limeyangler

awesome Mike!....I've never caught a salmon before...your 30 min battle sounds great fun....congrats on a first too.

LOL...good one!

excellent report JB. Wow...you really got some nice fish....especially those 'average size' basseessessesses...nice one!

ahhhh....i see what ya mean...did not really notice that. Thanks for the heads up.....

thanks for the warning ramble on...dont wanna offend.

Thats amazing....i still have not caught one of those skis. Looks like a grat time was had...congrats.

Fantastic......well done mate.....that for me would be a fish of a lifetime....thanks for posting.

Hi y'all, got out to another new lake (for me) with chuck and his dad yesterday. Route lake is a fairly large lake about half an hour north of Dryden by logging road. Its a trout lake but has a good population of Walleye...and as with most lakes round here a fair few pike too. We were pretty late getting to Chuck's dad (called Charlie), we had planned to be there at 8:30ish but it was closer to 10;30 by the time we rolled up. It was good to finally meet chuck's folks......they have a really nice dog too....lol IFFRIT (i think thats how you spell it) WAS AN AWESOME LOOKING DOG! Its been great to get out with chuck this summer, as he has shown me a few good local lakes with excellent fishing, and his dad a wealth of local knowledge too, and throughout the day he was giving me a rundown of the good spots on the lake, took us to a cliff on the lake with some old native pictographs, and showed me how to access a lot of little creeks that lead to little lakes. I must add here that according to chuck and his dad....a creek is the noise a floorboard makes....cuz they are originally from the southern states.....its actually called a 'crick'...lol....next thing i will be using crawdads and not crayfish baits...he...he....i know your gonna read this chuck ya ole redneck WE FINALLY GOT ON THE LAKE BY NOON After getting the boat in we headed straight to a good spot for Walleye Charlie has always fished. First fish in the boat was a tiny little pike, followed by what seemed to be walleye after walleye for charlie, while me and chuck just sat back and threatened to throw him in after about half an hour of catching NUFFINK! The whole time Charlie was catching i kept wanting to ask him to slow his troll down as my walleye spinner was about midwater....lol....but i was in his boat.....and he was catching so i didn't. I was not wrong in my assumption though, because we soon discovered he was using a much heavier sinker so he was able to keep contact with bottom where the fish were. I did change up to a heavy jig to try and keep contact with the bottom and this seemed to work as it wasn't long before i managed to land one. FISH AFTER FISH FOR CHARLIE UNTILL WE DISCOVERED HE WAS CHEATING WITH A HEAVIER SINKER <embed width="448" height="361" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" src="http://i263.photobucket.com/player.swf?file=http://vid263.photobucket.com/albums/ii158/vishuscirquel/MVI_1939.flv"> <embed width="448" height="361" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" src="http://i263.photobucket.com/player.swf?file=http://vid263.photobucket.com/albums/ii158/vishuscirquel/MVI_1943.flv"> I SWITCHED TO A JIG WHICH SEEMED TO WORK...BUT CASTING AROUND 2 OTHERS IN THE BOAT WAS NOT IDEAL After we discovered the heavy sinker solution we all started to catch pretty regularly. Chuck seemed to be getting a lot of pike, which was a nice change as that is usually my job. A FEW MORE FOR CHARLIE <embed width="448" height="361" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" src="http://i263.photobucket.com/player.swf?file=http://vid263.photobucket.com/albums/ii158/vishuscirquel/MVI_1952.flv"> CHARLIE GOT THE BIGGEST AND SMALLEST FISH OF THE DAY CHUCK FINALLY GOT INTO THE WALLEYE TOO I GOT A COUPLE GOOD SIZE ONES TOO (i look pretty scary in that outfit....lol) We were only 2 shy of our limit for walleye, and so decided to go to another spot when the bite died off. It was getting pretty windy and it was preety difficult holding the boat on a steady troll, or even at a stanstill with either the big motor or the small 4.5 HP, so we kept moving rtill we got a bite. WE MOVED AROUND A BIT IN SEARCH OF OUR LIMIT <embed width="448" height="361" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" src="http://i263.photobucket.com/player.swf?file=http://vid263.photobucket.com/albums/ii158/vishuscirquel/MVI_1951.flv"> We found a spot behind a point of a small island, which was also a bit more sheltered and it was not long before we pulled in the last 2 walleye for our limit. After that we decided to try for some trout. charlie had suggested we 'soak' for them but the windy conditions changed his mind and we tried trolling. I think it was a bit too early to be trolling with sinkers in 10-30 FOW and think we may have done better using downriggers in the 30 -40 fow range in water upto 70 feet deep.....we did not catch any trout, but i will be coming back to this lake to try some icefishing for trout. As i said earlier in the post Charlie showed us lots of interesting landmarks etc.....her's a few of the sights from the day. PROBABLY ONE OF THE BIGGEST BEAVER DAMS I"VE SEEN YET THIS EAGLE WAS ACTUALLY IN A TREE IN MY YARD BEFORE WE LEFT....STALKING MY CATS NO DOUBT A NICE SPRING WITH EXCELLENT DRINKING WATER ON THE WAY TO THE LAKE SEARCHING THE CLIFF FACE FOR NATIVE PICTOGRAPHS...PRETTY COOL A REALLY NEAT LOG ROLLER PORTAGE TO ANOTHER LITTLE 'CRICK' AND A BEACH I WILL DEFINITELY BE BACK TO NEXT SUMMER WITH THE TENT! All in all another great day out...with good company...lots of laughs, lots of fish, and i got to see a whole load of stuff i would never have guessed was there.

No, even though they were all perfect eater size, i was too tired to clean them when i got home and my wife and i were both on night shifts again the next day so the fish would've been at least 3 days old when we finally got round to eating it. I have also been eating walleye nearly every other day this whole summer.....kinda need a break from the stuff...so it was all catch and release that day.

welcome to the board Tony, sorry cant help with the info, i'm way up north...lol

Hi Y'all, So....last winter I decided i was gonna be more adventurous and get out to try a few different lakes ice fishing. Without a snowmachine though, my options were limited. There are however plenty of small lakes around here right by the sides of the main roads/highways. One of these lakes...Pritchard Lake is right next to Highway 502, and last winter, after reading it held walleye in the Offroad Mapbook...decided to give it a try as it is only a 10 minute drive from our house with easy access (in the winter). We went out and could not get far as there was so much snow earlier on last year...this lake was knee deep in slush....not fun to fish...and my buddy’s kid and dog were getting cold feet from the slush.....we did manage to stay for 2 hours...and with 6 holes drilled...we did not even get a bite!!! I never really gave this lake much thought after that episode, until the night before last when working the night shift. I was talking fishing with a co-worker and she mentioned Pritchard Lake, and the fact her husband had caught a nice walleye and some big pike there last summer. She explained that if you look carefully there is a little road off to the left which will take you to an area suitable to put a boat in. So....after my night shift, the next morning on my way home, i went to see if i could find Pritchard Lake's boat launch....and found it. I was dead tired, and had had a tooth pulled at the dentist after work that morning too, but the prospect of trying a new lake was too good to pass up, especially one that is clouded in mystery. What i mean by mystery is.......i have asked at least 30 local fishermen about this lake...half don’t really know which one i mean, the others have never fished it, so finding out what is in there is difficult. The offroad mapbook says there are walleye and pike....but the offroad mapbook is not the most accurate publication in the world, as a recent trip "offroad" proved. OK...enough historical background...lol... Not knowing what..if anything lived in this lake...i clipped four rods already rigged into the boat, one ready for Mepps and topwater, one for straight jigging, one with a walleye spinner, and one with my favourite slip bobber set up. I was out on the lake by 12:30 pm. this lake is almost completely round, and although my fishfinder was not working properly today in more than 30' the lake does not get deeper than that, and is a pretty uniform 'bowl'. As well as its symmetrical round shape the depth is pretty uniform too, and from shore it tends to go from 0-12' in a distance of 20' then drops off quite steeply down to 30'.....was wondering whether it was a meteor crater actually. Apart from a couple of rock points the shoreline is almost completely bordered by reed beds...with walleye cabbage weed extending from the reeds up to 10 feet out. Perfect for walleye i thought, as lot of the god walleye fishing i have had this summer has been in exactly this kind of weed layout/coverage. My go to method for fishing for walleye on a lake I’ve not fished before is fast becoming a hammered gold walleye spinner with leech or minnow, weighted with a 1/4 - 3/8 weight trolled as slow as possible while still being able to feel the blade vibration, varying the troll speed only by using a jigging action to speed up the presentation every now and then., its effective as you can cover a lot of ground. so i started my troll on the edge of the cabbage.....i had got about 30 yards before i felt the first tug....felt like a perch....and sure enough it was, i caught loads and had many minnows stolen throughout the day by the numerous perch in the lake........ LOTS OF THESE LITTLE GUYS I was getting some bites that felt heavier, and was not long before i started to pull pike after pike into the boat, all pretty small though. LOTS OF THESE LITTLE GUYS TOO After about half an hour of non stop small perch and pike i decided to move , my 2 dozen minnows were being depleted rapidly and still had 85% of the lake to explore in search of walleye. I decided to head across the lake to the opposite side, and did some criss-crossing in the middle section to see if there was any structure/reefs etc in the middle section, in fact i did this a few times and covered a fair bit of the lake....and can say pretty confidently that this lake is...like i said ...a uniform bowl with little or no hidden structure in the middle 30' deep sections. I started another troll along the ridge between 17' and the 12' shelf ....i was marking a few fish arches but they were very small. This new area i was trolling was the south facing shore, and had the wind blowing up against it. It was not long before i started to get some better size pike here on the hammered gold spinner. I decided to change my presentation as the spinner was attracting to much attention from the pike, and switched over to a chartreuse/glow thumper jig with a little rattle attachment, ( i had briefly tried a plain black jig earlier, and the bites completely dried up). Literally first cast and as soon as the jig hit the bottom i had a fish on....a nice little smallie!!!! THE PIKE WERE BIGGER ON THE WINDSWEPT SOUTH FACING SHORE (the sound on my camera is busted) <embed width="448" height="361" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" src="http://i263.photobucket.com/player.swf?file=http://vid263.photobucket.com/albums/ii158/vishuscirquel/lllll.flv"> NICE TO KNOW THERE ARE BASS IN HERE!!! As soon as i knew there were ass in here i had abandoned the walleye hunt(for now) and switched up to my Mepps rod and started casting at the weed/reed beds. Well i did not catch anymore bass...but i had a blast catching some good to medium size pike. because of the cabbage weed i was having to retrieve the Mepps with the rod held high so the Mepps was almost on the surface, i was watching the pike rise up from the weeds and nail it...so i thought i would switch over to topwater...which also worked great......great to watch the dark green torpedo follow under the popper for 20 to 30 feet then do a really fast burst on the retrieve .......that was the ticket...they just nailed it!!!!! LOTS OF FUN PIKE ACTION ON THE MEPPS DEFINITELY CHUNKIER ON THIS SIDE OF THE LAKE WATCH THEM FOLLOW IT ALL THE WAY OUT OF THE WEED EDGE....DO A SHORT SPEED RETRIEVE....AND WHAM!!!!!.....GREAT FUN! <embed width="448" height="361" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" src="http://i263.photobucket.com/player.swf?file=http://vid263.photobucket.com/albums/ii158/vishuscirquel/mmmmm.flv"> After a couple hours of fun with the pike...i must have landed at least 15 nice size ones...i decided i was slimy enough and should continue to see if there actually were walleye in this lake....i was beginning to doubt it. I used my walleye spinner and jig and trolled round to where i had started some 4 hours earlier.......NOTHING.....well small perch and pike again. It was around 6 pm and the sun was at the top of the tree line......i had not really even marked many walleye looking arches on my fishfinder and was almost gonna call it a day....but decided to try one last go on the only stretch of shoreline i had not covered......i think i had subconsciously avoided this area as it is where we had skunked so spectacularly ice fishing the first time i tried this lake. The whole 100 yard stretch of shore was bordered by a reed bed with cabbage weed extending out to the 9' deep area, then it was clear of weed, just a clay/mud flat area about 10' wide before it started to drop off. I switched again to my walleye spinner and started the troll in the 12' depth area. i had gone half the 10 yards when i felt a tug, struck....and there it was!!! A WALLEYE!!! It was not a bad size either...around 17" or 18". The next fish was about the same, then they got smaller and smaller as the light faded. By the time i started catching the walleye i only had six minnows left...always the way....lol....but they were aggressive and did not mind hitting half minnows and dead chewed up bits of minnows the walleye i was catching were spitting out. I actually started to mark large numbers of fish in that area...the first time today that that had happened, and they were all in the 12' to 13' depth range...stray outside of that and there was nothing. Once i had located the fish i switched back to jigging and just sat on top of the fish, i was catching them right under the boat, and because the wind was non existent now i just cut the trolling motor and pretty much was able to sit on the same spot without even the anchor. There certainly were lots of walleye...if not a little on the small side, and they were feeding ferociously. I realised that i had not tried the bobber set up all day so for fun, using my last minnow i tried and within seconds the bobber disappeared, i managed for fish on the same minnow before one spat it out 10 feet from the boat.....time to call it a day...was starting to get dark any way and i had to get the boat out on my own, sooooo glad i remembered to pack my hip waders....lol. FIRST WALLEYE CAUGHT STARTED MARKING LOTS OF FISH IN 12' - 13' FOW SO SWITCHED OVER TO A JIG JIG WORKED GREAT SORRY BUT THE COMENTARY WAS LOST CUZ MY CAMERA IS BUST....AGAIN! <embed width="448" height="361" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" src="http://i263.photobucket.com/player.swf?file=http://vid263.photobucket.com/albums/ii158/vishuscirquel/nnnnn.flv"> THOUGHT I MIGHT AS WELL USE THE SLIP BOBBER AS I HAD IT ALREADY SET UP All in all a very good day, very satisfying to find what i was looking for when not even sure there were walleye in this lake. I did stray over an area i had fished earlier on in the day and managed a couple of walleye there too, so i think the lack of walleye earlier on was due to the fact that they just feed at dusk on this lake, at this time of year anyway, as i tried most methods, apart from dragging a bottom bouncer in the deeper section, with no luck until the light started to fade. LOLOL...anyway, if i was a walleye in this lake, i would not venture out till dark either, not with the hundred thousand big pike that seem to inhabit this lake!!!!! Another good thing about this lake is that my wife loves fishing for Bass and Pike.....and being just round the corner from our house so to speak gives us another good venue, so we can fish all day for bass and pike, then just before we leave at sunset catch our walleye supper....PERFECT!

GREAT REPORT!!!! man that was funny....sorry...but i had to laugh, but hey...10/10 for carrying on! Great fish you had there....and i like the 'technical summary' bit at theend.

The fishing sounds pretty good there.....thanks for the report.

Great report Kemper. Its nice to hear that you wanted to get the pike back with minimal harm....up here a lot of folk really "hate" pike.....go figure.....and will purposely harm them when caught...I "hate" that . Look forward to the pics, thnx for sharing.

great post guys, lots of info. Can anyone post a pic of the O-ring thing?

great post guys, lots of info. Can anyone post a pic of the O-ring thing?

Nice fish!....ok...now i'm really jealous.....lol

hey Mike, i live here permanently now, moved here a year and a half ago.

Hi Y'all, I cant remember the last time i got out in the boat by myself...probably only a couple of weeks since the last time....but man was it nice! Dont get me wrong...i love having company....but being out in the middle of nowhere with just my thoughts for company is a must for my sanity...or whats left of it....lol. Went back to one of my usual haunts with walleye being the target for the day. The weather is very changeable from minute to minute here now, fall is well on its way. Its nice though, because its cooler without being cold, and the rain only lasts a few minutes and the wind is light. The sun and rain have been giving us some great rainbows, and yesterday was no exception......... ALL THE SUN AND RAIN MAKES FOR SOME NICE RAINBOWS I headed back to a small midwater reef i fished a while back with my buddy Darryl. The water has changed drastically since the last time i went there 2 weeks ago. It was almost crystal clear then, but with the weed growth starting to die back it is now much more tea stained. I decided to go with a small yellow jig to start with because of this, as i had been using black the last time. The first 20 minutes did not even produce a bite, so i decided to fish the top of the reef, dragging the jig through the weeds. This was rewarded with some small pike almost immediately........ LOTS OF SMALL PIKE FEEDING ON THE BAITFISH ACROSS THE TOP OF THE REEF <embed width="448" height="361" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" src="http://i263.photobucket.com/player.swf?file=http://vid263.photobucket.com/albums/ii158/vishuscirquel/cx.flv"> After about 5 or 6 pike in quick succession i decided to change to a black and yellow jig to see if i could tempt some walleye......again , pike after pike after pike. I decided to go back to black and stay on top of the reef . I did not get any more pike with the black jig but after 10 minutes i hooked into a really nice 20" walleye....then it went dead....not a sniff anywhere on the reef for the next 20 minutes or so. GOT THIS ONE......BUT IT WENT DEAD AFTER THAT <embed width="448" height="361" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" src="http://i263.photobucket.com/player.swf?file=http://vid263.photobucket.com/albums/ii158/vishuscirquel/ev.flv"> The wind had picked up a bit, and i noticed it was blowing up against the weedline visible on the right hand side of the first pike pictue above. The last time i fished that with my buddy Kyle we were slammin' walleyes, but they were all pretty small, but i thought i'd give it a go. THIS WEEDLINE JUST LOOKS TOO GOOD! I started off jigging ( i was using minnows all day) and ended up changing jigs about three times before hooking into another small pike. ANOTHER PIKE!....lots of these little guys here today I was beginning to think it was not going to happen that day, but as a last resort....lol....which with hindsight should have been my first resort....i switched over to a hammered gold walleye spinner, and moved out to the edge of the cabbage weed in front of the reeds and started to slow troll. I missed the first fish, a huge pike had followed my spinner in and grabbed it right at the boat and snapped me off, i made another rig up, and for a laugh i put a 6" sucker minnow that had found its way into my medium minnows. Well the size of bait did not put off the first walleye or the second or the third...etc...etc. All in all i had at least 15 walleye, and all but 4 were above 18". One of the walleye had my hook and vanish trace still in its mouth from around 2 weeks ago!!! I am pretty sure it was my line as it was 8lb trilene vanish transition with the red size 2 octopus hooks i use on my bobber set up...poor thing...so being over 18" i put him/her back after removing what i had left in its mouth 2 weeks earlier. POOR THING HAD MY HOOK IN IT FOR 2 WEEKS MOST WERE IN THE SLOT....but i did get supper All in all a good solitary session, the weather held up, and i found what i was looking for after a bit of experimentation. A very relaxing few hours.

Nice Fish!!! Thanks for posting.

great report and pics, nice walleyes too.

ABSOLUTELY AWESOME

That is truly awesome, lol...i will have to come back and read the rest....but the pics of those Char are absolutely amazing...colors are incredible!!! I am a little jealous too.....especially as i always wanted to catch Grayling from a very young age. Thanks for sharing.

Hey Fishing for life...sad to say this happens everywhere, similar to Bushart it is one of the reasons i left England!!!! fishing mostly from piers over there it was becoming more and more difficult to go out without the potential for a fight starting.....like you said, it would seem a simple solution for everyone to work together so everyone can fish the same spot, but some people are just to ignorant/aggressive/dumb to see it that way.

Thats a great fish Cliff!.......i was reading the post, i scroll down and see the picture and i said out loud" HOLY SH@T"....my wife asks...'whats up?".......i says....."come and see the salmon Cliff caught".....she walks over to have a look, sees the picture, and the first thing out of her mouth is...."HOLY SH@T"! LOL. Well done on the PB