Happy Holidays
December 2011
Holiday greetings from the folks at Wabaskang Camp. We wish each and every one of you a wonderful holiday season and prosperous new year. We hope all of you are enjoying the holidays with your family and friends. We are looking forward to seeing you again next season and catching up with the news.
Julie and I have owned Wabaskang Camp for twelve seasons now and we hope to be here for many more. Each year brings us new friends and new experiences that we will cherish forever. The 2011 season was a complete opposite from the previous year. The weather was hot and dry with some type of fire ban or restrictions being in place all season long. We had numerous fires burning in the area and had many days when the air was filled with the smell of burning pines. Almost everyday we saw water-bombers flying the area heading to a fire or looking for smoke, I sure was thankful we were spared the worst of the smoke.
I arrived in camp on the 25th of April this year; the weather was warm and dry so I was able to jump right into the long process of getting everything out of the sheds and back where it goes for the season. The lake had a good ten inches of ice on it when I pulled into camp but by the 6th of May most of the ice was gone. The ice did manage to drag three sections of our floating dock right over the steel poles and tear all the welds loose between the sixth and seventh sections. After a few days of figuring out the best way to repair the dock I got to work and after five days of hard work the dock was back in place and the welds were repaired, this Fall I took the last three sections of the dock apart and moved them to a safer location for the winter. I was able to fire up the water pumps and our brand new water treatment system on the 6th of May and Julie pulled into camp two days later. (She is not big on using the outhouse}. With the help of Donna, Peggy and Greg we were able to get all the cabins and the lodge clean and tidy before our first guests arrived. The beginning of the season had us busy scraping and painting a few cabins between all the other regular jobs that have to be done. We saw our last bout with snow flurries on the 27th of May, the weather changed to warm and dry, the last decent rain of the season fell on the 10th of June, we had over three inches and the lake came up almost a foot, good thing because the rest of the year was dry and hot. The season progressed on into mid summer and I stayed busy repairing the old ice house and painting and shingling it, the building looks as good as new now. Julie managed to paint the floors in many of the cabins and we added futons to all the cabins to make them more comfortable and relaxing. The dry Summer allowed us to repair and replace many of the culverts along the road, we added gravel as well to many areas along the road and did a great deal of ditching, hopefully the road should be in great shape this spring when I pull into camp.
The fishing was exceptional again this season; it seems that the average size of the walleyes is getting bigger each season. The wet spring and then dry summer seemed to keep the walleyes on the move constantly searching for the huge schools of bait fish that would roam the lake day after day. We saw limits everyday of nice eater fish and had tons of trophy walleyes released during the season. The best fishing was with a jig and minnow or a lindy rig and minnow or crawler, the depth range went from three feet in the Spring to 40 feet in the late Fall, the water temperature warmed slowly during the season and wasnt a huge factor on where to look for fish. If you found the bait fish you found the hungry walleyes. Many of our guests also discovered the relatively unfished waters of the deep midlake basins. Our guests would troll a large crank bait or shallow running stick bait over 40 to 60 feet of water and catch huge walleyes as they were pushing the ciscos to the surface in the mornings
and evenings, the biggest fish of the season were caught this way. Here are just a few of the bigger fish that were released or mounted during the year.
Terry Lauer 26 walleye 5-21-11
Steve Taylor 26 ½ walleye 5-21-11
Mike Pease 27 ½ walleye 5-31-11
Joe Barnes 24 walleye 5-28-11
Rich Pease 25 walleye 5-28-11
Chris Tucker 27 walleye 5-29-11
Lance Loger 25 ½ walleye 6-4 11
Chris Tucker 26 walleye 6-4-11
Randy Cook 27 ½ walleye 6-6-11
Craig Codner 25 walleye 6-11-11
Dale Wilson 27 walleye 6-11-11
Bernie Stankewicz 28 ½ walleye 6-15-11
Dave Woolard 25 walleye 6-18-11
Connor Jankus 25 walleye 6-19-11
Monty Green 25 walleye 6-20-11
Glenn Grooters 27 walleye 6-20-11
Joel Sandager 29 walleye 6-29-11
Christy Butcher 24 ½ walleye 7-2-11
Kristy Lammers 26 walleye 7-2-11
Mike Lammers 26 ½ walleye 7-2-11
Mike Lammers 28 walleye 7-2-11
Christy Butcher 28 ½ walleye (M) 7-2-11
Jeannie Snyder 28 walleye 7-6-11
Mike Lammers 28 walleye 7-7-11
Reid Lammers 25 walleye 7-18-11
Mike Lammers 25 walleye 7-24-11
Bob Schellhorn 26 walleye 7-27-11
Jaret Wunsch 29 ½ walleye (M) 7-28-11
Todd Peterson 25 walleye 8-3-11
Craig Mericle 27 ½ walleye 8-6-11
Kristy Lammers 26 ½ walleye 8-15-11
Leon Luhring 24 walleye 8-20-11
Mike Luhring 27 walleye 8-20-11
Susan Langfritz 25 walleye 8-23-11
Mallory Luhring 24 walleye 8-26-11
Jeff Schmidt 25 walleye 8-27-11
Keith Sorenson 27 ½ walleye 8-27-11
Don Rowe 28 walleye 9-8-11
Don Gutknecht 24 walleye 9-11-11
Larry Dufel 26 walleye 9-11-11
Larry Schultz 25 walleye 9-11-11
Scott Toppin 24 ½ walleye 9-19-11
Ricky Stephens 25 ½ walleye (M) 9-22-11
Leroy Hennen 25 ½ walleye 9-25-11
Mike Zahnen 28 ½ walleye 9-25-11
Dave Goodlund 29 1/8 walleye 9-29-11
Our northern fishing continues to be some of the best in the area. The low water conditions caused most of the deep water cabbage weeds to either die off early or not emerge at all. Finding the big fish when the weeds are sparse was a challenge that most of our guests met with a vengeance. The best technique and probably the most widely used on Wabaskang was to troll the weed lines with a huge shallow running stick bait or Bulldog type bait. The fish were scattered this season and covering a lot of water was the ticket to big fish. Once you found an area with active fish my guests would go back time after time and cast the same area with good success. Here is a few of the bigger fish that were released or mounted this season:
Lee Munger 42 northern 5-21-11
Pat Munger 41 northern 5-22-11
Joe Barnes 40 northern 5-28-11
Wayne Gajewski 41 northern 6-9-11
Dan Schmitz 39 northern 6-14-11
Craig Codner 39 northern 6-15-11
Kevin Reints 40 northern 6-15-11
Bill Wilson 44 ½ northern 6-15-11
Marty Robbins 38 ½ northern (M) 6-21-11
Katie Little 38 ½ northern 6-28-11
Ryan Little 42 northern 6-29-11
Reid Lammers 39 northern 7-2-11
Bryan Butcher 39 northern 7-3-11
Rhett Lammers 43 northern 7-4-11
Kristy Butcher 40 northern 7-7-11
Evan Neihouser 40 northern 7-8-11
Jesse Blevins 42 northern (M) 7-12-11
Bill Mincks 41 northern 7-17-11
Bill Mincks 41 northern 7-20-11
Reid Lammers 39 ½ northern 7-23-11
Reid Lammers 42 northern 7-27-11
Jaret Wunsch 41 ½ northern 7-28-11
Sarah Peterson 39 northern 7-31-11
Kevin Halla 39 ½ northern 7-31-11
Bonnie Oliver 40 northern 8-1-11
Gene Katzung 41 northern 8-3-11
Jason Hartling 42 northern 8-7-11
Steven Morse 42 northern 8-14-11
Mike Lammers 42 northern 8-17-11
Steve Harms 39 ½ northern 8-20-11
Kyle Lerum 39 ½ northern 8-20-11
Gene Thomas 38 northern 8-21-11
Mike Luhring 38 northern 8-22-11
Terri Weigmann 38 ½ northern 8-26-11
Andy Buffington 43 northern 8-30-11
Andy Buffington 40 northern 8-31-11
Kevin Reints 40 northern 8-31-11
Dave Zender 38 northern 9-12-11
Gus Zender 38 ½ northern 9-12-11
Gus Zender 40 northern 9-13-11
Steve Young 38 northern 9-22-11
Vern Hanus 40 northern 9-22-11
Brett Langfritz 41 northern (M) 9-22-11
Fred Meier 38 northern 9-27-11
Fred Meier 39 ½ northern 9-27-11
Chas Ratz 39 northern 9-30-11
We saw some huge smallmouth bass caught this season. Many of our guests from Missouri and Arkansas seemed to be the experts when it came to pulling the real trophies from their lairs. The best bait by far was medium sized tube bait in a crayfish color. Another top producer for a feisty bass was a jointed Rapala type lure in a bronze color, just twitch the lure over your favorite rock pile or weed bed and hang on. Here is a short list of a few of the bigger fish released or mounted this season:
Kevin Johnson 18 bass 5-20-11
Reid McCord 18 ½ bass 5-25-11
Dean Harlan 18 ½ bass 5-25-11
Pat Munger 18 ½ bass 5-26-11
Tyler Harlan 18 ½ bass 5-27-11
Mike Pease 18 ½ bass 5-28-11
Jarrett Hulsen 18 ½ bass 5-29-11
Ron McFadden 18 bass 6-5-11
Bob Baker 18 ½ bass 6-5-11
Reid Lammers 18 bass 6-11-11
Brian Kinzy 18 bass 6-11-11
Brady Codner 19 bass 6-11-11
Kevin Reints 19 bass 6-11-11
Andy Schmitz 19 ½ bass 6-17-11
Josh Hardin 18 bass 6-23-11
Monty Green 19 bass 6-24-11
Dave Wentlandt 18 bass 6-26-11
Bob Compton 19 ½ bass 6-27-11
Tim Wuethrich 19 ½ bass 7-4-11
Rick Sims 18 ½ bass 7-25-11
Todd Peterson 18 bass 8-3-11
Dan Taylor 18 ½ bass 8-18-11
Gary Pitchford 18 ½ bass 8-30-11
Joel Demro 18 ½ bass 9-7-11
Tim Wuethrich 19 ½ bass 9-12-11
Dave Lindaman 18 bass 9-17-11
The Lake Trout fishing on our lake can be very good if you have experience fishing for them. There is not a large population of trout in the lake so you need to know the best spots to try. We had some nice trout caught this season, most were caught trolling deep water with a blue and gold spoon, some were also caught on suckers trolled down to about fifty feet. Bob Ayres caught a 30 trout on May 24th, Jim Loger released a 26 trout on June 5th and there were many other eaters caught by our guests as well.
The fall season brought our moose hunters from Wisconsin again this year. The same group of fellas has hunted at our camp for 12 years now and this years hunt was one of the best. Archery hunts for moose are a real challenge and our hunters showed us they knew what they were doing. On the second full day of the hunt Channing Mathews shot an exceptional bull moose just down the road on the cut-over area that had a spread over 50 wide. That evening Dave Fuller hunted near the same area and stuck a bull moose that was almost as big as Channings. The hunters also saw three more bulls that were trophies as well. The fellas are really excited about next years hunt already.
After the season was over and Julie had cleaned the cabins and headed home, I stayed in camp for another three weeks and finished winterizing the camp. I managed to find time to raise cabin #11 up and level it as well as redo most of the plumbing, my friends Arnold and Lynn also helped me make more gravel walkways around camp. I finished out the year cutting brush along the road. We have lots of plans for the camp next year and cant wait to get back up north and start our 13 season.
We want to thank all our guests again this season for their continued patronage and support. We have been very fortunate to have such a great group of guests. Julie and I will not be doing any sport shows again this winter because we only have a very limited amount of openings. To those of you that received a reservation form last month please be sure to get it back to us by December 15th so we can let someone else have a cabin if you are not coming. Julie and I have been very busy answering e-mails and phone calls from people inquiring about possible openings in 2012. Next season looks as busy as ever, we all hope the economy continues to pick up steam and we will all have a good year.
You do need a passport to exit Canada by air and land so be sure to have them well ahead of your scheduled trip. For the latest info regarding passport requirements check out the web-site:
http://travelwithkids.about.com/od/insurancedocuments/a/passports.htm
For border information call [204] 983-3500 or [506] 636-5064, the phone number for the bridge at Fort Francis is [807] 274-3655
Julie, Annie and I want to wish all of you a great holiday season and prosperous new year. If you have any questions you can e-mail us at stay@wabaskangcamp.com or call [319]352-5559 and we will try to answer any of your questions. Take care and start thinking about the good times ahead.
Jim, Julie and Annie
Wabaskang Camp
