Lake Winnjipeg ice fishing

Lake winnipeg has been red hot lately for walleyes. Great numbers of fish with some up to 29" being caught. Here are a few photos from this last weekend.

Mid-Summer Pike Patterns

Your favorite niece’s wedding put the kibosh on your annual June fishing trip, so you now find yourself on your favorite Canadian lake in mid-July. You’ve checked all your usual spots, and find them lacking in fish. The weed beds they talked about aren’t up yet. What to do?

In Canadian Shield lakes, shallow-water, reed-loving pikes are actually in the rocks. You need to change your fishing strategy; first to find them, then to catch them. Areas you want to target are wind-blown, rocky shorelines and points in the main lake. The fish are actually very aggressive and you want to use lures that can cover a great deal of water quickly. Tackle such as in-line spinners, traditional spoons, and crank baits will put you onto the fish. Another key component to this strategy is to cover lots of water. The fish can be either on the first drop off right off shore, or on feeding flats. Look for rocks instead of flat granite slabs. Don’t ignore sand bars. What you want is shallow feeding areas adjacent to deep water. The Pike will spend most of their time in deeper water, but will come up to feed.

The best set up for this “cast and blast” is your standard bass fishing tackle. Spinning or bait casting rods rigged with 12-17 lb test line work the best. You will want something that makes it easy to cast lures from ½ to 1 oz. Utilizing this type of strategy, it is difficult to target strictly trophy fish. You have to go through lots of little ones to get to the big ones. Catches between 100-200 pike per boat are not uncommon.

So for those of you that are accustomed to the “tried and true” June pike fishing, you’ll have to adjust your fishing strategy to enjoy the Pike in July. Once you fish in July you may just keep coming up then. You will notice the weather is warmer and more stable, the Pike fight harder, and you will have less anglers on the lake. You may be able to get a lower rate from your lodge owner as well. If you’re fishing with less experienced anglers, July is a good time to introduce them to fishing in the Canadian north.

This is TAZ the baby lab. He is playing keep supper away from Lee. it is not a good game for me!

Heard from Neal (the winter guy)

Neal called today. Things are fine at the lodge. Around 24" of ice out in front where he gets his water. Very little snow on the lake, and some spots with no snow in the yard. Not much for animals around. He thought it was because they could still travel in the bush because of the lack of snow.

He needs a few things and we discussed winter road planning. I will send him some groceries next week. Otherwise he is doing fine.

Gods Lake Ice Report

Talked to the guys in Gods River this morning. There is 20-24 inches of ice on the lake. There is very little snow. The lack of snow could cause some problems with the winter road. They need snow to fill in the holes and make bridges across the creeks.

Mooching for Canadian Lakers

Gods Lake in northern Manitoba is renowned as a world class Lake Trout fishery. The average Laker caught is 6 to 10 pounds, with larger fish up to 40 pounds in the mix every year. The largest “trophy” Lakers weigh in at over 50 pounds! At our lodge, we’ve fine-tuned an angling technique for Lakers using a bottom bouncer in tandem with a herring teaser and a dead smelt or herring.

We add one ounce egg sinkers and “squeeze” them on to a bottom bouncer to get our lure to the depth we want. Every one ounce egg sinker equals about 10 feet in depth. The lure is trolled along break lines and feeding flats. We often vary the weight and therefore the depth trolled, until we find the Lake Trout and the right depth for the day. Speed can play a factor as well. You want the lure moving fast enough to have a gentle spin as it travels through the water. In this type of fishing, the Trout hit hard and you need to be ready to set the hook and hold on, or risk breaking a rod.

We had one funny instance where my clients had been successfully hitting the Lakers pretty hard using this technique; they had hooked 6 in the 8-15 pound range during one 15 minute span. While continuing to troll a break line, one of the guys decided to relax and close his eyes for a second. The next thing he knew, the Laker had hit his lure hard, his rod was in two pieces, and line was flying off his reel! Luckily his brother quickly assessed the situation and like any quick-witted angler would do, picked up the broken rod end and tried to set the hook by holding it high. Unfortunately, everyone was laughing so hard the big Laker spit out the hook and left my client with yet another story about the big one that got away!

The reward of hooking and battling a big Laker this way has proven to be tons of fun for many of our clients, and I encourage you to give it a try and tell us how it works for you.