Another great week of fishing here at Jim and Julie’s Wabaskang Camp. We are seeing more rain each week and the lake level continues to rise. The lake is up more than three feet from before opener and each day I see an increase of another 1/2” or so. We should see the lake gradually level off and then slowly begin to drop once the hot weather in July comes. Fishing has been solid all season with great catches again in week 5. Our walleye continues to haunt the shallows looking for an easy meal of bait fish and insects. Most of our guests are using jigs with minnows or tube baits to catch most of their walleye. Lawson Reynolds caught a chunky 24” fish, Levi Jones and Rick Nielsen each caught a nice 25 1/2” walleye, Monty Green released a beautiful 25” fish, Joyce Adams also released a beautiful 25” trophy. Reid Lammers struggled this week without father “Big Mike” to guide home but he did manage to release a chunky 27” walleye. The biggest walleye of the week was caught by camp regular Ron Peterson, he released a massive 29 1/2” walleye he caught while trolling a spinner and crawler rig. Northern fishing hadn’t taken off yet since the fish are scattered and the weeds are thin. Father-son duo Dan and Bob Howard used their own homemade lures to catch and release a 38” and a 36” trophy, bragging rights go to Dan this year. Bass fishing was superb this week with most fish still hanging out in shallow areas close to their spawning beds. Spinner baits and tube baits were hit along with a simple bobber and worm. Jon Reynolds, Bill Hrovat, Lawson Reynolds, and Les Jones all released 18” beauties. The biggest bass of the week and hat winner was caught by newcomer Greg Bardwell, he released a gigantic 18 3/4” trophy, great job Greg. Crappie fishing has slowed down some but we did see some really nice catches this week, the biggest was caught by Russ Nielsen, he brought in a beautiful 14 1/4” fish. Cooler weather is expected next week and of course more rain. To our future guests coming up with private boats be sure to have clean and dry live wells and boats when you cross because of the concerns of invasive species entering Ontario waters. I’m slowly recovering from my mishap and getting around better each day and might be able to ditch my walker on another week or so. For now, this is Jim from Wabaskang.
