Fishing Adventures in Ontario

This post will sum up two separate adventures I went on into the neighbouring province of Ontario. The first was was at the end of August, after Alex and I had returned from our adventure down to DC. The main goal was to investigate some observations of Northern Sunfish I had seen posted on iNaturalist near Peterborough. On the way there, I stopped at a friend's house on Lower Rideau Lake to try for Yellow Bullhead. As expected, they were nowhere to be found and I maintain my theory that they are an inexistent species made up to waste a lifelister's time. I did manage to catch my first hybrid Sunfish though: a Bluegill x Pumpkinseed cross.

I also stopped at some smaller creeks with the hopes of finding a Brassy Minnow, one of the last two cyprinids I had yet to catch in the region. No luck with the Brassy but I did get my first Blackchin Shiner on hook & line.

Next up was the main event for the mini-trip: the Northern Sunfish. It was the last fish I had yet to catch from the species in the Sunfish family that had been sampled in Quebec. Needless to say, I was very happy when my plan worked out and I caught the desired species :) Another family complete. Oh yeah, I even got a hybrid Northern!

On the way home, I tried two Lake Ontario tribs for an unlikely shot at a Coho Salmon. I only fished a couple hours and just found Chinooks.

Trip 2:
Trip 2 was much later in the Fall, and the main goal was fishing the Salmon run. I kept my hopes up for a Coho and my friend Tim would have been happy with a Chinook. We tried a new stream a friend had suggested that had very little angling pressure; we didn't see any other fishermen the whole time we were there. It took a couple hours of fishing, but I finally hooked and landed my Coho Salmon! It only took me about 5 years of annual trips to the tribs haha.

Having successfully caught my target, I left Tim to continue trying for Salmon while I drove over to Peterborough to catch a Hornyhead Chub. A biologist friend had suggested some spots where I would have a good shot at catching one... it didn't take long:

I then rejoined Tim on the tribs and did my best to help put him onto fish. Unfortunately, I was unsuccessful in this task and he went home skunked :( I did catch one more Chinook at the end of the day though, a nice way to end a great day.