joek

Hi, I have been going to West Nip Resort since 2000. I love it. Of course a good fishing location means differenet things to everyone, so it depends on what you are looking for. For the price, you wont find a better place on Nipissing. Especially the great boats they have to rent. After years of going there, I can sum up this place as the following: A great canadian(I am from Pittsburgh) fishing place to go with your friends to experience very remote fishing(seeing nearly no boats all week, once you get 20-30 minutes away from camp), catching TONS of pike, decent amount of smallmouth, a good chance at a musky, and a occasional walleye. Ian is a great host. The cabins are very nice and clean. Yes the cabins are not remote in the woods, but you can also walk to a small gas station, restraunt etc. Depends on what you want. YOu wont find better rental boats. Most of this side of the lake is shallow and weedy and full of pike, but that exactly what we like to fish for. Musky fishing has been excellent if you target them. My friend caught a 54 inch 30+ lb monster, 10 min from the camp. We usually catch 1-3 40+ muskie a trip, selectivly targeting them. We fish sun up to sun down all week, and fish hard. There are tons of buetiful islands and places where you will be the only one fishing. Thats what we look for.

Thank you guys very much. Nothing on the big lake, so I will concentrate on the smaller ones. I go to canada every year somewhere fishing for a week with the boys. This time we are visiting a friend and the wife is coming. We have a nice place right on the small cranberry lake. If I take the boat, I will be gone fishing with my boy the whole week and I wont visit and hang out with the friend we are visiting or the wife. If I only fish from the boat for say 2 of the days, then its not worth dragging the boat all the way. What to do??? Maybe I can rent a boat at one of those lake for day. Seems my frined has a little canoe but I am not comfortable with my 6 year old on that. Ahh what to do. Maybe I will take blow up boat, or stick to fishing from the banks a bit for a few pike. Maybe the best thing is to just scout the area and come back for just fishing next time! Thanks for the advice, I should have known there were going to be fish in those even smaller lakes.

Thank you. I am starting to think that I should take my boat now. I was just going to mess around on the shores with my 6 year son(of whom we fish all the time), but now with these smaller lakes around, maybe I will drag my boat on this Family vacation. Going for Pittsburgh to this place is a hull though. Can you fish from the banks on big basswood?

Hello, I am going to a friend house that is on the north channel of Lake Huron, near Thessalon, East of Sult ste Marie. The house is right on the big lake. Has anyone fishing this general area? This is big water, but appears to have lots of islands and bay roun that area, with the big islands out in the lake. I assume I can fish the shores of the big lake, and catch some pike or bass? I was hoping the shorline of the big lake was kinda like a small canadian lake for pike? There is also a small like called Cranberry lake in this area that I will have access to. Probably nobody heard of it, but if so, does it have pike? It is very close to Basswood lake, and all of this is near the a Thessalon Indian Reserve. Well let me know if you can help. This is the first time I am going to canada not for the sole purpose of fishing, but I do want to fish and the big lake area has me stumped. Joe K.

Thanks to everyone. YOu guys are always so helpful.

Thanks everyone so far. I am glad I have most of those lures already in that pic so I dont have to buy more........

Thats funny you recommend the Berkly gulp 3" minnow. I started drop shotting last year, and I caugth a ton of differenct fish on that 3 inch minnow in the green. Everything from walleye, SM, LM, sauger, drum, channel cat, and carp. I guess I should use it as my walleye jig also. Green or regular color would you recomment up north?

HI, I used swimbaits a great deal last year, and they are becoming a favorite very fast. I have generally be experimenting with different jig head weights and hook size, and different swim bodies. My favorite so far is a Gary Yamoto 1/2 oz or 3/4 oz jig head for swimbaits, and a 5inch Berkly saltwater swimshad(Can you say In-Fishermen) in herring(gold color). I really like the swimbaits cause you can fish them deep/shallow, fast/slow. I also like them because during the same fishing, you can and will catch pike, walleye and smallmouth. I had to learn what the bite actually felt like. Most fish just grab the swimbait and you just feel a little weight or tic, and then its time to jerk.

Hello, I would like to know everyones opinion on their favorite color mister twister/grub/jig for walleye. I am not a walleye chasser but will be visting Edger lake on a fly in this summer(July). I basically use either all black or all white grubs and dont know what color I should expect to be good up north. I know there are lots of other lures for walleye, and these jigs may be tipped with a minnow or worm, but would like the following question answered. 1) Favorite color walleye grub. EX. black head/yellow tail? 2) Color you never caught any walleye on or dislike? 3) Do you prefer a standard mister twister type grub, or a mister twister shassy shad?

Thanks for the info so far. Always hard to pick new places to fish.

Hello Friends, Has anyone been to either lake Ogascanan Lodge (ogascanon.com) or Bush Country Camp(bushcountrycamp.com) fishing of course? Both are near each other, and both are actually just over the Ontario border into Quebec, Just west of Nipissing? Joe K.

I was there the week right before you, we left friday 22nd. I really liked your report also and it sounds like our results and report were about the same. I might scan some pics....

Hi, Just thought I would give a report on my trip to Lost Lake in June. Lew recommend this place for us. Thanks Lew. Sorry no pics, just took normal film pics and digital video. This is the place where you portage to different lakes. Overall we had a good time at lost lake. First the weather report. Well, pretty bad. Week started out nice and sunny and warm, then then by tues the wind started and by weds the temp dropped nearly 30 degrees F. You know what a major cold front does to fishing. So overall the weather was bad, especialy the high winds. So windy one day we basically could not fish. We even had to leave a day early because it was 42F and high winds. Now the camp and hosts. GREAT. The host Ed, his wife, Son Brian and his future wife were outstanding. Brian especially was in tune with all our needs and did everything and more for us. The food was outstanding. This was the first time I had a meal plan on a canadian trip and it did not disappoint. I dont really even care much about food when fishing, but it was really really good. The best thing was that if you miss dinner, because you are fishing, they take a plate of that days meal to you room and put it in your fridge. So when you get back all you have to do is eat. Cabins were clean, refinished(most of them) and comfy. Even a TV with a few channnel(Canadian Idol? whats wrong with you guys up norht). The boats and motors were all in very good condition and ran great. The portable fish finder they give you was a nice touch. I couldnt say enough about the hospitaility. Now the fishing. Overall, considering the major cold front and high winds, we did well. In our experience we summed it up with quality and not qauntity. But I am sure with better weather the quantity, especially for smallmouth would have been there. There were just 2 of us and we managed 5 pike over 30 inches, the largest being 35 inches. We seen and lost several other bigger fish. The quality of Pike espeically in the more remote lakes was evident. I have no doubt there are some big lugger around and we did see some. We caught plenty of pike, but no big weedbeds of hammerhandle were you can catch 10-20 pike in a hour. Instead most of the lake are clear, and very very rocky. That leads to smallmouth. We caught plenty of small mouth. Around 20 each, and all were very "mature". Average size was 16 inches and largest was 19 inchs. Gosh those things fight like mad as you guys now. These lake are the most buetiful looking lakes for smallmouth I have ever seen. Rocky shorelines everywhere. It is certainly buetiful up there. We also ran into some walleye. Get this. We accedently caught a small walleye fishing for bass. So we put on jigs and quickly caught 6 walleye. We were pretty close to camp and it was the morning. So we took 4 walleye back to camp on a stringer at lunch, dropped them off and ask to eat them for dinner that night. They gladly took the walleye, clean them up and when we got back for dinner the kitchen was full of the smell of fresh fish. We were proud because we were the only table eating our catch that night. That was great, and we even let the other guys have a bite. The biggest thing about the trip is that we managed a few firsts and vailidated sereral things. First thing is that we caught most of our fish on plastics! We caught almost all of the pike, and all of the bigger pike on plastic swimbaits(5-6 inch). It was really fun for us as we are used to catching pike on spinnerbaits. Having a pike gobble up big plastics was worth the tirp itself for us. We also caught most of the smallmouth on those same big plastics. That was geat also. You could basically fish for both speicis with the swimbaits. We also caught plenty of bass on xraps and husky jerks. Natural colors for everyting seem to be the ticket. No firtiger or bight colors, other than white seemed to work. Just natural pumpkin gold flek, black/silver colors. We also managed to both catch our largest pike to date. 35 and 33 inches. Ok, not giant, but our biggest. The other first was actually catching walleye on plastic jigs. Seems trival but we are not walleye guys and dont jig often, so that was fun. Overall we caught right around 30 pike and 40 smallmouth, all quality fish, no tinks. That was good considering we were getting rained on, blown around, and cold the last couple days. The other part that is so enjoyable is the portages to the other lakes. What a peaceful, relaxing, remote commute portaging in creeks/rivers to the next lake. yea you had to carry stuff around, but for a small group that wants peace and quite, it cant be beat. We had nearly everylake to ourself all week. Only on one lake did we have guest. The camp was only half full though, and you do sign up for the lake you want to fish. In conclusion, I would say it was definatly an "experience" and worth the trip. Ok we didnt "hammer" the fish, but the whole experience was very good. And we manged several first.

Beerman, I was booked at Edger the week right after you!!!! But we had to move the trip until 2008. I have never done a fly in and this will be my first one. I have been gearing up for the edgar trip for 1.5 years now. I have not talked to anyone who had fish this lake yet. I am sooooooooo glad to see you post. I would very very much like to talk to you in person or email if possible. I just want to chat about edgar and you other trips with cochrane. I am sure the trip will be great based on everything I have gathered so far. Edgar is supposed to be trouphy pike and walleye. I have been looking at arial photos of the lake from mapquest. Its a 6x1 mile lake, pretty big. Generally 12 ft deep with some 36 ft holes. I have never fished barbless and have been going craze buying gear. By the time I go, I will fill up one plane myself! We are going there with these expectations. Catch lots of pike, and some trophy pike. Meaning I hope we(7-8 of us) catch a dozen 35-45 inch pike between us. That would be nice. We are not walleye chasers but sure hope we can catch plenty to eat. My expectations could be way off, not sure, but after looking at all the places, we choose Edgar we great expectations. YOu are not allow to portage to Kasegami anymore. Seems mostly alot of open water beside the shoal/island in the southwest. I cant get a feel of how weedy this lake is. I am also not great of just drifting in open water and not sure how we will do. I am used to a nice trolling motor and combing the shorelines. I usually go to Nipissing for a week but wanted to do a fly in. I am sooo excited to go. I hope we can talk? I am from Pittsburgh and I am also going to Lost Lake this summer in June. My name is Joe.

HI, If you choose West Nippissing Resort, you can go to cache bay in 10 minutes. We do it all the time. Yes Cache bay is very good for pike and muskie as Benny suggests, and bass on the way out of cache. I go in June or Aug, both are good. I am sure July is fine. I cant really find a reason for any of the months other than the weeds are higher in Aug and you have to fish slower. Bucktails for muskie in July would be fine and work, However, because of all the weeds on the lake, large spinnerbaits are much easier and effective. I would put on a big muskie spinner bait and leave it on the whole time. Body baits, cranks, etc. are difficult because of the weeds also. The mouth of the Veuve you can toss some crankbaits and suck becaues the river only has weeds along the edges. I would count on spinnerbaits. Joe