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On the Rideau Lakes we like the largemouth, fished with heavy tackle in shallow water around stumps, heavy weeds and under overhanging trees. This is traditional frog-fishing territory, and the local hook is called a PRO Weedless, consisting of a large wire hook with two stiff wire prongs on a hinge to protect the barb from weeds and tree limbs. To "fish a tree" you literally throw the thing into the lower limbs of the overhanging tree and let it drop to the water below, then jig. Understandably the battles with the fish underneath produce some excitement, broken tackle, and not a few bruises from rod butts on the lower abdomen of fishermen trying to lever three-pound fish over hemlock branches. I use 30 pound synthetic braided line on my heavy bait casting rig. Leopard frogs are very seasonal in supply in Eastern Ontario so I have switched over to a variety of 3" grubs hooked "through the lips" just the way I'd hook a frog on the weedless hook. Bass like them just as well as the frogs and I consistently outfish the frog-tossers with the grubs (though skill may be a factor there. As a former student once told me, "Everyone has to be good at something.") We leave the pike alone, fish occasionally for splake, but greatly enjoy short daily crappie expeditions, using ultra-light jigs off docks and weedbeds on the Rideau. Crappies (locally called "shiners") are quite hard to find out on the lakes and we take them seriously as a sport fish, though the largemouth is king and the smallmouth on a popping plug is a light-tackle treat on summer evenings. By the way, the locals are a peace-loving lot but the one thing that will incite them to violence is slobs picking bass off the spawning beds along the shores before the season opens. Queen's University biologists working on these lakes have proven that over half the eggs and fry are lost from the nest to predators after a catch-and-release act of vandalism by a fisherman who should know better.
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