limeyangler

WOW

I COULD NOT AGREE MORE!!!!

Great stuff Bruce, hope all the treatment goes well for her.

Hi all, We took the kids from work to a local Provincial Park to camp for the weekend. I was on the night shift so was taking over from my shift partner at 6:30pm for the night and getting off work in the mornings at 6:30am. Of course I brought my tin boat with me , the kid I work with always wants to go out fishing(bonus). We got out for 2 hours with the kids that evening but caught zilch. Its a deep lake with good trout fishing, but the kids wanted to catch walleye. Despite trying last summer a couple of times to find them from a boat , I only caught my first walleye on this lake through the ice accidentally while fishing for lakers this winter. Anyway, since I knew i was off at 6:30am, I’d brought my downriggers with and had planned to get on the lake as soon as possible to get a couple of trout. What a perfect morning it turned out to be weather wise............ ABSOLUTELY GORGEOUS MORNING! LAKE WAS LIKE A SHEET OF GLASS I decided to start at the drop off of a shoal/reef that extends from the point of an island, which drops from 20 FOW to 60 FOW. All last summer i was fishing with a faulty transducer, which would pick up bottom as long as you were not fishing water over 50' deep, i never knew it was faulty until i tried it as an ice transducer and realised it was not picking up my jig under the hole despite showing bottom, so i was excited to see how it would work in the deeper water , actually being able see trout on the screen at trolling speed. I was also eager to try out setting up the downrigger with my new 'auto pilot' trolling motor, as it would keep me on a straight heading whilst setting up the lines, not something that’s easy to do on your own without that feature. Because i was trolling on autopilot on flat calm water, I had plenty of time to set up the downriggers and keep an eye on the fishfinder, it was then i noticed a whole bunch of fish arches at 28' on the drop off. I thought it was worth dangling a jig to see what they were, so i dropped the anchor and was happy to discover that it was walleye. FOUND WALLEYE BY ACCIDENT WHILST SETTING UP THE DOWNRIGGER FOR TROUT GOT SOME KEEPER SIZE STRAIGHT OFF THE BAT i was glad i was using braid with a flouro leader as the fish were biting really light. A guy i know called Lonnie who lives on the lake said hello and asked if I’d got anything, told him i was on a bunch of walleye, he said he'd try the other end of the reef about 100 yards away and took off. I was kinda watching where he was going as i had not realised the reef extended that far when i felt a really light tap...tap bite....i set the hook and it felt like I’d snagged bottom............turned out to be a 27" beast of a walleye. Lonnie heard the commotion and came over and took some pics for me. I WAS PRETTY PLEASED WITH THIS FISH LONNIE WAS KIND ENOUGH TO TAKE A PIC FROM HIS BOAT WITH MY CAMERA A FEW MORE INCHES FOR TEAM # 3 I THINK I got the fish back in to go spawn again some day, said thanks to Lonnie and set about baiting up. i dropped the line down again and waited about a minute before a fish arch showed up on the graph. It was interested but did not strike until i gave the jig a good shake at least five feet off the bottom....and he nailed it....straight away i could fell it was another good fish, and it was...exactly 27" inches again.....lightning does strike twice it seems........ ANOTHER 27" NOT FIVE MINUTES AFTER THE LAST!!! LONNIE WAS TOO FAR AWAY TO ASSIST WITH THE PIC, LOL, I DID IT ON A TIMER BUT HAD IT SET ON 3 SHOT MODE SO YOU GET THE CATCH AND RELEASE SEQUENCE MY CAMERA IS TOAST, BUT HERE'S THE TAPE MEASURE SHOT After that one the bite died off, still marking fish but they were only inspecting the bait. I didn't really care though at this point, i was just a little pleased with the mornings results so far, I’d not even been out for an hour yet! I was kinda worried that the fish fly hatch which happened over night would slow the bite anyway (you can see in the vids that the whole lake was covered in the larvae cases) but so far so good, i wanted to get the last eater and then head to deeper water with the downriggers for trout...took 20 minutes but i got the final keeper and headed off the reef. GOT MY LAST KEEPER AND WENT IN SEARCH OF TROUT Whilst i was talking with Lonnie, our conversation turned to whitefish which also live in the lake but have eluded me thus far both on open water and on the ice. Lonnie had said that he was marking what he thought were whitefish at the far end of the reef 15" of water. So i decided t slow troll over to the vicinity he was in earlier to give it a go. I could not find the 15' FOW part of the reef and ended up in 55' FOW where i thought he'd been anchored. However i was marking fish on the bottom so decided to drop a jig with small minnow in the hope of some whities......within seconds of the jig hitting the bottom i had a hit, but missed it. There were fish following my jig all over the screen, and it was not long before i felt a light tap, i set the hook.........hoping for a whitefish it turned out to be a decent laker.....LOL....so much for setting up the Downrigger today! OK...NOT WHITEFISH....I AM SOOOOO DISSAPPOINTED....LOL The action was intense on the fishfinder, fish following the jig up and down all over the place. I was finding they became most aggressive and would chase he jig fast when you really cranked up the jig , but were shy biting. Great fun though, it was flat calm and i was anchored so watching the jig it was like ice fishing in a boat. LOTS OF FOLLOWERS ON THE SCREEN I was busy trying to entice one of the followers on screen to bite when i noticed a nice fish arch up at 40' FOW. I quickly reeled up and as soon as my jig went past the 40' FOW the arch shot up to follow and nailed it at around 20'FOW....electronics rock!!!! THIS GUY NAILED IT AT 20' I was working that night again at the camp, so decided to count m blessings and call it a day at that point, go home clean the fish, get a few hours sleep. But what a way to find your 1st walleye from a boat on a particular lake, and come to think of it that is the first time i have caught trout jigging............great couple of hours on the lake. MMMMMMM....TROUT AND WALLEYE FISH FRY TONITE!

Thats flippin' AWESOME Jacques. cant wait to here how it makes out on your trip to sis's cottage.

What a topwater feast there Rick. good on ya for fessin' up it was your oops....i know i few that would not admit that. I'm still waiting for the bass to turn on like that down my way....but its great to see sme pics of what i've been missing.......dunno how you manage to not fish for a month....but with our new baby i'm beginning to see the end of my carefree , fish when i want lifestyle too....lol!

Happy birthday Roy, have a great trip, gets lotsa specs.

Fantastic shot of that pike inhaling the bass.The pics almost distract from the other pics of some real nice lunker LMBs. Great session you had there!

Zander( Sander lucioperca or Stizostedion lucioperca) are similar to walleye(Sander vitreus, formerly Stizostedion vitreum)

Thanks TJ for the concern , i'm fine...i'm busy pre- fishing a local bass tourney at the moment. Very sad news bout the guys who perished,. I heard another guy is missing when his cabin was hurled into another lake 1km away!!!

Personally i think there are only 2 brands worth looking at....that is Lowrance or Hummingbird...but like i said that is my own opinion. I think which model specs you choose really depends on your budget, i love my little Lowrance X67c...use it on hard and softwater...but if i had the money i'd upgrade without a doubt. As for colour....very usefull in target seperation and sunlight viewing Dual cone...i'll let someone else chime in about that cuz all i know is that it picks up a larger area underneath you...and something about sea water use...lol Power....i'd tend to go for nothing under 2400...lol...coming from the guy who owns an 800 watts peak to peak resolution....again...if its depth and structure your'e after not such a huge issue, any new fishfinder will have sufficient resolution....but if ya can go higher why not? Just my 2 pennies worth.

Great report! gotta love when ya tune into where and what the fishies want.....sounds and looks like an awesome lake.

Nice one Bruce!

Your really getting into the eyes now AJ.....nice fishes. They look a bit pale, is the water very stained in that lake? Its just they look very similar in colour to Wabigoon lake walleye where i live, The lake here is the colour of a Timmies Double, Double. We got mercury in our Lake too, but apparently its all on the other side of the mill dam, i think they call the fish WALLEYE, EYE, EYE....genetic deformities....lol. Great report man......still waiting for one caught on the floating jig though

I agree with lots of the comments here, i was new to topwater bass fishing last year, but found out pretty quick not to set the hook to soon, but its hard not to i will admit, as when that fish explodes outta the water its like a reflex reaction , but you kinda get used to it...lol...sometimes.

Hi All, Well, it was always on the cards to happen, just never quite did....lol. That is to say I have been up to Lac seul (about an hours drive from Dryden) 3 or 4 times now, always hoping to really get into the walleye. We've had teasers of the lakes fishing potential, but never really got into the fish in a big way before, until friday last week that is....a fish a cast really, well over 100 fish, the majority being slot size (18-21") and over with the best ones being 24". We tried 2 different spots, the first spot produced a 24" right off the bat, then nothing but missed hits and jackfish, so we moved to our next spot and never had to leave. Nothing fancy about the fishing, we just anchored up and cast around the boat or fished right over the side with jigs and minnows. I was with my work collegue and a kid we work with. We had promised the kid a trip to lac seul for ages, and he certainly had a blast, only confidentiality issues restrict me from showing the look of joy on his face, it has also limited the pic/video footage of the day, i had some awesome videos of triple headers and giant pike...oh well. It was a swelteringly hot day, and because of the numbers of slot and over slot fish being caught it took a while to get our legal limit of 12 fish between us, but we stopped fishing at 4pm and got the tube out....really great way to end the day....here's some pics and vids of the day. NON STOP WALLEYE ( and some nice pike too) GREAT WAY TO COOL OFF AND WASH THE PIKE SLIME OFF AT THE END OF THE DAY ME DOING A 'WIPE OUT'

pretty sad day. He was a great artist!

Thought these 2 sites might be useful to ya. One is softwater....the other for icefishing....the links are to the 'Manitoba' sections of the websites. Manitoba soft water site Manitoba icefishing forum If your in winnipeg your only an hour from Lake of the Woods.......3 hours from Lac Seul....if your missing Ontario that is.

WOW.....you a proffessional photographer or what!? awesome pictures, had to show those to my wife......she thinks they are awesome too...she wants a better camera now....lol....so i guess i should say thank you! Great report, thanks for sharing.

Ive always used a flourocarbon leader when fishing topwaters for bass. Either the swivel or uni knot is effective to connect the line to the braid. I was using 17lb vanish, reason....Pike! However the pike seldom got anywhere near the leader line, even when i was using mepps spinners. I am rethinking the flourocarbon leader for topwater lures though, as i've heard it sinks rapidly and would maybe have an effect on the action of the lure, especially the heavier 17lb test....just my thoughts out loud really.

Hi All, Went out on Monday on Lake Wabigoon with the intention of getting some walleye. I was in a couple of small lakes off the main body of water hioping the walleye had moved onto one particular mid water hump. Alas no walleye yet. So plan B was to cast for bass with topwaters, 2 follows but no takers....so to plan C. We have noticed a real explosion in the crappie population in one of the lakes, and have been catching them frequently, if not incidentally while fishing for walleye, so i decided to actually try and target them. To cut a long story short the pattern seemed to be, find the bays with a grassy like weed, set your slip bobber to 2' and away you go....all nice size too. I did try using a powerbait microtube as bait as i was ripping through minnows because of the abundant perch and small pike also inhabiting the bays in the grass. Once again i have to say that the claim that powerbait/gulp outfishes live bait is far fetched in my experience, and whilst i did catch some, the bite was not as aggressive or as frequent as with the live minnows. MONDAYS FISH WERE ALL AROUND THE 13" RANGE So.....Monday i layed a slaying on the Crappie, i only kept 4 as i realised as i was putting them on the stringer i had no idea how many made up the legal limit, i knew it was more than 4 (12 or 15 i think) but being uncertain decided to be cautious. I wanted to go back to see if there was an actual pattern or whether i had just lucked out, so i headed back there yesterday(thursday) Turns out it was not luck and the ticket was to find the grassy weed bays and set the bobber shallow. It seemed that they were only on the east shore of the lake too, as i tried across the other side first to test my hypothesesiseseises ....lol...however you spell that. Anyway, now armed with the knowledge that you can legally keep 15 in Zone 5, and with the killer tactic worked out, i put another beating on them crappie, although i did only keep 6, as they are big and i dont need 15 to feed my family....here's some video of the action........ CRAPPIE DAY.....LOL

Ok....lol.....next time i wont bleep out the swaring Glen

Hi all, Had another great morning on another little back lake with some good buddies. We carried the 12' boats down to the lake, attached the 4Hp motors and were off. First cast produced a 21 incher for me....and so it went on...and on. Lots of jackfish too....always fun. I could go into huge detail....lol...but wont. I was using a hammered gold Beetlespin witha yellow 3/8 jig, and chuck was using a hammered gold walleye spinner, both tipped with a live minnow. Most of the fish were caught on the wind swept shoreline in 12' to 3' FOW. Chuck and myself must have thrown back over 20 fish, the majority over 19".....with the best going to me at 23"......man these guys were fighting hard! Here's the pics/videos from our morning. WALLEYE VIDS ALWAYS LOTS OF PIKE SOME PICS HAD A BLAST......CANT WAIT TO GO AGAIN -Cheers -

Hi all, I've been invited to pre- fish for the Dryden Walleye Masters on Tuesday. The guy told me he wants to try trolling for walleye. The water is very stained to tea coloured where we are, nowhere is more than 40' deep. Any and all tips would be appreciated. Thanks in advance

AWESOME!