limeyangler

congrats Mike! still waiting to catch one of those myself.

Great report, thanks for sharing....reminded me why i moved...lol....darn the weather!!!! just as a PS...you dont need a licence to sea fish....i was living in Devon till i moved here last year...awesome seafishing in the south west of England.

Hi All. This last few days the weather has been terrible here, high winds and driving rain. This has not stopped me fishing, in fact the fishing in front of the house is awesome when there is a strong NW wind blowing into shore, however overnight the wind changed and was coming from behind shore....and as usual the fishing dies, even the jackfish become scarce. Because of the wind strength and direction change I was trying to think of a good venue for a day out with the missus, because despite winds gusting to 57KMH it was warm and sunny yesterday. The wife loves to come out fishing with me, although she rarely fishes in the summer (she prefers ice fishing), she brings snacks, blankets and books and just enjoys the outdoors. WIFE CHILLING OUT I realized that in a southwest wind Jackfish Lake would be fairly sheltered, so put it to the committee and she agreed that that would be a nice spot to go. Jackfish Lake holds perch, SM bass and as the name suggests....jackfish. I did not have a truck to haul my boat last year, and could only dream about getting into the lake with a boat, as I got some nice bass there but would have loved to have tried the west shore where the weed growth was, and check out a few of the humps, but despite the boat being hitched to the truck in the driveway I decided against it due to the high winds. I wish I had taken it cuz when we got there it was flat calm because the lake is in a bit of a dip in the landscape...oh well, will do a Jackfish lake boat report someday. DARN!!! FLAT CALM>>>SHOULD'VE BROUGHT THE TINNY Last year I had done well using my slip bobber and worms for the bass, but having had some luck recently with jerk baits for walleye my confidence in artificial lures has increased and i decided to go with crank bait first off. Well on only the second cast I hooked into a jackfish, only about 25" but a fish. A few casts later I hooked into a smallie, but it shook the lure free. I was shouting for my wife the whole time to bring the camera, but she had wandered off somewhere. She had in fact found a couple of woodpeckers doing what they do best and was busy snapping some cool piccys and video footage....... VIDEO FOOTAGE OF WOODY DOING WHAT HE DOES BEST http://s263.photobucket.com/albums/ii158/v...rrent=woody.flv After those first 2 fish it went pretty quiet for the next hour. The lake is spring fed so is very clear, and I saw a few bass follow the crank bait but no takers. I decided to change up to slip bobber and throw some live bait at the fish. I tried night crawlers and live minnows and it wasn't long before the fish were being reeled in. Got jack on minnow and bass on night crawler and minnows. JACK ON BOBBER AND MINNOW http://s263.photobucket.com/albums/ii158/v...urrent=jack.flv BASS WITH BOBBER AND NIGHTCRAWLER http://s263.photobucket.com/albums/ii158/v...berwithworm.flv BASS ON MINNOW WITH BOBBER http://s263.photobucket.com/albums/ii158/v...assonbobber.flv After a about 2 hours of fun with the bobber it went quiet again, so changed up to a topwater (chug bug), I love fishing topwaters, one of my favorite methods, its just great to see fish breakwater and nail it!! I thought it might be too cold water temperature wise as it’s only been 4 weeks since ice out, but I was glad to be wrong..... BASS ON RATTLIN' CHUG BUG http://s263.photobucket.com/albums/ii158/v...w¤t=Picture.flv All in all I caught about 6 or 7 bass and lost count of the jackfish, I’d say the bobber with live bait produced the most fish overall, but the top water was by far the funniest way to get the bass. Here are a few more fishy pics from the day.... We headed home at about 7pm and my wife turns to me and says, "what we gonna have for supper tonight?" I dunno was my reply, she then says that we should get some walleye from shore when we get home "as this is the best time of day for them" ...lol....taught her well. I was doubtful with the wind conditions that the wallies would be around our shore, and despite having both of us fishing we could only get little ones not big enough for the frying pan.......... LOTS OF THESE GUYS FROM OUR SHORE LAST NIGHT..... BUT TOO SMALL FOR THE PAN http://s263.photobucket.com/albums/ii158/v...tinywalleye.flv After half an hour of trying to get some bigger ones, hunger got the better of both of us and we called it a day and had to make do with a cheapo frozen pizza, The Canadian air force did a flyby to signal the end of a great days outing. AIRFORCE FLYBY http://s263.photobucket.com/albums/ii158/v...rforceflyby.flv

awesome report, real shame about that log cabin place.

thanks again guys, i will take a look at making my own minnow trap, Rick they were thick there last night, never seen so many baitfish anywhere before on Wabigoon, a couple around today like i said, but the water is so murky its dificult to see more than a couple inches down, trap will be interesting experiment.

thanks for all the replies Thanks Headhunter for the tip. I actually have one of those but left it at home yesterday. I did try trolling a deep diving rapala but no takers. Will try again though Hey Rick...if you can set that up for me you are a legend, contact Sandy for my number and give me a call, or i'll get hold of her....either way that would be awesome!!!!!

thanks guys, looks like its a shiner then...lol one more question, can you get them in a minnow trap?/

Just wondering if someone knows exactly what kind of fish this is. Lots of them swimming around the shoreline on Lake Wabigoon. Thanks in advance Simon

Hi All, went out for 5 hrs in the pouring rain yesterday afternoon, but well worth it, not huge amounts of fish but I learned lots from this trip. The walleye in Lake Wabigoon have been slow to get going this year , great just after ice out 4 weeks ago, then nuffink! I have never had much luck with walleye on the Goon anyhow, so usually i head up to a couple of lakes connected to the main lake by weeded channels to get into the Pike and bass on spinners, and that’s where i headed yesterday. I did stop briefly at my best spot for walleye on the way, which did not produce, so i assumed the fish were still holding up wherever it is they go after spawn/during spawn. I was gonna try a few spots suggested by another member but the rain was putting me off slow trolling around with the prospect of little return for my efforts. The rain was relentless.....to make it worse...the new rain suit thingy my wife bought me ripped in the seam of the crotch as soon as i sat down in the boat ( queue for jokes) Anyway i hit my fav spot at the entrance of the smaller lake and tossed out the mepps for an hour with not even a hit, had one small perch follow it to the boat. I moved to the other side of the lake, to try the little bays where I’d had luck last year. After ten minutes i had had a couple or three smallish pike. After an hour i realised that allot of the pike were following the lure but not hitting it, some nice size ones came right to the boat, looked at the lure...looked at me...lol...seemed to shrug their shoulders and swim off. The rain finally stopped, and I wanted to have a cigarette and just relax a while so decided to fish lazy. I figured the pike were being finicky...strange for pike in my experience, so decided to go with a natural bait and presentation. I had some large minnows with me so opted for a bobber with hook as opposed to jig, using sliding sinkers to weight it. not long after the first cast the bobber started to go for a little walk.....struck and got this guy I thought it was just lucky, like I said I never have much luck with walleye, even more so on Mile lake, and being focused on catching some nice pike I decided to change up again and try an X-rap to mimic live bait, giving a more aggressive presentation. I cast out and second cast…..I get a follow right to the boat…not a pike…but a walleye!!!! I know a lot of you seasoned walleye fisherman are probably thinking…SO….lol….but for me it was an eye opener….never seen that before…..and have never caught walleye on artificial lures on Wabigoon chain of lakes, despite numerous attempts. Interestingly enough the PWT in Dryden where I live will be artificials only this year…cant wait to see the results. Well I caught 3 nice size walleye in no time at all…and then it went quiet, but it all adds to my slowly growing knowledge of freshwater fishing. After it went quiet I just sat in the boat and relished being the only one on the lake. WALLEYE ON X-RAP...A 1ST FOR ME AFTER AN HOURS FUN WENT QUIET BUT REAL NICE BEING THE ONLY ONE ON THE LAKE I headed back home at about 8pm, on aproaching the shore i saw some bait fish jumping right on our little beach area, and as usual before packing up i always have a few casts after tying the boat up. With my new found confidence in artificials i threw the x-rap out about 20 times without any luck, grabbed the the bobber, set it at 1' deep as the bait fish were in close and no sooner had the bobber settled it disappeared under. well the walleye that took it was tiny, in fact they all were..it was absolutely teaming with the little guys. I decided to try a twisty grub and got one sraight away, very small, but broke my artificial jinx on Wabigoon...will try more...guess its a confidence thing. THIS IS WHAT THE TINY WALLEYE WERE COUGHING UP.....THE SHORE WAS BUBBLING WITH BAITFISH....GONNA HAVE TO BUY SOME OF THOSE PERCH MINNOW PLASTICS MY FIRST WALLEYE CAUGHT ON ARTIFICIAL ON WABIGOON LAKE Not huge or numerous fish today, but i have found a new method to experiment with, broke some new ground for myself.......all part of the steep learning curve of the last year since moving here...great fun!!!

Great spot ya got there JWL, i gotta build myself a dock too.....one more cast then i'll build it

LOLOLOL Great fish there ccmt....

love the carp system rod stand.....lol...it always amazed me the amount of stuff carpers in the UK used, but i guess if its your passion....its justified. I would love one of those bite alarms with the transmitter though...cuz i live on the lake....that way i could set up a rod, get on with mowing the lawn...etc...etc...and wear an earpiece to hear a bite...run down the lake....lol....but apparently you must be 25yrds of a rod...oh well...was a good idea i thought.

did you eat it?

WTG CHANNELLE

Thanks Bushart....will try that out....will head up west arm as soon as i get the hell out of winnipeg.....on a school outing for work.....god i hate cities...much rather be out in the bush.....on the ice....or in my boat with the occasional necessary trip to walmart in dryden ....lol...will be back on the water tuesday evening...will try west arm and larson and let ya know how i get on.... And the guys who cannot get vids ...maybe you need to register with photobucket, might help with the vids.

Priceless info there Bushart...will give it a go...hope i'm not late for them...lol...always next year god willing....and yeah nice pic....the Goon certainly is murky...but lots of fishies . By the way....its all cabbage along the shore of our bush, its growing all the time...even there under the ice...as ive pulled up green stuff in winter...so i tried your weed fishing advice as soon as i read the post....well only got little guys.....but i discovered where the perch are!!!!! holy man...about 10 in 1/2 hour.....did not stay long as wind full on in my face and driving rain, hence no pics...already froze a camera to death on the ice this year...dont wanna drown one now...not at $400 a shot! And Johnny these sunsets are really wild....glad you enjoyed...me too....guess thats why they call this area 'Sunset County'.

LOLOL....Bushart....seems like your just the person i need to talk to....you local?...sounds like it. I tried devils Island the other day....no joy...by the looks of it the 2 other boats did not do well. The reefs before Larson bay are showing fish but i am either not presenting well enough...or they aint biting. I was gonna go down the west arm on yesterday, but spoke to a couple of people who said they'd been....including my neighbour......but they all said nuttin' happening. I will do as you say and try the weed beds, THANKS FOR ALL THE ADVICE. dude....dont be so anonymous...if you are local...pm me please.

Hi All, Well I planned to go for some trout(lakers) on downriggers with my buddy Matt yesterday. Well after him messing me around...and then finally cancelling I just headed out on Wabigoon( he did call later when i got back in to apologise again...good man is Matt . This has got be one of the first times not getting everything ready the day before worked out to my advantage, cuz i was gonna pull the boat out of the water to get it to the trout lake, but i was tired and had left it at the bottom of the yard, so i was ready to roll as soon as Matt cancelled. Was getting the boat ready by 8:30am .....must have been rush hour....lol....but why my neighbour cant just drive or cycle to work is beyond me .................................. DON’T THINK THE GAS MILEAGE CAN BE VERY GOOD He must have forgotten his lunch box as the wife showed up 10 minutes later to give chase...lol...... HONEY!........YOU FORGOT YOUR LUNCHBOX! They are my neighbours , but the real story(as if you haven’t guessed already) is that they are a fly-in camp operator at the end of the bay, I don’t mind them, pretty cool to watch, but i do take exception to them taking off and buzzing 20 feet above the lawn scaring the S#!T out of my cats and rattling' the windows Anyway...lol...rant over....back to the fishing. The phone was non stop this morning at home and I was finally headed out at about 11am. Needed some smokes and drinks for the day so drove the boat to town. At the shop, there's my buddy Dave buying minnows for a quick trip out with a kid. We both work with children in care....its great when you have the kids who like fishing cuz you can go out all day in the boat....tough job.....the kids love it too! So Dave suggests we just go in my boat as its right there...save him putting his in ...and besides he has a meeting at 1:30pm and cant go out for long. So off we go to our favourite little walleye spot. We had lots of bites, marked lots of fish but failed to land anything, and were headed back to get Dave to his meeting at 1pm. After dropping Dave off i headed back to the same spot as we had marked lots of fish, after another hour or so all i had managed was one little guy, so decided to try Mile and Trap lakes, which although connected to Wabigoon are much clearer lakes. ALL I MANAGED TO LAND IN 2 HOURS Mile and Trap Lakes are connected to the main Wabigoon lake by narrow weeded channels, here’s the coordinates on Google earth.................... MILE LAKE 49 40 54.61 N 92 46 38.88 W TRAP LAKE 49 39 37.48 N 92 47 23.00 W Mile is the first lake you come to off of Wabigoon and Trap is the 2nd and more southerly of the two, if you click the blue icon at the entrance to Mile Lake on Google Earth it shows a rather cool pic of a moose i saw there last summer running and chomping its way through the weed bed...guess that’s why they call them 'Swamp Donkeys'....here's some more video footage from last summer of the same moose.... MOOSE LAST SUMMER AT ENTRANCE TO MILE LAKE Like i said, the entrance to the two Lakes are narrow weeded channels. Mind you they are only narrow and weeded in the summer, i have not ever been there at this time of year and there was hardly any weed growth at all. On the one hand it seems like it would be easier to navigate being wider, but after consideration i realised it was gonna be trickier because the edge of the weeds in the summer mark the deeper water, even then the water is only 2 to 3 feet deep with lots of stumps to hit. So i braced myself for the attempt....which i have always been told to do at full tilt with my 30hp as this apparently lifts the boat higher...apparently....... ENTRANCE TO MILE LAKE GOING THROUGH AS FAST AS MY 30HP WILL GO PHEW!!>>>MADE IT THROUGH, GREETED BY THE GREAT LOOKING MILE LAKE After not having much success for walleye all morning and afternoon, i decided to try my black fury mepps spinner, as last summer this proved deadly on these two lakes for pike , bass and the odd walleye. After my fourth cast ....lol....i was having my doubts, as in the summer on these lakes the fish hit before the lure has hit the water. My doubts none the less were there because the main lake seems to be in transition from the good ice out/spawn stage to the summer mode. That is to say all the large walleye have disappeared or are not liking my usual presentation of jig and minnow. I think i will try another bait/rig presentation next time out as when cleaning fish there is a lot of insect/ water bug type stuff in the digestive tract....match the hatch as they say. Anyway.....i did a bit more thinking about the lack of bites on the spinner and decided that although the water seemed warm enough to trigger the fish to bite a slow moving spinner, i was fishing in the same bays that in summer are reed beds. I decided that perhaps the rotted remnants of the reeds were depleting oxygen, hence the lack of fish. So i decided to fish the rocky shores which form the entrance to these little bays and within 2 casts bam....first little pike, I then hooked into a bass which while messing around trying to film it...it broke loose. I got a couple more pike before loosing my Black with Yellow dot mepps...something big bit through my 20lb flouro leader...and swapped over to my only other mepps which was a reverse Yellow with Black spots...which also caught a few pike. 1ST PIKE 1ST AND ONLY BASS.......GOOD JOB I SWITCHED OFF THE CAMERA AS SOON AS IT GOT OFF....LOL....CUZ I LET LOOSE A FEW CHOICE WORDS DIRECTED MAINLY AT MYSELF Although catching the pike and bass were fun i wanted to see if the walleye fishing was different on this lake, so did a short troll round the corner from where i was fishing to a reef i did well at last year, the fishing was not fast and furious then either, but the fish i landed were much larger than the norm i had been catching on Wabigoon. After 30 minutes trolling and jigging around the reef i managed another little guy. SEEMS THE BIG GUYS ARE HIDING FROM ME I decided that i would now head down the next connecting channel into Trap Lake. Again the channel was not weeded as in summer, I actually found a similar picture view i took last summer which makes for a fun comparison ......... YESTERDAY LAST YEAR IN JULY USED ALL THE 30 HORSES TO GET THROUGH AGAIN (the outboard is 23 years old so probably closer to 25 horses....lol) I fished for about another hour or so in Trap Lake. I had lots of follows from very small pike, which was fun, cuz although shy of biting they were not shy to sit by the boat in clear view while i tried to entice them to bite. I only managed to land one but it was the first trip into this lake this year so was good to get a fish on the maiden voyage. I wanted to stay longer but i knew thunder storms were predicted for the evening, and having to cross large open water areas on the main lake to get home i decided to head off before the wind picked up and made my journey in the 16' tinny more interesting than need be. On the way out i disturbed an Eagle which took off up the channel, i followed it for a whole mile before it took off over the trees, wanted to film but only managed a picture as i though it sensible to concentrate on navigating...lol. 1ST TRAP LAKE FISH FOR THIS YEAR MY TRAVELLING COMPANION FOR ABOUT 1 MILE Tried for walleye again on Wabigoon at the first spot, to see if it was an evening bite....no luck. So tried in front of the house before mooring up for the day as it has actually been the best fishing in front of the house....i just like getting out in the boat....lol. Whilst doing the slow troll along our shoreline i caught sight of this deer checking me out from our lawn, wish he'd stick to mowing the grass instead of chomping all our shrubs and flowers....grrrrrrrrrrrr MOW THE LAWN>>>NOT OUR SHRUBS PLEASE! As the sun started to set i tied up the boat and set up a pickerel rig from shore in a last ditch attempt at supper whilst i unpacked the boat.....once again i only got one small one just before the sun dipped behind the horizon....but boy was it a good day out...and what a sunset!!!! LAST NIGHTS SUNSET......NEVER CEASES TO WOW ME!

[ooooops.....sorry did not finish this........dont know how to remove...will try again :oops:

CONGRATULATIONS JOHNNY! Great looking trip, cool way too propose! Glad your trip was good, looks like an awesome time.

very, very cool...thanks lew.

lol...i fricken wish, i did catch some fish...but they were all small. Will stick the report up in the morning greencoachdog.....ive been in the boat all day and the whole room is still rocking...back and forth...back and forth.....i'm suprised i'm not feeling seasick.

fantistic report...great pics...i love catching whitefish.

check this out GONNA NEED A WHLOE LOTTA CHIPS WITH THIS