Location Of Georgian Bay Bass Hole

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Put the above map on satellite mode & follow the Key River out to Georgian Bay to see aerial photos of the entire area.

The Key River is at Route 69 & Key River Junction near Ludgate, Ontario, Canada.

Very close to the upper French & Pickerel Rivers & it is located inThe French River Provincial Park System.

You will park your vehicle & boat trailer at route 69 & Key River Junction at one of the lodges or fishing & hunting camps & load & launch your boat from there for your journey out to Georgian Bay which is an 8 mile trip.

There is no free boat launching or parking available at The Key River Outlet To Georgian Bay.

In recent years we parked & launched at Camp Dore & there are several others there also.

If you are staying at a fish camp out on Georgian Bay they will tell you which place to park your vehicle & boat trailer if you are bringing your own boat & motor.

Checkout all my links in the right hand column for further information.

Georgian Bay Bass Hole Largemouth & Smallmouth Bass

Big Largemouth & Smallmouth Bass “Walking The Dog” With Heddon Zara Spook In Key River Area Of The Georgian Bay

The Heddon Zara Spook

My favorite Spooks pictured above (Model X9255GBSD B3 G Finish Silver Color & Perch G Finish).

The Zara Spook is by far the very best lure to use for big smallmouth & largemouth bass in The Georgian Bay Bass Hole.

The  fishing method is called

Walking The Dog

It is difficult to master in a hurry.

Go to You Tube & search for walking the dog or Zara Sppok videos.

 The rod I prefer is a Shakespeare Ugly Stick Cal 1100 LITE (1.95m) Action Medium (8-20lb line) & it is 6 1/2 foot long & has the long butt so you can put it in most rod holders when trolling or brace the longer butt on your belt when you get a large fish on.

This is the best all around rod to use in The Georgian Bay Bass Hole for walking the dog with Zara Spooks. You can buy all of them you want at Wal Mart for $29.95.

The reel I prefer is an Abu Garcia Sprint 6.3:1 Ambassadeur casting reel made in Sweden. They can be bought for less than $50.00.

The line I prefer is the regular blue Stren Dupont makes.

If you do not know how to cast Swedish casting reels with big & heavy Georgian Bay type lures without back lashing all the time you will never do much good fishing the areas I fish unless you like to troll all day which at times is also very effective for everything but largemouth & panfish.

Side arm, under arm, sling shot, whip cast & overhead cast can all be done well with a casting rod & when it comes time to set the hook & you have your thumb on the spool they are ten times better than a spinning rod & especially so for setting hooks when you get a hit Spook fishing.

The only solution is to practice casting & walking the dog with a casting rod like I have over & over again before you go & make sure it is twenty pound line irregardless of what you might prefer at home.

No other rod, reel or line will cast better, further, more accurately or hold up as well over the long haul & this outfit is perfectly balanced for walking the dog with Zara Spooks.

Anything lighter than I have recommended is not suitable for the areas I fish.

This outfit is perfectly balanced for casting or trolling the lures we use most often for all types of fish you will find in The Georgian Bay & it is also the best trolling rod for anything that swims in The Georgian Bay.

Not to long or to short & if you hook a big muskie or pike it will handle it easily & that is another reason for the twenty pound Stren line.

It has a lot of stretch & that makes it more difficult for trophy fish to break.

The Zara Spook & walking the dog will take more bigger bass than any other method both smallmouth & largemouth now that they stopped making The Creek Chub Injured Minnow.

I always attach a short solid stainless steel wire .015-.020 diameter aproximately four inches long just in case a pike or muskie grabs it & this does not affect it’s ability to catch bass or ruin the action.

I use round nosed wire bending pliers  & you will also need wire cutters to clip off the tag real close to the loop you make. 

Some fishermen put a split ring on the eye & tie their line directly to that & do not use a wire pike leader.

If you fish the Spook in Canada take my word big pike will go after it & muskie will to if you are ever so lucky.

Large smallmouth bass & largemouth bass in Georgian Bay will follow this lure & smack it right in front of you at times & they always do that when you least expect it.

The water in Georgian Bay is very clear & you can not get right on top of the bass located in pockets along rock cliffs or shorelines without spooking them with your boat motor or your boat or by banging anything around or talking to much.

Long accurate cast are a must & you must stay back away from the holes & not get right on them.

We always turn our motors off & paddle or pole the boat along quietly with a twelve foot long aluminum pole with weed foot if the water is shallow enough.

The man in front stands up & cast while the other keeps the boat positioned with the pole.

The other end of the pole is fitted with a heavy rubber cane tip & is used to push or keep the boat off the rocks or cliffs when the wind pushes it in.

The pole is also used to get the boat through areas to shallow for the motor.

This can be a real pain when the wind is strong but if you know anything about surface fishing you know wind on the water & surface fishing do not mix well.

Best time to surface fish is when the top water is flat & smooth without any wind at all & right before dark seems to be the best time of all.

A very gentle soft breeze on the water is also good at times.

Especially when there are no clouds in the sky & a warm breeze is coming in from the south.

The Creek Chub Injured Minnow which I have personally caught more big bass on in The Georgian Bay Bass Hole than any other lure including the Zara Spook & the Bill Plummer Frog which had to be fished with light outfits are no longer manufactured.

Fritts loved The Bill Plummer Frog & caught a caught a lot of nice largemouth with it.

He would use 7 foot long open faced outfits made by Fenwick & Zebco Cardinal 4 reels made in Sweden & toss the frog on top of weed beds & the bass would jump right through the weeds to grab it.

The new ones are not near as good as the old solid rubber ones.

All you have to do with an injured minnow is throw it out & let it sit for a few seconds until the rings in the water are gone & then twitch it & let it sit again the same way & usually by that time something knocks it four feet out of the water & tails across the bay shaking it’s head from side to side & this whole thing virtually scares the hell out of you especially if it is a really big one over eight pounds.

The lure pictured below  is a standard Creek Chub Injured Minnow.

If you see one in a garage or yard it would be a good idea to grab it.

If you see a wood one with real glass eyes don’t fish with it as they are collector items & very valuable.

Just throw it out & let it sit until the rings in the water are gone & then gently twitch it & let it sit again & just keep doing that slowly until you get the feel of it & what works best.

Always reel the slack out of your line after you cast but not to the point it moves the lure.

If a big bass hits it & you have to much slack & your rod is to short it is hard to get a hook set.

This lure is heavy & easy to cast with the twenty pound line & you should also put the wire on it as pike & muskie murder this lure in the color shown.

It has very heavy hooks that make it easy to cast in the wind.

This way you can still catch all the bass you want until you master walking the dog with the Spook.

Anyone that can cast can get these big bass on the surface with The Injured Minnow if they are hitting on the surface.

Chuck Hines Source For Injured Minnows & Other Creek Chub Lures.

Learn how to walk the dog with a Zara Spook or get yourself an Injured Minnow on eBay & go up to The Key River Area of The Georgian Bay & try it.

There is no more exciting style of bass fishing.

There is no better place to go.

Take my word on it.

Big largemouth & smallmouth lurk in The Key River area of The Georgian Bay & very few people that go up there fish for them.

The bass pros had tournaments up there on the French River & all of them said it was by far the best all around bass fishing they had ever seen & they do not even know where The Georgian Bay Bass Hole is & besides their boats are to large to get in there.

We have taken many largemouth bass six to eight pounds & the one ten pounder that is a really big bass for Canada

I started taking my son Duke up when he was three & he is an expert at catching these bass on the Zara Spook & he is also good at kicking small Rapalas on the surface for them.

Always look for bays or coves facing the south that are sheltered from north winds & remember to look at tree tops as the wind is westerly in Georgian Bay.

Prevailing winds come from the west & go east & when a warm south wind comes fishing is good & when north winds come fishing is bad.

South winds also mean thunder storms soon.

The woodpecker holes always face south.

When you get up in the morning & everything is dry with no dew on it expect rain soon by noon.

If there is dew on the grass or your canoe no rain that day by noon.

If it is raining when you retire for the night & raining when you get up in the morning like it often is in The Georgian Bay I have no idea what to tell you except make sure you bring good rain gear with you & rubber boots.

My son & his friend Herb really know how to catch these big bass with the small Rapalas that float by putting a split ring on them & jerk fishing them on the surface with fast jerking motions.

They do not use a leader but do lose a lot of lures to pike.

They also catch pickerel at night in clear shallow eddies near rapids using this method.

Personally I am not very good at that & these younger guys really know what they are doing.

Learn how to kick small Rapalas on the surface with Ten Pound Stren & open face spinning outfits as this method is deadly in clear water.

I have seen them get one big smallmouth & largemouth after another using this method in Georgian Bay.

The white or chartruse Mr. Twister Grubs on jig head with or without a safety pin spinner are also very good along the rocks & cliff faces all over Georgian Bay.

There are many different methods you can use but none is more exciting or sporting than walking the dog with a Zara Spook or nailing them on an Injured Minnow especially when they hit them & knock them 4 to 6 feet out of the water & tail walk violently shaking their head from side to side. No one gets all of them in the boat for photos. I tryed to get a really big one for many years & he won. He was always there waiting for me to come back the next year so he could humilate me once again. His mouth was huge & he was very strong. I was no match for him. He knew where the weeds were & he knew I could never get a bass that big out of them. The good news is he probably fathered a lot of young that will get just as big as he was. Over ten pounds for sure. Believe me the Canadian Record Largemouth lurks in this area.

I know of a thirteen pound largemouth bass & a nine pound smallmouth caught in the area we fish.

The Key Harbour Lodge used to have a picture of the largemouth caught on a night crawler & the smallmouth was caught two days before season & was released.

It was caught in Sand Bay with a live crawdad in 35 feet of water not far from the windmill cottage.

The largemouth would be The Canadian record & the smallmouth would be just .84 Lb. under.

Pictures Local Outdoorsmen Email To Me:

The sportsmen in these photographs live in Sudbury, Ontario & they have a cabin out past Key Harbour over towards Henley Inlet & they also have a fishing & hunting cabin up in Northern Ontario which is great brook trout & smallmouth bass fishing & as you can see moose hunting.
They catch a lot of nice pike & muskie in Georgian Bay & also big yellow pickerel.
What a life!
I envy them & their youth.
They know what they are doing & do it well.
I would love to be up there hunting & fishing in all the different places they know about & go to frequently.
Pictures say more than a thousand words.

Email your pictures you would like displayed on this page to:
williamdaviddice@yahoo.com

Largemouth Bass Fishing In Key River Area Georgian Bay

The Key River Area of Georgian Bay has some of the best big smallmouth & largemouth bass fishing to be had in all of Canada.

You can expect to take many largemouth around six pounds & smallmouth around the same size if you are there at the right time & the right place.

The largemouth are hard to find & locate as they will always be where warm water back bays can be found with deep holes nearby.

Coves sheltered from North winds facing South always seem to be the best place to find them.

All sheltered coves with deep warm water in them or close by hold largemouth in this area.

The bass are not legal in Canada until the end of June after they spawn.

Check the law on this before you go after them.

In early spring they all gather in warm shallow water areas way back in & up the rivers to the back bays where they spawn.

After spawning most scatter all over the area with the exception of a few that stay in these areas all year.

The best method is called ”Walking The Dog” With The  Zara Spook.

Also expect to catch a record in this area as a 13 pound largemouth was taken here & a 9 pound smallmouth out of season.

The big largemouth exceeds the Canadian record but was never turned in.

I saw a picture of this bass at Key Harbour Lodge years ago & I can tell you it was a big one.

The nine pound smallmouth was taken in 35 feet of water in Sand Bay near the Windmill Cottage on a crawdad but had to be released as it was not in season as yet.

I saw the picture & I can tell you that bass was huge.

My best smallmouth to date is 7 1/2 pounds caught on a Creek Chub Injured Minnow & a ten pound largemouth on a Zara Spook.

Big surface lures with spinners often produce a lot of big bass & big hits.

Toss them back in the pockets & ledges along the cliff or rock faces where the water is warm & 5 to 6 feet deep or more & that is where you will find most of them laying.

Each bass has its own little hole in Georgian Bay.

Please release them to fight another day.

 

Grandson Is Going To Georgian Bay For First Time 2010.

My grandson Logan has a secret carp method. He puts canned corn on a treble hook with no weight & throws it out on the bottom & then throws hand fulls of corn where it lands. The carp come to get the corn & then they pickup his bait.

He is going to The Georgian Bay Bass Hole for the first time this year 2010 being we did not make it in 2009.

I think the fish in the bay are in big trouble.

This kid is very confident & acts just like the cocky carpers in UK.

Black Bear Stories

Guess Who Is Coming To Dinner

In all the years I went to Georgian Bay one of the things I always enjoyed the most were the black bear stories & one of the things I feared the most was the black bears & especially when I went alone.

I have camped out in the wilderness all over Canada & usually in a tent.

When you go alone you try not to think about Mr. black bear showing up in your campsite because if he does there is not much you can do anyway.

No guns allowed & no bear mace allowed so you are basically in a bad situation.

Black bears in Georgian Bay swim long distances so camping on any island does not guarantee that one will not visit you in the middle of the night.

A black bear can swim many miles to get to islands in Georgian Bay & they like to do this at night.

When they have a bad berry season the bears will go into campsites for dinner & they also will go in large groups.

During normal berry seasons they are mostly loners & very seldom raid camps, cottages or lodges.

They will break into cars, rob boats, refrigerators in cabins & become a real danger when starving.

One year a woman had just been killed in Ontario by a black bear training for the olympics & we heard it on the radio over & over again on the way up.

Then you start thinking about all the stories about people mauled or killed by black bears which really is not that many over a period of many years.

I even bought a book that listed every bear attack ever recorded in The US & Canada.

I probably would have been better off not reading it.

You probably have a better chance of getting killed on the highway on the way up.

None the less it still bothers you & you do think about it & what you would do if the time came that you found yourself in the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong bear that was hell bent on killing you & eating you for dinner.

It does happen & has happened in Ontario, Canada.

I have seen many bears from a distance over the years & have faced them eye to eye before in my campsite.

I camped with 2,200 black bears at Lake Missinabi way up north.

I could write a book about that as we had one bear encounter after another for 10 straight days & nights.

The bears actually lived in the primitive campground with us & that is the only place in North America you can do that.

I also know some campers were killed there where we camped a few years back.

Now that the spriing bear hunt is no longer open I have heard the area we camp in is crawling with big black bears.

I say that because Georgian Bay Black Bears get really big as the islands are full of berries.

I have seen many 350 to 600 pound black bears where I camp & I have seen many mother bears with three cubs rather than just two or one.

When I get in my tent at night I am usually really tired after fishing or canoeing all day so falling asleep is not all that hard to do.

Not in the wilderness.

We would always ask about the bears when we arrived at Camp Dore & sometimes they would have a bear encounter story to tell us.

One year we camped out on The French River at Dallas Rapids & the lodge owner said you are not camping on the rapids are you?

He said there was a real big mean one over there that had been tearing up his boats & cabins at night.

We saw coolers up in trees the bear had stashed there.

Needless to say sleeping that night was difficult.

We put a white gas lantern out in front of the tent & let it burn all night long.

The bear never did show up but we worried about that all week.

The lodge owner had hunters shoot 10 bears on his dump that week just to get rid of some of them.

When fishermen went to their cottge the bears would raid their boats & eat their worms & minnows.

Very sneaky even in broad daylight.

I have a few bear stories but I would like to hear others about black bear encounters on Georgian Bay Islands.

The last encounter I had was momma bear & three cubs 50 feet from me in my campsite when I got out of my tent at 7 A.M.

Lucky for me they headed down the shoreline away from my campsite or I would have been in a really bad situation as she was at least 350 pounds & very healthy & her cubs were also healthy & large.

I was camping alone & picked this spot because I did not think there would be any bears there.

I walked all over this area during the week & had no idea a mother with cubs was in the area.

I could have come face to face with her doing that & had no weapons of any type.

Needless to say I packed up & left after she & her cubs moved off to another area.

That was a great experience I will never forget but I would not want to go through it again.

Georgian Bay Bears are often hard to spot because they book it when they hear boat motors in their areas.

You would not believe how fast they run over the rocky terrain.

There is no way anyone could ever get away from one by running.

When I spot one on the shore ahead I always kill my motor & sit & watch them from a distance.

Pictures are diifficult unless you have a real big tele-photo lense & tri-pod which is useless in a bouncing boat.

Do you have any bear encounter stories?

 

Key Harbour Lodge Key River Georgian Bay Ontario, Canada

When Fritts & I first started going to Georgian Bay years ago we would always go to The Key Harbour Lodge to buy gasoline, cigarettes, bread, live bait & anything we would run out of.

Back in those days if you went up in May when the yellow pickerel were running there would be at least 500 fishing parties camped out on the islands & all the lodges were booked years ahead.

This area & The Moon River area of Georgian Bay were the hottest big yellow pickerel fishing in all of Canada for many years.

Fifteen to seventeen pound yellow pickerel were common & very few would run under six pounds when they came out of the big lake & started up the rivers to spawn.

Fishermen would be trolling all over the area & any lure would do but most used the floating black & silver floating Rapalas.

You could easily get your limit in an hour or two or catch & release large numbers in a days time.

When a fishermen got a hook up they would yell out “Fish On”.

We carried on that tradition & always yell out fish on when we get a hookup.

One year one of the guys that went with us tied on a small yellow Rooster Tail & he hooked one pickerel after another & out-fished all of us with six pound line & ultra light rod.

He used the same lure all week & had it when he left minus a few tail feathers.

When we first started going up to the Key River Mrs. Lyttle owner of Key Harbour Lodge was very nice to us & took us under her wing.

She knew we were young & inexperienced & worried about us just like any mother would her own children.

We always enjoyed going to the lodge to see the big fish pictures & chat with the experienced fishermen that were staying there.

We would go in the evening when they came in from a days fishing & that way we could see what they got & find out where.

They had an Indian Guide named Ivan & he told us to get there early in the morning & we could follow him when he took out fishing parties & he would lead us to all the hot spots in the area.

No one knew more about the area than Ivan & probably never will.

Ivan told us to always use twenty pound line in Georgian Bay & he only used one lure A red & white Daredevil the medium or next size down from the standard size model & he always had a wire leader.

Mrs. Lyttle’s son Al grew up at the lodge & trapped the area for many years & he had a cabin out on the islands where he & his family lived.

He also showed us where to go & he would help us fix our boat motors when we had a problem.

Mr. Lyttle had a stroke & lived at the lodge until he passed away at which time she put the lodge up for sale & retired.

Mrs. Lyttle always treated us special even though we never stayed at the lodge & went out of her way to teach us things & caution us about weather & cold water & the dangers of small boats in Georgian Bay storms & bears & rattlesnakes.

She told us to leave some bacon & grease out overnight in a skillet if we wanted to see a big black bear in our camp & warned us about not cooking or leaving anything in our tents that had an odor including soap & things like that.

She told us black bears in Georgian Bay can get real nasty when cornered so we should always give them a quick way out if we got one cornered by accident walking around the islands.

One time we told her the pike were not hitting.

She laughed & told us to catch a few live perch & put them in a minnow bucket & put one out set four foot deep on a bobber & then come back & tell her what happened.

Boy did we.

One ten to fifteen pound pike after another right off the bank at our campsite.

 

From that time on when we told her we got a big pike trolling or casting lures she would always smirk & say “Sure You Were Not Using A Live Perch?”.

The Lyttles ran the lodge for many years & all of them were top notch people that helped us every way they could.

They went out of their way to teach us everything they knew.

They always had a big smile when we returned each year.

They also had a pay telephone if we needed to call home for anything.

If you are not the wilderness camping type The Key Harbour Lodge is a great place to stay & learn the area.

You can catch big pickerel in the bay at night when they are running & also really big pike over twenty pounds.

They also have guides & tackle & gasoline.

Yo can fish the areas we fish from Key Harbour Lodge & even run out to The French & Bad River Areas or Bustard Islands when the weather is right if you have a deep boat & 25 HP motor.

We always camped out there when we went because of our small motors.

If you are after largemouth this area is better than The French or Bad River area if you know where to go.

The smallmouth fishing is good out there but the water is to cold for largemouth & they are hard to locate out in the big water areas & bays.

For largemouth go back in & find the warm water bays & swamps with lilly pads with six to ten feet of water nearby.

Low Water Conditions: Mrs. Lyttle told us years ago that Georgian Bay has a 35 year water cycle where it goes up for 35 years & then down for 35 years.

If her theory is correct & I believe it is the water levels in Georgian Bay should start going back up again in the next few years as the water started to go down slowly when we first started going up so the down cycle should be about over.

The water has really been low over the last few years & that hurts a lot of the really good bass holes many of which may be high & dry.

The bass are still around somewhere so you just have to find them.

When we were young & full of vigor we would fish from sun up to sun down.

One year one of the local Indians stopped by our boat & simply said:

If the fish ain’t biting boys “Why Don’t You Leave Them Alone?”

He said he drops his worm down & if he gets one right away he keeps fishing & if not he pulls up his line & goes home & drinks a couple of beers.

He knew no one could make a fish bite.

We found that out the hard way but it was sure fun trying.

Big Black Crappie (Pomoxis Nigromaculatus) Key River Area Georgian Bay Ontario, Canada

 

 

Many serious crappie fishermen consider The Key River area to be some of the best big crappie fishing in North America & many of them fish for nothing but crappie on their annual trips up north.

Maribou Jigs set three feet deep on weighted small round bobbers work best in weed beds.

Small Mr. Twister Grubs & special crappie tube jigs work well also.

Live bait fishermen use minnows & bobber & they can get their limit in a hurry on a good crappie hole.

We use light outfits with six pound test Stren line.

One to three pound Black Crappie are common & when they are hitting you can catch all you want.

Check with local stores or lodges for information on the best places & time.

The Georgian Bay Bass Hole is full of them in Spring & summer & fall.

There is a pan fish hole on The Key River that is full of Big Crappie & pan-fish & the kids can catch them on small twister grubs one after another.

The Key River is full of crappie & you have to know where to find them in backwater bays out on Georgian Bay & around islands.

We have caught black crappies up to 3 1/2 pounds in The Georgian Bay Bass Hole & that one was caught trolling a small deep diving plug & that is how we found out they were there by accident. We turned him loose & had no camera back then. We returned to this same area many times & they were always there & still are.

The Georgian Bay Bass Hole in the top of this blog post with a picture of me fishing it is the best big crappie hole in all of Canada.

You can stand there & catch all the 1 to 1/2 pound Black Crappie you want one right after another & never leave your campsite not to mention largemouth & smallmouth bass that come in there to feed or the large pike & muskie right behind them.

 

 

Big Channel Catfish Key River Area Georgian Bay Ontario, Canada

 

 

 

The Georgian Bay is full of really big  Channel Catfish & we have caught many over the years.

All you have to do is put out a live fish on a bobber at your campsite & leave it out overnight.

Tie your pole down or it will be gone in the morning.

The best place to catch them is below falls or rapids of any type fishing at night.

They hit night crawlers or minnows or any type of live fish or crawdads, etc.

The catfish Duke caught above was close to 40 pounds & the two at the top were twenty five pounds each & were caught at Dallas Rapids below the falls on night crawlers fishing for walleye.

 

 

Dice Device Fishing Lures