely you know when we go
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lake trout even right now there's only a couple more days left in the lake trout series as much i mean i got
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downriggers on the boat we got dipsy divers and and lead core outfits i still would much
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rather cast and jig for them and by the way i was telling pete this story
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uh last week what brought it on but um about i don't know i'm going to
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say 25 30 years ago i was fishing reno and i were fishing the uh the big kingston tournament for
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smallmouth bass and at that time the perennial winner like i'm talking every year for five
15:14
years in a row was this charter boat and a big like um i'm gonna say probably
15:19
a 30-foot charter boat and he would go out in the morning well he wouldn't even blast off like we're in
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there with our little 17 foots with a buck 50 on the back you know causing all kinds of habits he'd wait till all the dust cleared and i
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just put her out he'd be back by 9 30 weighing in every day
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every day and he'd wipe us all out and we figured we were doing we finally saw him after a few years the guy was trolling for smallmouth bass
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out in front of of these big long points that lead into those shallow back bays
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while we're in the back there vertically trying to you know do our thing he'd just troll up and down you know in
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12 to 18 feet of water and smacking them like crazy yeah even in the spring trolling works and
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even for bass right and i have talked to tour and now i've never fished
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the tournament you guys fish down there but i've talked to a couple guys that fish the tournaments on rito
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and they have talked to one guy told me he went in this guy came over and he was late
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trolling with down riggers and the guy said if you want to catch them and he said you know this is what you got to do
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and buddy said no way and he said come to take a look and the guy had seven pounds
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smallmouth in the freezer that he caught on on
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why not but absolutely they eat with the trouty if that's where the cyst goes and the
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smell and all that high quality high protein forages they behave like
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lake trout yeah yeah yeah hey i want to say one quick thing for all the vast guys out
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there uh the other day when when i said how good the bass were they are tight so yes you move we move
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and we'll go spot after spot after spot but trust me right now if you catch one there's a hundred there
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with them
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crazy cory can i throw one quick question out here a quick observation i caught a walleye i got two walleye this weekend
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cleaned them both one had eggs in here already yeah there's no eggs starting in july
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pete so in fact walleye are maintenance feeders in the winter
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so yes they eat and yes they will hit our baits uh smallmouth are even worse smallmouth
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are just like the black bear we were talking about in the video but walleye and smallmouth
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um they they need as much nourishment as possible right
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now to get them through the winter starvation period so probably 75 80 percent of the egg
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development it has occurred right now and after ice out it's so quick to uh to spawning period
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all they do is it's a very quick uh maturation process so they'll feed a little bit
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and and then they'll spawn but ninety percent of that happens before rice up so what would be a late
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initial development of the eggs and this fish has had a good amount of eggs it wasn't a big fish it was a small
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you know it was 18 inch walleye or something like that perfect eater um and it had you know a decent amount of
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eggs throughout his stomach it wasn't bulbous or anything like that is there are there female fish right now
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walleye in let's just say this part of southern ontario that don't have eggs yet but are going to develop eggs or is it
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kind of uh it should be already there by now no they should all be there by now they they they're running out of time
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uh and this is the other interesting thing pete to your point uh it's called some tsunami growth uh
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the the growth that they actually devote to themselves a female it's only a matter of a few
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weeks it's only like 14 21 days of the year they're really growing for themselves
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and virtually all the rest of the energy they're accumulating is toward egg maturation and egg
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development and of course that's the reason the biggest fish other than smallmouth
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uh believe it or not male smallmouth are the biggest female but muskies rare to catch a male over 40
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inches walleye always females northern pike very same so uh they're feeding right
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now for egg development and they have all the eggs in them right now they may not be full size
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right they will have all the eggs inside them right now developing that they're going to lay next spring
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and you know the interesting thing is uh ice fishermen will catch a fish and
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they'll keep it and might be a 16 inch 17 inch walleye and you know some folks will say geez you're
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killing the female with all the eggs in it well you're doing the same thing right now yeah
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people wouldn't realize it for sure now another i'll go i'll change this up they're staying on fall
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i always like to know this what is your what is lake in the woods or wherever you've been fishing lately water temperature right because i i've got a
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feeling it's very close to what our water temperatures are right now we're running that for the most part yeah you know today as i say today was
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1920 degrees so on the surface i'll i'll bet today on the surface was 59
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it might even even touch 60 61 but that's only an inch or two and don't folks should never get fooled by
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the surface temperature right now 10 degrees today well that's the top inch or two
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and then circulation circulates it but underneath where the fish are right now
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it's 56 57 59 degrees yeah and that's perfect migration moving
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around they're feeding up their bears uh they gotta they gotta eat as much energy right now to get through
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that fall uh winter starvation period do you um do you follow thermoclines at all guard
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thermocline's breaking down right now so uh right now the lake is in turnover and
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that's the other really cool thing and and we should talk about that for the walleye folks because
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once you get turnover and the thermocline breaks down the whole lake's exposed to the fish
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it's it's almost optimal temperature or the same temperature from top to bottom
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so walleye that were excluded from deep structures uh all through the summer now they're
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available and so there's no concrete brick wall if you like the thermocline that prohibited
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them from going deeper and now the whole lake's open and the other cool thing is cisco's
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and whitefish they spawn in the fall so they're coming shallower and shallower and shallower
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as the walleye and bass were going deeper and deeper and deeper and pike and muskies and they all
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interact and meet and it's game on boys okay ange watch
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this where's my finger i got to see if i can say when when how can i tell mr gourd how can i tell
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when my lake is turning over that was a question i had tonight so we're talking about this how
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the hell could tell because we're in southern ontario you're way up in northern ontario is there an indication
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that we can tell when our lake is turning over uh there there are a couple ways to pee but water temperature is the
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critical one if you're if your surface temperatures are in the high 50s uh the lake is turning over it's
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starting to turn over and and full turnover happens when it when it gets down a little bit
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cooler than this uh certainly water's densest heaviest when it's 40 degrees so overnight we've
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had a couple nights of frost and on the surface that means the surface cooled
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probably to 40 degrees or you know a millimeter or two and that's dense it starts to fall and
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then and then the wind will turn it over and it starts to mix and that's how it cools down
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but once your lake gets into the mid 50s it's it's starting to the
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thermocline is fully eroding it's it's turning over and it's opening up the lake and the walleye bass and
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northern pike and muskies can start going deeper and the cisco's and lake trout and whitefish are coming up
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and everything's interacting and meeting with each other so once your your surface temp hits 55 is that what
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you're saying uh i mean full full full full turnovers when it's
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40 and when it's 40 the whole lake will be 40 degrees it'll be 40 on the surface
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and 40 down below and there's no thermal um there's no thermal uh uh conflict if you will to
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mixing so if you get wind when water's 40 degrees it starts turning the lake over and
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that's how nature restores oxygen to the bottom it takes surface oxygenated water and
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wind causes that to go down to the bottom plus at night uh once we get close to that 40
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degrees uh 42 44 it's it's sinking because the surface overnight is
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starting to chill so that water's sinking down it's heavier and the wind's churning it
24:36
over and it's bringing oxygen down to the bottom so that's a lot for a person to chew by the
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way just for those of you out there who are sitting there saying huh
24:48
what did he say don't feel embarrassed okay that was a lot of
24:53
information there and uh and the best thing to do is is to search it out
24:58
find a good uh well i'm sure gord's got a gazillion blogs out there with that i do
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and study it work where can you send them for that court is there a place where canada you know i did a specific
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piece on fall turnover uh i believe it was last year it might have been the year before
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and it's definitely on outdoor canada.ca type in pies or thermocline and you'll
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read about it but the really cool i mean this is mother nature at her most brilliant
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water is densest at 40 degrees that means at 39 it floats and at 42 it floats
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and water at 40 that means just there's a point in the spring and a
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point in the fall always when your lake will be 40 degrees top to bottom
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and that's how oxygen gets replenished to the bottom in the fall it'll keep getting colder at
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the surface it'll go from 40 to 39 i'm still old school and fahrenheit so it goes from 40
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to 39 and 39 it's cool it's uh floats it's it's less dense than 40. and that's
26:07
why when you drill a hole in the winter time it's 32 on the surface and 40 down below
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and in the summertime it'll be 80 on the surface and 40 down below we have a great question we have to
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answer it from our good friend uh uncle jack jack summers from radio world
26:26
he wants to know um does water temperature affect the density of the water and to that question he
26:33
believes that his boat has a higher top end uh in this in the
26:38
in in the in in the spring and fall i i do too jack i hundred percent i believe it
26:44
cruises better i believe we feel it and i do believe it is it's that uh
26:49
as it gets down closer to the magic 40 degrees as it's cooling and the surface is
26:55
dropping i do believe the water being heavier being more dense it definitely is a 40
27:01
and i definitely do believe i the other thing guys i i have no reason to i have
27:07
no science but i i do believe this is the case we see less really significant uh i mean it gets
27:15
wavy in the fall but i do think it is maybe it's just me sensing it but i think as we get into
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uh later october and november it takes more wind to create the same waves
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oh i got a question i got a question for jack summers what the hell is your boat speed at top
27:34
end got to do with catching fish i was like jack he wants to get to them ahead of you guys
27:40
yeah okay okay that's the only chance he's got how does that sound uh gord last time
27:46
paul says gord last time that you mentioned about bass will not feed until they find their home
27:51
uh if taken away from that spot and released in the fall uh is this also true of summer season
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when during our tournaments for example they're caught and released away from their home area you know
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we uh when i was with i was with m r for 31 years and when i was up here uh
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district manager in kenora we replicated mark ridgway's work in nlp ongoing
28:16
mark did some of the most brilliant uh tracking work but here on lake of the woods we tracked
28:22
uh we we put radio tags in a pretty good number of smallmouth bass and largemouth
28:28
but in the smallmouth and then we moved them we intentionally moved them from their
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home ranges and the further we moved them the more difficult they had difficulty they had getting
28:40
home um but they are so faithful to spring summer fall home ranges
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they will spend all of their time looking for home now in smaller systems so if you're in
28:52
the kawarthas or the muskokas uh or in a small lake a six seven eight
28:57
hundred acre lake in fact when mark did his work on opiyongo and obiang goes a decent sized
29:03
water he took them across 120 150 feet in the spring
29:09
they were back on their nest before he voted back that's how so they knew how to get back
29:16
to their spring that's that's how faithful they are so we wanted to find out on lake of the
29:21
woods that's a million acres of water uh 14 000 islands 65 000 miles of shoreline
29:30
here and the unfortunate part was the further we moved them the more difficulty they had finding
29:36
their way back home in the fall when we we did some work in the fall
29:42
and what happened in the fall if they hadn't made their way home up to 50 of the fish were dead over
29:49
winter they starved because they weren't in the fall as we've been talking about this is
29:55
when you better bulk up this is what you when you better do what the bears are doing and add nourishment and they weren't
30:02
doing that they were going my god i got to get home i got to get to my fall spot and so they weren't feeding and just
30:08
again another good caution because i know most of guys listening are good conservationists and
30:14
and most the bass anglers catch and release but catch and release in the fall on the
30:20
spots where you're catching them the further you take them away for that hero
30:25
shot at the end of the day you might have killed every one of the fish in the live well now you'll say uh they
30:32
swam away they were in great shape but they're not going to feed now they're looking for
30:37
home and if you move them 25 miles with a bunch of islands in between
30:43
how did it work showed they died how did you track them gord how did you track those fish to find out the 50 died uh they had individual sonar
30:50
returns so they're sonar tags and so we we snorkeled and scuba dived
30:56
down uh when they were on the nest brought them up in and we actually surgically
31:01
opened them up and we put radio transmitters inside and then we sewed them back up and
31:07
everyone had an individual uh frequency so when we were listening to them on the so we
31:13
we knew you know there's betty there's george there's pete there's ange um and and they they some of them were
31:20
named wow the further we moved them away the greater they had difficulty finding
31:27
home and the greater the chance they were going to die over the winter
31:32
to your point sorry answers i'm going to just carry on there's this again of a two-part question so those ones that didn't make it back
31:37
were they at least on the track to get back or were they way off and they just got lost out in
31:42
the middle of the u.s of lake of the woods the further we move them pete that's
31:48
what happened one of mark's fish believe it or not he dropped them he moved them and then dropped it a fair
31:55
distance away it swam around like it could have been an island like georgina
32:01
it swam around the island the entire summer never stopped wow and it didn't know you know i better
32:08
move but it kept i i don't know where i am and he kept the homies awesome wow now here this is interesting
32:15
because folks will also say you know bass also migrate new areas and they'll
32:22
they'll move to an area and they survive and yet you know 50 percent did although 50 died but we also had a
32:30
couple fish believe it or not they were close enough now this is the difference
32:36
they we they removed them not so far that they couldn't find their way home
32:41
they actually swam about 11 miles and they were coming back listen and
32:48
they were very very close to their where we moved them from and they turned around and went back
32:54
and it was almost as though they said you know what were you dropping me off it was a hell of a lot better than where
33:01
i came from and i went back that's awesome here's a real here's the
33:08
real takeaway we say to ourselves these are dumb fish with brains that have are the size of
33:15
our our small fingernail these are amazingly adapted creatures and that know their
33:22
water so well and it's what i've always said and muskies are the same
33:29
we start sticking we start sticking rattles inside of baits and we throw top
33:36
waters that make a lot of noise and let me tell you if you're throwing for a large mouth and you're throwing
33:42
for smallmouth or i'm casting for muskies it knew the minute your bait hit the water you didn't need to add a rattle
33:49
you're telling me i'm up here no kidding no kidding absolutely and it's why
33:55
finesse has really taken off i i was down in uh i was down in on lake mead several
34:02
years ago and i fished them fishing with roy a hawk one of the best anglers down in the u.s
34:08
and believe it or not lake mead you guys i think of fish down there and you've seen me just outside of vegas
34:16
i mean we don't know what fishing pressure is like until you go there so yeah you go there i mean on a spinner
34:23
bait if you don't get it immediately on it you're not getting that feel you better know how to set
34:28
a hook now but anyway we were on a pretty good top water bite and roy was fight and it
34:35
was the first time i'd ever seen this and it's something folks can stick up their their bass quivers
34:41
so roy threw out on a point and he's pulling it across and he's pulling a big bass comes out
34:49
and explodes on his face boy he missed it so what do we do what do most anglers do
34:54
when that happens we fire right back in and hope the fish is going to hit it again roy through as far away
35:02
from where that fish hit and he said i'm always looking for the maximum distance
35:08
i don't want to be so far that they won't come out and chase it but i want to find that maximum
35:13
threshold so he was firing like maybe 40 yards 20 yards away and he was catching those
35:21
fish and that's when i discovered forget the rattles for muskies forget
35:27
you know these fish know when we're throwing baits up on the surface
35:32
and he blew my mind that day he never ever threw back into the same fish
35:39
we find that hard to believe and yet we just talked about a fish that can travel 40 50 miles back to its home range like
35:45
how does it know we just moved it to the other side of the lake how does it know pete and i experienced that just the other day we
35:52
um we put uh some new electronics on fnc one and out
35:57
just to test it we went to a local harbor here and it was just full
36:05
full of salmon big 30 plus pound salmon in a harbor
36:11
no incoming water no nothing and then we find out that they had been planted there
36:16
four years earlier and obviously these fish are returning but my question is the old question how do they know how
36:23
does that smallmouth on opiongo know that 42 miles to the southeast is where it lives
36:29
and the other the more interesting thing it had never been there obviously in its life and yet it still
36:36
found its way and mark believes that they have some kind of a magnetic uh response it's kind of like salmon you
36:43
know that is the the kind of the kind of accepted theory with salmon
36:48
that they you know they will travel 800 miles in the ocean and then go a thousand miles up the
36:54
yukon river and spawn in the same gravel shoal that was born like how do they do it and we we think
37:02
these things are dumb so those fish that ants were talking about too everybody listening here so they're
37:09
stocked in the harbor okay now if the people stalking these fish were to
37:16
just dump them in the harbor let them go okay hey perfect they're going to come back in five years they won't come back in five years what they
37:23
do is they have to put these fishes on how fishes systems work they put these fish into a
37:29
cage and they put them in a cage for six weeks and then it's called imprinting it imprints into
37:36
these fish this is their home and if they don't do that for six weeks they won't know where after that six weeks they let them go
37:42
and guarantee they're going to come back to that same spot how freaky is that now i would one i
37:48
maybe shouldn't shouldn't share this but i know the guys that are listening the smallmouth the bass guys are good
37:54
guys here the the downside of of how how faithful these fish are
38:01
if you caught a trophy last year or four years ago at this time
38:06
of the year or in another couple of weeks trust me you go back to that spot today it will
38:13
be there it will be there its relatives will be there and now here's the downside and we
38:20
found it on on lake of the woods when we did our tracking and mark found the very same
38:25
thing and i i used to co-chair the ontario minnesota fisheries technical committee
38:31
so all the fish managers in northwest ontario and minnesota i shared that with jack
38:36
skripek in minnesota did some phenomenal work on this as well
38:42
no matter how much pressure on that shoal you exert on those fish they will not
38:48
leave they will not leave so you can put 50 boats on it and those fish will stay right there so
38:55
if the guys here uh the folks here you have a favorite spot in the fall
39:00
where you've caught really nice fish go there and they will be there is that
39:06
smallmouth gorge is that your tunnel smallmouth that is smallmouth smallmouth are so so it's frightening
39:14
uh nothing more than frightening how faithful they are to their spring spawning spot we had
39:21
them coming we numbered house bricks number five number 12 number whatever and we had the bass
39:28
tagged they were carrying floyd tags and we had sonic tags and no matter where they wintered eight
39:34
miles away they would come back and spawn the exact same fish
39:40
on the exact same rock so they died that's awesome wow awesome so so what we
39:47
we never did do it but what we wanted to do was cover them up and so that they couldn't spawn and then
39:54
the question is what would they have done then if they came back and we had tarpaulin and make for a
40:01
really good science experiment would they move and spawn somewhere else or would they just absorb the eggs
40:09
calvin wants to say that he thinks it may be something related to scent is it
40:15
possible absolutely they they every river
40:20
smells different so on those salmon you know hang on that's rivers
40:25
and that's salmon but you're talking smallmouth bass on a rock gourd
40:30
on a rock that's that's the same fish that beat mark back in the boat
40:36
and was nesting and it traveled across and it's a built-in gps boys just like that
40:44
garmin right there built-in gps that's why i wear this stuff angelo right there buddy because we know the
40:50
fish use it so we got to catch up with the fish so we have to use it too there you go ladies all that to go
40:57
long roundabout way to tell you uh these new uh garmin units that we played with gord
41:03
a couple days ago okay i always defend us us
41:08
being the fishing fraternity because people are always saying yeah well you know what you guys it's unfair you guys have got
41:14
unfair advantages you got all that all that equipment and technology well of course you're going to catch fish and
41:20
i always say yeah you know what i wouldn't call it unfair i call it using all the tools that are available
41:26
to you but we still have to get them in the boat however however i have to maybe change
41:32
that comment moving forward because the technology that pete and i played with a couple of days ago
41:38
what did i tell you pete i said first thing i said i said well this isn't fair this is not fair this is unfair
41:45
because it is it's that good but ange i have said this many many
41:51
years as well i i do honestly believe eminr and the the agencies
41:56
do need to take hard looks uh when i first came to kenora
42:02
when we did our creel work uh the reality is most anglers used to spend eighty ninety
42:09
percent of their day looking for fish and ten percent catching the reality today we have gotten so so
42:17
good we can now spend 80 90 percent but the re the other reality is we don't have to
42:22
kill them we we enjoy doing what we enjoy we
42:28
we we we are better handlers of fish musky survival rates are the best
42:34
they've ever been bass survival rates are the best they've ever been so we can have our cake
42:40
and eat it too but needs to catch up with us interesting point interesting uh marco
42:47
wants to know how territorial are big pipe and what's the best lures and tacos
42:55
i i i honestly i i i don't know i i i speculate
43:01
um i i do believe that the larger pike are territorial i know that muskies are
43:08
um and they're the same family a large muskie is a a large muskie a large female
43:15
is so territorial she will protect the spawning area and i mean the ultimate is if she is the
43:23
only one spawning there she will protect it to be the only one if possible now
43:28
most times that's not possible but if you then caught and killed her no other muskies come in there to spawn
43:35
she protected it often so well and you you should have john
43:40
castleman on and talk to john about this it musky territoriality
43:46
is absolutely brilliant uh best lures right now this is the time of year for me this is
43:53
the time of year truly truly and i know we caught that musky the other day on a minnow but you can't get me away in
44:01
the fall from big bait's rule this is when i throw the biggest baits possible
44:07
and by all means absolutely the muskie will hit a minnow but you show it a t-bone steak uh you
44:14
show it that beef wellington uh you know it's expenditure of energy
44:20
it can eat a really really and that's why i re honestly i shouldn't even share this but
44:25
i will i love throwing white fish cisco colored baits uh there's a bait i love a rover it's a
44:32
rover swim bait made by a guy named smith landry smith
44:38
i'll go online you can see it but landry makes a rover swim bait that looks identical to
44:45
a cisco and he makes one that's about 12 inches long i i i almost dislocate my elbow and my
44:53
arm casting the damage but it catches pike and now
44:59
the downside again you weed out the smaller fish by and large but i'll go all day for that one bite
45:06
yeah another thing just to add to that or we've talked about it on the radio show uh oh numerous times usually in the fall
45:12
when we're talking about big baits for fall the opposite is usually true in the spring and and one of the reasons for
45:19
that is because the the prey that these fish are accustomed to eating
45:24
in the fall they're at the largest site just like the predator is at its largest through the season and so they
45:30
can get conditioned to eating these big chunks of food if you're throwing a little weed bait to them
45:37
it's not going to cut it because that doesn't belong there it's out of place conversely speaking in the spring in the
45:42
fall when things are just you know blooming and blossoming and giving birth everything is tiny everything is small and
45:48
and you see in the spring some of these anglers in shallow water throw these great big gaudy baits and you wonder wow
45:53
somebody needs to to talk to this person about that that's when you want to go small ultra small micro small but in the
46:00
fall the bigger i don't think you can get big enough i honestly don't either end uh in fact i
46:08
i will be honest when we troll we honestly troll baits because
46:18
i will also say this you're right about the spring but ang i always push i always push the
46:25
envelope so yes in the spring we throw small baits but this will sound strange we throw the
46:31
biggest small bait we can but a big bait in the spring might be
46:36
seven eight inches a big bait right now will be 14 15 and you need to put it in a rod holder it's
46:43
so bad [Laughter] oh god that's so true we take a couple
46:51
of questions and then uh and then we've got we could be here all night with gordy that's that's the unfortunate part
46:56
uh gordon at a school of war related to each other yeah absolutely they are this is
47:03
brilliant um they are related often
47:08
you will not believe this but a muskie or a walleye rather uh by and large doesn't know where to
47:15
spawn for the very first time um when a walleye on lake of the woods
47:21
for example and val masons are the late val masons here on lake of the woods
47:27
used to be the lake of the woods biologists and val did uh some work all again with minnesota uh
47:34
one third of lake of the woods is in minnesota and we we do a lot of cooperative work together so we
47:40
tagged walleyes and we did val did some brilliant brilliant work
47:47
and essentially the reality is walleyes on liquid woods a male at 15
47:53
inches and female 16 that's the first time they spawn generally they spawn
47:58
for the first time 15 16 inches and they don't know where to go they do
48:05
not know where to spawn so how do they spawn they hook up with a school
48:10
of larger fish and they follow them and that and we talked about imprinting on sam and pete did
48:17
uh they get smarter and they remember oh yeah yeah and it builds and builds and builds but
48:23
as a general principle while i follow older walleye to the spawning areas
48:29
and that's how they get imprinted on word spawn wow i've got guys i can't make this
48:35
stuff up it's so good you got that right gord you can't make this stuff up that is good
48:43
party we've ever fished lake uh tomico that's the one around north bay uh my
48:49
first second job with m r was in north bay and there is atomico lake there
48:56
uh and i'll be honest no i did not uh my fish trout lake outside of north bay
49:01
used to go up to mogami and all the lakes there used to fish nipissing uh but i haven't fished tomoko um i
49:08
think it's a trout lake i'm pretty sure it's a trout lake but uh unfortunately no that's the
49:14
problem with ontario four hundred thousand oh lake sod
49:20
we haven't fished one percent eh yep you're right all of us together have not fished one percent for sure guaranteed
49:28
i'll attune to structure while i am bass in the fall during the transition um you know it's a really
49:34
really good point uh what i always say is we know where they're coming from we know where they're going to now they
49:41
will travel right now what i always do is i know we talked about those small mouth being
49:47
on those home areas and we know where they summered what i always look for are the structures in between i know
49:55
where they're coming from i know where they're going to but i have a blog coming out i
50:01
actually have one out right now on northern ontario tourism so go to the tourism blog and i'm
50:09
actually throwing lipless crankbaits and blade baits and we've been doing pretty well on those
50:15
flat bottomed areas that really aren't structurey and i
50:20
think those fish are on the move but i will say this pete was talking
50:25
about sonar uh you put her on side imaging or down imaging and you find 15 20 stones
50:33
boulders gravel whatever on an otherwise flat bottom of muck and the difference in the depth is zero
50:40
and those fish are sitting right on that slightly harder structure and the other thing i'm finding right
50:46
now so if this is the bottom and then you come to a structure and let me see and it starts going up
50:52
right at that v i guarantee you right now on every v where the bottom meets a piece
50:59
of structure there's walleye on lake of the woods it is uncanny how they are on the bottom but right on
51:06
the edge of that structure ah that's interesting use this analogy
51:12
and this is probably a good time to use it if somebody airlifted you in the middle of the sahara desert
51:19
and gave you a gps and you knew where the where the end point was you knew where you had to go and you had two routes to
51:26
take it the open desert or an area that takes you through some little oasis
51:31
all along to the destination 99.99 if not 100 of us are going to take the
51:38
longer route maybe but we've got some places to rest you you find sustenance
51:44
uh hide uh get away from the sun's you know heat whatever the case may be
51:50
as opposed to going straight across the desert so is is simple analogy that that may
51:55
sound think of it next time you're chasing down fish they are no different than we are
52:00
chances are they are not going to be in that totally flat void of any kind of character bottom
52:07
they're just not going to be there nope unless let me interject unless and i'm proving
52:13
this daily when i'm out fishing now unless there's bait there
52:19
that flat with all this broad masses of perch are out there you're
52:25
going to find some big fish pete would i view that's those in your
52:31
hundred percent right uh cisco's uh whitefish uh emerald
52:36
shiners yell but what i look at that as is moving structure and so when we find the ciscos and we
52:43
find the smells and you see two or three big arcs underneath a small lake trout waiting to come up hang on
52:50
and they're following the moving structure
52:55
hawk lake not far from you uh where you'll see a cluster of bait and all
53:00
sudden this great big and you know in that lake that big hook means one thing and one thing only a big
53:06
eye yeah so did you do this year at all glory were you able to make it out the hot
53:11
lake at all i i haven't yet with a little bit of resurgence manitoba's
53:17
had some issues um we'll see well my wife has chronic lung
53:24
and autoimmune disease so i'm really really playing it safe right now yeah good for
53:30
you i understand she's yelling at me now that i'm giving away her health i'm in trouble
53:42
[Music] we're running out of time so unfortunately we're gonna have to uh
53:48
we're gonna have to cut you short but uh wow what a great uh this was a great evening i we've had a lot of great evenings with you
53:55
we had a lot of great saturdays with you we've had a lot of great times with you this was uh this was a pretty special one so uh for
54:01
sure you uh you're sharing and for those of you watching out there you and especially
54:06
if this is you're a newbie here this was not even the tip of the iceberg you want to find
54:12
out more about gord uh check him out his name is gordpieser we call him the doc here but his name is
54:17
gordpieser you can find him in outdoor canada magazine he is the fishing editor of that fine publication uh ontario tourism uses him
54:25
as the ambassador and why wouldn't they uh to ontario fishing so he blogs there it seems like every day i
54:31
don't know where you find the time is still fish by the way but uh you can go there check out some of his uh blogs they're all
54:38
archived you can you can punch in uh species and and uh you can punch in
54:44
patterns you could whatever you want and you'll find gord's work there as he is also on fishingcanada.com
54:50
uh or you can follow them there and um short of that be here every tuesday evening and we'll
54:56
see if we can snag them the one thing i will say for all those walleye guys out there and
55:02
pete is that tomorrow um i did get so many emails from folks
55:08
recently about having trouble catching walleye tomorrow's blog that's going to go up uh
55:14
on outdoor canada.ca um is on walleye on shield northern ontario
55:21
central ontario type lakes so if you're into walleye guys uh check it out tomorrow it'll be up
55:29
perfect well said gordon my friend uh go tell lin not to be uh upset with you it's not
55:34
i'm going to be banished to the porch now i do not want to be you right now oh boy
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