McQuillan Reservoir - The story so far

This weekend I was fishing on my own so I decided I would do  a little exploring.  After Friday night's fiasco down at the Cross Coulee it was time to expand our portfolio of fishing holes.  Remember Friday was 13th and yes I am quite superstitious, however I still did go out fishing.  I managed to not fall in the lake  but I did manage to fall into a thorn bush and got some wicked splinters which took me most of the weekend to extract.

Sunday night I decided to explore and try a Rainbow stocked lake in between Coaldale and Raymond.  This place was right out in the sticks and I was thinking it was going to be a wasted evening.

I was so wrong!

When I eventually found the place it was behind a beautiful, well kept campsite and over the road was a golf club.  I drove out onto the lake and noticed that there was a single track road that went all of the way round the lake.  it was perfect and only two other fishermen (and families) on the whole reservoir.  I found a spot and started to set up.....

Now I did not see anyone catch a fish and I certainly did not catch anything myself which was a little annoying.  I started off with a Rooster Tail spinner which failed miserably...  I then tried a small Canadian Wiggler in Fire Tiger and the fish completely ignored it...  I tried a pickerel rig with two yellow plastic worms smeared in trout dough.  Again nothing, I did not catch a thing that night.

Today at work I was chatting with John and we decided to meet up there tonight to give it a whirl.  The Solunar Tables showed it was a just above average day and the moon was a Waxing Gibbous with 93% full so even as it was dropping dark we still had plenty of light.

I had gone out to canadian Tire this lunchtime to pick up some trout spinners in preparation for tonight and I was keen to use them.  well I tried 3 of the 7 I had bought and again I caught absolutely nothing.  I even tried the trout dough and salmon eggs and the fish just ignored everything I did.... it was annoying.

Just as it was getting dark John got a strike and pulled out a 16 inch Rainbow, it was a perfect hook and Mr Trout even posed for some photographs with us.  Then we had to decide whether Mr Trout was going back for supper with John and Alfie.  After much thought and pondering we opted for catch and release so Mr Trout lives to fight another day.

We all agreed that this is a nice little pond to fish and of course John proved that there is fish in there, I'm sure he won't mind me telling you about the lure he used, it was a $1 lure from Dollarama, I couldn't believe it, a gold (small) plastic plug succeeded where our more expensive spinners failed.