Best Ontario Smallmouth Lakes

Lake Simcoe is a prime smallmouth lake in southern Ontario Canada. It holds an annual BassPro Shops Lake Simcoe Open.

The Bass Pro Shops Lake Simcoe Open, hosted by the Aurora Bassmasters capitalizes on one of the world’s finest smallmouth fisheries. Like no other, this event offers hard core tournament anglers a realistic opportunity to win one of the highest cash payouts in the country, and at a time of year when records are made to be broken.

Mark Moran and Joey Muszynski were the 2011 winners and here is what they had to say.

What are your views on Lake Simcoe? What makes it have the ability to produce such big bass year after year? Is it your favorite lake?

At first it is a very intimidating body of water due to the size and depth of the lake. The food chain is alive and well in Lake Simcoe. It’s an amazing fishery whether you are targeting 2 lb + perch in the spring, large northern pike, big lake trout, whitefish, slab crappie, walleye, 5 lb + largemouth or smallmouth as large as last year’s 8 pounder. No matter how many 6 lb + smallmouth you catch their sheer size ‘wow’s you’ every time one comes to the surface. Some jump and others torpedo past the boat during the fight. Most local fishermen don’t realize how lucky we are to have Lake Simcoe so close by.

Are there any tips that you can pass on to others who are interested in catching some of Lake Simcoe’s late season trophy sized smallmouth bass? What about any specialized equipment to make the job easier?

Gail and I have a book that we keep all of our fall, Lake Simcoe, fishing records in. We record both tournament and pre-fishing successes and failures. We record what worked and what didn’t. What we can do to improve and where we can reduce wasted time on the water. As with most things in life, to remain competitive, you must always be moving forward and improving, because you can guarantee one thing, your competition will be.

Increasing the weight of your bait helps in rough water. If you don’t get your bait down to where the fish want it, you obviously aren’t going to catch as many. If you see a fish on your screen drop straight down to it with a drop-shot; many times you can get that fish to bite. Original story here

Some additional information about Lake Simcoe:

The lake is about 30 kilometres (19 mi) long and 25 kilometres (16 mi) wide. Its area is roughly 725 square kilometres (280 sq mi).[4] It is shaped somewhat like a fist with the index finger and thumb extended.

The lake has little commercial activity, but sees many recreational uses. In the winter, It freezes over completely and hosts a number of ice fishing competitions, making it one of the most intensely fished lakes in Ontario. Wikipedia source here

Lake Simcoe is considered one of Ontario’s best smallmouth lakes. However, with so many to choose from, you can probably find less pressured lakes to have a great smallmouth fishing experience.

If you have fished Lake Simcoe, let us know and don’t forget to sign up for our newsletter to stay in the loop with all the latest smallmouth news!