TORONTO FISHING SPOTS

Located in High Park almost in the downtown core, Grenadier Pond remains an excellent location to catch a variety of panfish including bluegill, punkinseed, black crappie, yellow perch and white perch, as well as brown bullhead, largemouth bass and carp.

Fast action for panfish and bullhead starts at ice-out and continues through the early summer, before thick weed growth makes shallow areas difficult to fish from shore. Walking the shoreline while fan-casting with small spinners is an excellent way to locate larger bluegill, crappie and perch early in the season. It is also an effective technique for largemouth bass once the season opens in late June.

By mid-summer, thick vegetation makes surface fishing with weedless lures a more effective approach. Most largemouth weigh about a pound, though much larger fish are caught each year.

Most anglers fish Grenadier Pond from shore. A canoe or float tube allows anglers to reach offshore weedlines that seldom see lures. The bottom is quite muddy, so wading is difficult to impossible.

Carp are quite abundant in the pond, and the subject of heavy fishing effort. The average carp weighs four to six pounds, with fish over 20 pounds present. Still fishing the bottom with a variety of baits provides good action through the summer months.

Fishing pressure tends to decline with the arrival of fall, which is surprising because it can be some of the best action of the year – particularly for largemouth bass. As shallow weeds begin to die off in the cooling water, look for largemouth to concentrate around remaining green vegetation (green weeds are still alive and continue giving off oxygen, unlike brown weeds which have died off and begin consuming it as they decompose). Jigs or soft plastic worms fished dead slow on bottom work best.

Easy access is one of Grenadier Pond’s greatest attributes. The pond lies within walking distance of a bus route, a streetcar line and the Bloor Street subway; ample parking is also available nearby.