Well, it’s about time I got our fishing and opening week news in the books. Julie and I arrived in camp on the 28th of April. We were able to get a friend from Vermillion Bay to come to camp and open our road with a bulldozer on the 14th of April and that gave the road a chance to dry out before we headed up to camp. Almost three feet of snow on our road at the time he opened it and most of it was still piled high on the sides of our road two weeks later. I measured the ice on the lake on April 29th and still found ice as thick as 22” with about 12” of slush on top of the ice. We knew at that point that opening week was in jeopardy but waited until May 13th before we called all our guests and canceled opening week. The ice finally was gone the evening of the 18th, but I still had numerous frozen sewer lines and some water lines. I was able to get the main dock in by the evening of the 20th and finished the small dock the next day. This was only the second time in 27 seasons that we had to cancel our first week and I know many of our guests were very disappointed. We finally had guests in camp on Saturday the 23rd of May. Our guests experienced some cold weather and then later in the week some hot weather. Fishing was slow early on as the water temps were still only around 50 degrees in the shallows and a lot colder further down. The walleye fishing was slower than normal and on a good day I’d say our guests would catch a few trophies and a handful of “eaters” the best bait was a small jig and minnow combination worked as slow as possible in 3′ to 6′ of water. Our guests can only keep walleyes under 18″ but we did have many trophies released throughout the week. Josh Hood released a 26 3/4″ beauty, Jason Franzen released a 25″ and 25 1/2″ walleye on his first day on the water. Kevin Meysembourg released a chunky 26 1/2″ walleye, the biggest walleye of the week was released by James Sette, his 27 1/2″ trophy as the big fish of the week and won him a hat👍
Northern fishing was fast and furious for the toothy critters under 27″. It seemed the northern were snapping at jig and minnow combination they saw coming their way, the northern and walleyes were all in the same areas, so our guests experienced many bite offs during the week. Our guests all release any northern over 27 1/2″ now and hopefully we will see great trophy pike fishing for many seasons to come. The two biggest pikes were released by Aidan Holcomb, a beautiful 39″ brute, and Zach Miller released a monster 43″ brute which was the biggest northern of the week and earned him a free hat.
Plenty of giant smallmouth bass were caught this week. Once again everyone fished very shallow and used a slow presentation. The bass were not on beds yet but were roaming the shallows waiting for the water temps to come up and trigger the spawn. Tube baits and a slip bobber and minnow or crawler worked great. Mike Pease released a chunky 19″ bass, Corey Katzung released his beautiful 18 1/2″ bass, the biggest bass of the week was skillfully caught and released by Damon Wagner, his 20″ monster was a hat winner this week.
The crappie bite was very good this week with plenty of limits being caught by our guests. Most fish were caught right on the edge of reeds and rocks in about 6” of water. Tiny jigs were best and yellow or gold were great colors to use. The biggest crappie of the week was caught by Orion Barbic, his 151/4″ slab is one of the biggest we have seen any of our guests catch. Wear your winning hat with pride Orion.
We had two big trout caught this week one was deep and the other was very shallow. Nolan Franzen caught a beautiful 28″ Trout in roughly 40′ of water big Corey Katzung caught a monster 36 1/2″ trout in 5′ of water with a spinner and minnow. Cory went home with the winning hat this week.
No new news on border crossings, make sure your passport is signed and as usual your boat is clean and dry.
I’ll try and update again soon; this is Jim from Wabaskang.
