Billy - Curtiss

Does anyone familiar with the area know how close the nearest bank or bank machine is?

Big enough to roast some rather sizable marshmallows!

Nice work dude! That seems like an efficient strategy and I think I'll employ it either this evening or first light tomorrow at the mouth of the Humber! How heavy is the line you are using? I don't want to get spooled and I maybe have 125 yards of 50 lb braid. At the same time, I don't want the fish to snap the line if I try to muscle it in. I've only been out twice trying to land salmon off piers and have yet to actually even get one on so I have zero experience in this realm.

I don't know the area all that well, but generally, up around those parts, you can easily find people that sell firewood at a decent price right out of their yard. It might just take a wee bit of meandering down some ol' dirt roads to find it!

You can rent boats there provided they aren't already booked. Here's a link to the website. Check it out: www.lakair.com

Mind blowing! Thanks for the link.

Hey, if anyone plays an instrument, bring it along! I'll be bringing my mandolin. Possibly a guitar as well if there's enough room in the van. With any luck, we can get a veritable hootenanny going!

Totally epic dude! Great report, stellar pics and some of the raddest fish one could ever hope to land. Congrats man.

Amazing fish dude! Congratulations!

There are plenty of spots to fish all over. However, it gets hit quite hard on weekends so you'd be better off heading out on a week day if at all possible. I would also recommend you bring waders so you can access the spots that don't get hit as much.

I'm incredibly stoked for this! So we're up to 9, maybe 10?

Nice! I may be heading up to Lakair with Highdrifter in the next few weeks. Looks like I'll need some ' 100 lb braid!

Awesome report dude. I'm totally jealous. After reading Dan's last Nipigon report, I've been conversing with some Sudbury bros about the possibility of a week up there at ice out in the spring. You mentioned poachers and I was checking the regulations for Nipigon particulars but for some reason couldn't find any. Are you not allowed to keep any specks?

I picked up a Pflueger President in and around the $70.00 range and it is super smooth and light weight and I haven't had any problems with it as of yet. http://www.pfluegerfishing.com/products/products.php?p=12

Has anyone ever fished here? I just found out about it whilst flipping through the Guide to Eating Ontario Sport Fish. The pond apparently holds bucketmouths, black crappie and other pan fish. I'm wondering if it's worthwhile to check it out.

Nice! That looks like an Ibanez Roadstar. I had one when I was in my early teens!

Ha! He's intentionally making a 'metal face!' There are still definitely lots of pickeralleyes in Wasi Lake but I wasn't targeting them and I seldom catch them from shore there.

Yeah, no doubt! I wish I was the one who landed it!

Two Saturdays ago, my girl Sabina and I made the trek to the Lakefield area for 3.5 days of cottaging on Lake Katchewanooka. Check in was 4:00 PM and our first stop was at Lakefield Bait and Tackle where I plied the dude working for any and all possible insight he had to offer. He told me the lake was full of musky but I didn't see a single one for the duration of our stay. When I asked him about walleye, he said they were next to non-existent and near impossible to catch this time of year. I asked him what I should be using for bass and he hooked me right up. Apparently, Texas-rigged weightless plastics were the way to go and rather than pitch me the Yamamoto's, he sold me on the christmas tree Wave Worms which were half the price. This was my first experience fishing this style and the bass (both smallies and bucketmouths) were all over it. The cottage was situated right across from a massive reed island and I honestly didn't need to stray from it at all. Katchewanooka is shallow and weedy and hence a veritable haven for bass. The first day, when not fishing from the dock, we were out in a pedal boat which goes nowhere fast but was actually quite comfortable. Here's my first fish from the dock: As dusk approached, I tried out rigging the Wave Worms and some trial casts to get the hang of it. Am I ever glad I did. My first cast, I'm jerking her along bottom and just as the bait gets right beside the dock, I notice a nice sized bass. It totally inhaled the worm and I was able to see first hand the art of this style. Had I not witnessed it, I likely would have lost a lot of fish by trying to set the hook too soon. Patience is the key and dead-stickin' was the way to land them time and time again. Here's the first bass: Over the course of our stay my buddy Greg and I caught more bass than I can possibly count. 5:00 AM roll calls were the norm and we fished dusk every day until the mosquitoes became too much to handle. Here are some more fish: For the first time, I also tried my hand at using a cheap weedless frog I picked up at Walmart. This was one of the most exciting moments as the sucker got totally smashed on the first cast. We were fishing heavy weed cover in only about 2 feet of water and the fish put up an admirable fight. I didn't expect this at all: 20 inches of glorious pan fried goodness! I also caught another 19 " walleye the next day but failed to bring the camera. All in all, I would say the fishing was amazing. We caught many fish every day and I left quite satisfied! After spending one night at my Mom's in Corbeil outside of North Bay, we went to my buddy Dave's out on Wasi Lake which is another amazing bass fishery. I didn't even bother going out in the boat but fished dusk from shore. I caught some average sized bass on the Wave Worms. Then I went back to the trusty frog and caught my PB smallie. The beautiful thing about this, is it was pitch black and midnight when I landed it. I was bouncing the frog around top water a mere foot from shore in about 1.5 feet of water and something kept smashing at the frog. I kept missing the hookset and figured it was just a dink but after about 10 minutes, this sucker inhaled it and then I pulled the flashlight out of my pocket to behold this goodness! I caught several more smallies the next morning before making the trek to Sudbury where my girl's folks live. But first we stopped in at the family camp on the west arm of Lake Nipissing and I caught a nice sized pike and another nice smallie from the dock. Even though I grew up in the North Bay area, I had never fished Nipissing and I'd take advantage of it more often if Sab's Dad wasn't out there every single weekend fishing and entertaining hoards of Czech tramps as they so proudly call themselves! In Sudbury, Sab's folks live on Ramsey Lake and I always have fun catching pike and smallies from their dock and the adjacent rock cuts. But the real point of this portion of our trip was an outing for specks with my buddy Dan who promised to get me into my first speck. We went up the East Branch Road north of Espanola to a little alleged honey hole called Tower Lake. Dan's PB speck came out of this lake and weighed in at 6.5 pounds. I've seen a few others around the same size culled from the same waters posted on the OFAH awards website. Unfortunately. Because we didn't catch nor see a darned thing and it appears this once secret spot is now fairly well known. Which sucks. I mean, anyone can get their hands on the MNR stocking list and they stock this lake with 500 of them every year, but when we got there, we found two boats chained up to trees in the bush and it seems the place is getting milked, which isn't the sensible thing to do. Dan and I mainly fish the many lakes in and around this area and we only hit a lake once a year out of respect for the resource. Others evidently don't feel the same. So there you have it in a nut. Even though I have no inches to contribute to the team (though I did my darnedest!) I had an astounding time even if it all ended on a rather sour note. The only thing to do is get back out there and persevere!

Good luck brother! I've had an amazing week of fishing thus far (PB bucketmouths and smallies, walleye and the odd pike), and I'm currently sitting at the inlaws' in Sudbury and will be heading out in 2 hours to camp for the night and hit a serious backwoods speck hole! I'll talk to you next week when I return to the metropolis!

I guess I'll try to hook up a heavier set-up then. It makes no sense to go after musky with an inadequate rig.

Yeah, it's not really intended as a musky rod but it's what I've got to work with. I guess we'll see how it all goes down. I definitely don't want to risk putting undue stress on the fish but at the same time, if I just go for the bass or walleye in that lake, I'll end up hooking and losing a nice musky on 10 lb line sans leader with my confounded luck! Are musky really all that much more ferocious and tougher to bring in than pike? The show starts at 7:00 PM tonight dude. Hope to see you there brah!

I'm heading to Lake Katchewanooka on Saturday for half a week and plan on mainly targeting musky. I've never fished for musky before at all so I'm quite excited at the possibility of landing my first esox muskellunge! I got a new set up a couple weeks ago for my birthday that I have yet to use. I've got a 2 piece 7 foot medium action St. Croix with a Pflueger President spinning reel. I put some of the green 50 lb Power Pro braid on and currently have a steel leader. Will this suffice? I have no idea what the water clarity is like in this lake. Should I opt for a fluorocarbon leader instead?

Welcome to the province and the site dude! I also grab the first available ferry and go from there. There are spots all over the island. You either need to put the time in and explore or bribe somebody with frothy ales to show you the honey holes! I wouldn't say the shoreline is a bust but you're mostly fishing from walls that are up a little bit and landing massive pike without a huge net is an art unto itself! Maybe one day I'll see you out on the Islands!

Pike for me as well. Arctic char also makes my mouth water just thinking about it!