Welcome to Week CLXVII of ‘Fishing Parkland Shorelines’. Like most of us I am a novice fisherman, loving to fish, but far from an expert. In the following weeks I’ll attempt to give those anglers who love to fish but just don’t have access to a boat, a look at some of the options in the Yorkton area where you can fish from shore, and hopefully catch some fish.
The great limitation of shore fishing is the actual shoreline area where fishing is reasonably possible.
When you are in a boat the entire lake is available to you, so if one area is not producing fish you can head to another likely spot and give that one a try.
Shore fishing is far more limited.
Few lakes in the area have multiple spots for the shore fisherman, even though it would take little more than a tree or two scrubbed out to allow for a backcast.
Now I appreciate not wanting to clear great areas of shoreline for fear of erosion, but a few 100-foot spots connected by a pathway would seem reasonable to facilitate a segment of the fishing population given that fishing in general is a major tourism generator.
But, we must work with the options we have.
And that means at times we sit on the shoreline and twiddle our thumbs when fish are not biting.
Such was the case a few weeks back as my son I headed to Togo Bridge.
The water was at late fall levels, by that I mean it was low.
It was a nice day weather wise, which I suppose might be the reason the fish were busy elsewhere. Let’s at least suggest that was the reason, since the fish certainly were not biting — at all.
Yes a couple of others along the row of fisherfolk had caught a couple, but as is the case usually at that spot they were not exactly monsters. Of course good-sized fish would be a toss back given the fish management tool of slot limits. Yes that is a good thing for overall fish numbers, but a tad frustrating at times just the same.
With our luck bad, and no real options other than to move a few rocks down, we started to analyze our options, which included heading home for a nap, to the possibility of disc golf being a better option for the day.
Then the idea came to me to take a little cross country drive ending up at Cutarm Creek south of Church-bridge.
The spot is a perch lovers paradise. No there are no jumbo perch there, well none that I have ever hooked into, but it is a rare, near snow in July sort of day, when you don’t hook into perch.
In fact, you tend to catch lots, and lots, of perch.
You can generally cast a jig out 15-feet and catch perch. That makes it a great place to take young fisherfolk. They will catch without a lot of help from the adults.
It’s not even that unusual for two little perch on the same jig.
And that was the case for us.
We caught a pail full of perch, well we brought home 24.
There were a lot of small ones, which ideally would have been released, but they were hungry little perch, gobbling the small jigs so hard that freeing them without damaging the fish was impossible. It meant some very tiny perch to fry up, but that is just the reality at times. When they strike too hard their only fate is some bubbling butter no matter how much you wish you could release them to grow up a bit.
It put a few more miles on the truck that day, but knowing what the nearby shore options are when one spot is cold, can be the difference in a fish feed and simply frustration.
And, if Cutarm Creek is an option, you are almost always assured perch. It’s as close to a sure thing as any fishing hole can be.
