solopaddler

Another stellar report Mike and another outing shared with your Dad..can't beat that!

 

I too hate the dreaded cottage closing...I'm off to do that tomorrow or Wednesday, solo it appears. Maybe I needed to steal your handle!

Good luck closing on your own Wayne. Honestly if I had the time I'd be happy to offer my assistance..

As far as the name thing goes why don't we switch:

You can be "solofield", and I'll be "irishpaddler"

Headed up to the cabin last Thursday with my dad in tow to close it up for the season and

do a bit of fishing.

It was just amazing to me how many parties were headed north for the moose hunt starting

on Saturday. Seemed like every vehicle on the hwy. was filled with hunters...

Anyhow, Thursday was a perfect day: sunny, warm, light s/w wind and the boat ride over to

the cabin was beautiful.

We figured we had the full day on Friday to fish and Saturday to get all the chores done so after

arriving we just relaxed and chilled out on the deck.

Friday morning bright and early we took the squareback into a nearby back lake hoping for some

walleyes, it was another picture perfect day...

Well perhaps a better man than me could figure out where the walleyes were. On

the other hand we had absolutely no problem catching hammer handle pike at will .

It was seriously crazy fun, in fact I lost count of the number of doubles.

Amidst all the frenzy of catching and releasing snotrockets, I had a "wee" bit of an

accident. First time this has ever happened to me actually....I guess the law of averages

finally caught up....

The hook was burried right to the bend in the top of my finger. I tried to wiggle it out

past the barb, but it was impossible. Finally I was getting tired of the whole ordeal so

just ripped it out with my pliers.

If there were any moose in the immediate area I'm fairly sure my blood curdling shriek

sent them packing .

Shortly after that episode, getting hungry and tiring of the search for the ellusive walleye,

we roped a couple of small pike and headed over to an island to fillet them up and have a

shore lunch.

Here's the final product. Believe me when I tell you pike is just as tasty as walleye if filleted

properly...

My dad contemplating the mysteries of life.

After lunch we were back at it

Honestly I wouldn't even want to hazzard a guess how many of those things we caught,

but it was basically non stop action the entire day we were in there. It's definitely a great

lake for kids as there's lots of action. That'll be on the agenda sometime next year

with my little ones for sure.

It was a faubulous day spent with my dad though, something we definitely don't do enough of.

For those that are interested I was quite surprised to see a veritable armada of ministry personel

including 2 C.O.'s set up on the gravel road out of the bush. They had a roadside checkpoint set

up, checking hunters as they accessed the area north of there for the moose hunt.

The fellow I spoke with was a very decent guy, in fact we chatted about some of the back lakes

that I havn't fished yet and apparantly a couple are very good. Something to look forward to next

year for sure!

That's about it, Saturday was close up day, no fishing. Good thing too 'cause the weather went from

sunny, calm and a high of 22 on Friday, to a high of 6 with wind and driving rain on Saturday.

Not a pleasant day, and pretty much the mother of all cold fronts .

That's it for the cottage trips this year, next trip up will be in May.

Damn I hate closing!

cheers, Mike

Wow, that sounded flippin' incredible, what a report!

It's been a tough couple of weeks to say the least.

Headed north with my dad for 4 days to close the

cottage and do some fishing.

Don't get a chance to fish with him much anymore

so I'm looking forward to it.

Really need to clear my head...

I'll be back next week, stay safe everyone.

cheers, Mike

Try Arctic Watershed Outposts (awonakina.com) out of Nakina. Have used them 11 times with #12 this summer. Good cabins, boats, motors, and best of all the price is right with GREAT fishing. Our group caught and released over 1600 walleye and pike this year. Most walleye in the 15 to 24" range and the largest pike were 41" and a 46". Many pike in the 30 to 40" slot. The operators are great people and bend over backward to serve their clients. I have personal marked maps of many of their lakes. Fron Kap you can go to Tennet, Tester and Melchett. If I can give any more info, e-mail me at [email protected]. Good fishing

Started typing this then stopped myself. Started again...I'm impelled.

Just curious Dave are you affiliated with AWO or getting a break by sending business their way?

You've been posting this exact same message every single time this question comes up on

multiple message boards for YEARS now. Don't you think people notice?

It's becoming more than a bit redundant and is basically spam.

For what it's worth, if you're willing to drive that far, I've flown out of Nakina several times myself and any of the outfitters up there will put you onto good fishing. I've flown with Leuenberger's, Timberidge and Twin Lakes, all have been good trips.

I'm sure AWO is good as well....

My God, that's horrible!

Deepest condolences from both myself and my wife Joanne.

Hang tough bud...

Mike

Nice fish!

I have 40hp 4 stroke on my 626lb lund, and i had to put a trolling plate on the motor,well man that works great and doesnt affect any performance or things like that,how ever it does affect the steering a little bit but its manageable for sure...oh ya mine is a tiller ....its always better to get a little more HP...as long as you dont go over what the boat is rated for,by the time you get all your gear and a buddy or 2 plus a windy day....you will be glad to have the little bit extra....they make several types of trolling plates as well for 50 and up and 40 and lower....cheers

Yep, me too. I installed a trolling plate on mine as well, works great.

Glad to hear you avoided that one Cliff!

Sounds like it might have been a desperate Sir Sandford student and probable Christmas graduate.

(that's just pure speculation and idle gossip on my part )

amazing fishing up there in james bay if your in for the whole camping/driving expirience you can drive there and fish the many lakes/and rivers that are by the roads such as the eastmain and rupert river for brookies and eyes,

Yes that's how my friends do it, but it's a loooong haul though.

Driving the James Bay/Trans Taiga road from Matagami north to Radisson and beyond

is well over 22 hours of driving on a gravel road.

Here's a picture my buddy took a couple years back on the road

You'd definitely need spare tires, extra gas and survival equipment to drive that road.

If you have an adventurous spirit and the time, it IS a great way to experience world

class fishing on a shoestring budget though.

Check out Mirage Outfitters. They are in Quebec. You drive to Rouyn Noranda ( about 4 hours north of North Bay), stay over, and fly up to Mirage main lodge next morning. They are primarily a carabou camp ( huge and modern--over 100 hunters in camp duing season), but started doing some fishing excursions several years ago. The main lodge provides fantastic pike ishing on LG 4, as well as brookies in some of the rivers around there. They also have seeral outpost camps with fishing for lakers, brookies, pike , whitefish and walleye ( not every camp has all).

 

We went to main lodge in 2006. Our accomodations were darned near deluxe, and the food was cafeteria style, but quite good. WE primarily fished LG 4 for pike. We took guides, and as the wateris huge, we didn't regret it. I fished only a fly rod and caught great numbers of pike. In 2007 wewent to their Roz Lake outpost, which is on a river for which Roz Lake is the headwaters. They provide a camp caretaker who also guided each of us one day just to show us somespots, otherwise we were on our own. WE were a little early for excellent pike and brookies, but still had a blast catching lakers up to 12 pounds, brookies to 5, and a few pike in the 15 lb range.....all on a fly rod and much of it in or around rapids. We didn't fish Roz Lake for lakers, but I understand there are some awesome large fsh in it. Outpost camp itself was clean, well maintaned, had hot runnning water, gas stove and a woodstove.

 

I don't remember ttal cost of each trip but it seems each was around $2500 allin.

 

Also, I know some folks who run another Quebec outpost outfitter called North American Bushman. I've seen their pics and know people who've been there, and they rave about the fishing.

 

I know you said Ontario, but the flyout base for both of these meets you drivetie criteria.

 

Be happy to talk to youvia phone if you want more info.

Interesting that you mention Mirage as I've been looking at them myself. My cottage is 15 mins. from Rouyn Noranda so flying from there would be pretty convenient...

I've got a couple of friends who're employees of Quebec hydro and they rave about the pike fishing on LG-4, which is what interested me in the first place.

I think you're pretty much bang on with the price and if that's not too steep for fishnsled's group (it's quite a bit more than your run of the mill fly-in) then I'd definitely consider it.

You're talking about true world class fishing up there.

One location in particular springs to mind because of your party size. Little Missinaibi Lake flying with Hawk Air out of Hawk Junction.

I flew in there years ago before they made it a minimum of 6 to book this lake and havn't been back since because of it.

Awesome camp on an island just 10' from the water. Huge, huge lake with great fishing. There's a substantial outflowing river that you can walk and fish just teeming with walleye, plus there's an adjacent back lake with lake trout in it.

I fished for lake trout one day and caught a ton..

Also, for what it's worth we caught a bunch of whitefish over 5lb's right off the dock.

I've flown out of Cochrane several times myself. What I personally like about the Wawa/Hawk Junction area in comparison is the terrain and the type of lake.

North of Cochrane you're pretty much in that flat, featureless James Bay lowland terrain, with most lakes being shallow, weedy, featureless dishpans.

On the north shore of Superior you're still in shield country and the terrain is generally hillier and the lakes are usually deeper, clearer and rockier with much more interesting structure.

Here's Hawk Air's description of the camp: http://www.hawkair.com/littlemisslake.html

Any other questions or alternative reccomendations fire away, I've been on a bunch of these trips.

cheers, Mike

Cool pic's!

Which outfitter did you guys use?

they deserve the heavy beating and a ticket back to asia if they dont like ONTARIOS laws

Wow, that's a pretty inflamatory statement. Can't say that I agree...

By chance do you reside in Sutton?

I also tried to contact the seller for you solopaddler and see if it was legit and there was no response, a bad sign when dealing on ebay. Too bad there are scammers in this world like that. Ebay certainly weren't doing their homework as it made it to the last day with only 9 hours left by the time I went to bed last night. Very close.

Joey

No kidding eh?

I was skeptical right off the bat, but for the reasons you mentioned last night wasn't "totally"

sure.

No doubt ebay missed one there...

Jen,I got to say that picture of you holding the goose with the dog kicks ass!The green in the field, the camo outfit,the smile on your face is just perfect.Good looking vittels ,too.

Joe

Was just thinking the exact same thing.

Nice bucket!

You're right about the spiderwire mono, it's garbage...

Nice fish Steve (as usual )

Great fish!

What's even more impressive, it was your first time out on Simcoe.

WTG kid!

Unbelievable!

You did the right thing though, glad to hear these people will be held accountable.

Seems like every single report of yours there's a new personal best, LOL!

Nice fish, congrat's!

Nice fish Lew!

Oh well, guess I'll try to get one thru the ice this winter...and try to get it out of the way first!!

 

Thanks everyone for your input....I never get up to Georgian Bay....

 

Although, I did get a tip of place close by.....

Did you get the pm Cliff?

Nice fish bud, congrat's!