Week 1 of 2017 May 20th – 26th Opener
Spring greetings from Jim and Julie here at Wabaskang camp. Sorry we are late in updating the fishing here at camp so I will try to catch all our loyal followers up on all the news. We have had a mild start to our 18th season so far. Just enough rain to settle the dust yet not too much rain to wash out the road. Water temperatures were already near 50 degrees on opener and all our guests caught walleyes in super shallow water over soft muddy bottoms. The majority of our guests were simply using a split shot and minnow to land the tasty fish. Steve Taylor landed on the board with a feisty 23” walleye only to have Bob Ayres crush his fish by landing a 271/2” walleye. Everyone in camp commented on how many year classes of fish they were seeing and how healthy the fish were. I only commented on the two largest fish but believe me our guests caught plenty of “eaters” to enjoy all week. The northern fishing is always slow the first few weeks of the season but we did see a few lunkers released this week. The best bait seemed to be a minnow and jig combo or small spinner rig with a minnow trolled around the shallow water where the walleyes and perch were hanging out. Shane Arthur started things off by releasing a 32” northern, Nate Vannarom released a chunky 33” fish, Norby Reiff is a legend around these parts, just ask him, he released a 36” trophy, Dan Schaller isn’t crazy about fishing but his 36” trophy got him excited, he released his fish as well. The big northern of the week goes to Dave Schaller, he released a 37” beauty to earn bragging right between him and brothers Dan and Greg. Bass fishing was very good on opening week as well, the smaller males were staying shallow waiting for the females to arrive, most fish were caught in 4’ of water or less. A great bait to use was a beetle spin or tiny crank bait, live bait also worked well. Brian Weller started things off by releasing a 171/2” bass, Dave Schaller landed and released a chunky 181/2” bass, once again Norby Reiff shook things up by releasing a beautiful 181/2” bass. The winner this week was Josh Lembrich, he managed to catch and release a monster 22” bass that might just end up being our biggest of the 2017 season, great job Josh, not only did he win the free hat but he headed back to Colorado to get married in a few weeks, congratulations to you two newlyweds. Crappie fishing is really taking off here on Wabaskang, although most fish are coming from Keynote Lake a few are also being caught near camp. we are seeing limits of 13” fish coming in and even a few bigger ones like Brian Weller’s 14” crappie. I suspect the crappie fishing will get more popular with our guest as the fish move throughout the rest of the lake and become easier to find and catch. We did have one musky released this week, Nate Vannarom released a 38” beauty he landed in the narrows just north of camp, a great fish that was released to hopefully grow to monstrous proportions in years to come. I will try to update everyone soon on last week’s fishing but believe me it was another great week for our guests, for now this is Jim from Wabaskang.
