Lac Seul (Williams Bay)report

limeyangler · September 24, 2008

Hi all,

Finally made it up to Williams Bay (Lac Seul). Tried going last summer on Canada Day , but blew a trailer tire (did not have a spare...nobody open on Canada Day)...that was a long day. This time we made it but I am beginning to think Williams bay is a jinx for me.

I went up with my buddies Matt and Dave. We were taking Dave's boat and my truck and between the 2 machines we had a host of problems...lol...sheesh! After messing around for the first hour replacing Dave’s trailer light plug with a spare i had we finally headed off about 2 hours later than we wanted.

WE FINALLY ARRIVED 2 HOURS LATER THAN WE WOULD HAVE LIKED

After putting the boat in, i went and parked the trailer and walked back down to the lake. I was expecting to find Matt on shore holding the rope on the boat and Dave sitting in his boat. Instead i find Matt watching Dave floating down the river cursing....lol. Dave paddled to shore to tell us that he could not start the engine. We all got in anyway, and i suggested that Dave take the cowling off to see what we could see.....not that i have a clue what to look for. Myself and matt were not too worried as even if we could not get the motor going we had my spare battery with us fully charged(even though i had forgotten the wing nuts) and so had enough juice in 3 batteries to just fish the landing bay on the trolling motor.....not ideal...but we were determined to fish. Matt and i were so determined to fish, we were already casting while Dave was cursing at his dead motor....lol

WE GOT A COUPLE OF SMALL NORTHERN WHILE DAVE WAS CURSING T HIS DEAD MOTOR

After 20 minutes of Dave's cursing...we decided we should help a bit...lol...and i took a look as did Matt....we all decided that it was probably a fuse...and after about another 20 mins of trying to locate one Matt found it...and yup it was pooched.....we had another fuse ...put it in....the engine fired up.....WOOOOHOOOOO!!! we were off!

I had never fished Williams Bay before but Matt and Dave had, so we went to one of Dave's favourite spots first. The whole area was basically a sand bar between two weedbed points, and after a couple of tiny sauger and a northern we were moving to one of Matt's spots, he knew of a midwater reef off an island about 500 yards away. We were there for about half an hour...could not find the structure and caught no fish...so we headed off again.

It seems that the further you go from the landing up the bay the less sand there is and more rocky/mud bottom areas you get to. it was also a lot deeper out here. We went to a little rock pile off an island point, with a 5' plateau gradually getting deeper to 35 FOW. Lots of snags later i hooked into what i thought was a pike by the way it was fighting.....turned out to be a nice 24" Walleye. I got a couple of nice 17" eaters and a big pike, the other guys just watched...lol....they were not catching a thing. I was using a white/chartreuse 1/4Oz jig with a little rattle attachment.....the guys all borrowed a rattle thingy from me and that seemed to work...we added a couple more eaters. Despite catching now we were all a bit disappointed because normally on Lac Seul its difficult to get fish hat are NOT in the slot...where were all the nice big ones?

FIRST NICE BIG WALLEYE OF THE DAY

We spent the next 2 or 3 hours trying different locations trying to find fish. Apart from a couple of small ones, like 5 or 6 inches that was it. I wanted to try some rockier marks....as this is where we had caught the only big fish of the day....and i suggested we try a midwater reef you could see about half a mile away...so off we went. We drifted around the rock and Matt got a hit but it got off. Literally seconds after a nice Bass (sm) chased my jig and minnow to the boat but got off too. After half an hour and no fish apart from the missed bass we decided to move again.

When we arrived at the reef we were leaving it was covered in seagulls. As we got about 200 yards away, going full tilt Dave suddenly cut the power to the engine and we came to a grinding halt! Dave had spotted some seagulls on the water and thought we were about to hit another reef...lol...but both matt and I immediately looked at the fishfinder and noticed that a reef had suddenly come up from 40 FOW to 15 FOW.....so as Dave prepared to move off again we were like...."No....wait......this looks really promising!" The reef was about 20 feet across the top then gradually then dropped off quite steeply to around 42 FOW. The fish were at the 30 FOW range.....and the next couple of hours were great....we got our limit and lots of slot size (18 - 21") even more 24 and 25" fish and Dave got the best one of the day measuring 26"...YEAH!....that’s what we came for! Here's a few pics and video i took of the boys at the honey hole we found.....

GOT LOTS OF EATERS

GOT LOTS OF BIGGER FISH TOO

WE MISSED A FEW BIG ONES TOO......DOH!

DAVE GOT THE BIGGEST OF THE DAY AT 26"....NICE!]

WE EVEN GOT A FEW SMALL SMB...THIS WAS THE SMALLEST....LOL

After about 2 hours the fishing died down.....and the sun was getting low....so we made our way back to the bay in front of the landing, being die hard we fished the sun down in front of the landing , a couple jackfish later we decided to head in.

NICE SUNSET

Oh dear.... the motor died again!!!!!! We started to paddle ashore, and had got a few 100 yards when Dave found a reset button and we got power back.

COME ON MATT...PUT SOME BACKBONE INTO IT....LOL

We got the boat on the trailer and set off. We had gotten about 3 miles down the logging road when my low tire warning comes on......we get out to check and its about half way to flat on the front passenger side. That’s ok we though...brand new truck...all the tools and spare tire re there...should not be a biggy. Huh...that’s what we thought. To lower the spare you need to insert the tool through the rear bumper...into the 'Guiding funnel' that locks the key into place. that would be fine if the guiding funnel actually guided the key into place. We ended up trying to remove the guiding funnel so we could lower the spare, but catch 22......the spare tire blocks access to the funnel.

WILLIAMS BAY IS DEFINITELY A JINX IT SEEMS

In the end we decided to just get back as best we could before the tire was completely flat, as none of us had a cell phone, and it probably would not get reception even if we did. We were about 50 kms down the logging road....middle of nowhere. We thought we had lucked out when we came across this guy at kilometre 38 as we thought the service truck would have a compressor on board.

AHHH....WE'RE SAVED

Unfortunately there was no service truck around...so we thanked the guy and headed off at a snails pace again...not before noticing my right hand tail light on the truck was out....as were the tail lights on the trailer. We hit civilization about 2 and a half hours later, the tire held up ok considering we were on logging roads all the way back....lucky they are still hauling outta there otherwise the road would have been far worse and i don’t think the tire would have made it. We drove the last 4 miles through town with our hazards flashing...but the OPP were nowhere to be seen...lucky for us :thumbsup_anim: .

A great days fishing in the end....even with all the breakdowns and drama. I would like to also just say that while I have been sat here typing this, GM called and my truck is ready, although the truck should not have these problems...they have excellent customer service...which is rare these days.

Reef Runner · September 24, 2008

A nice bag of fish and good memories with friends, despite the mechanical jinx, a great outing, no? lol.

Great report LA.

rob v · September 24, 2008

Great Post - thanks for sharing.

It certainly sounds like you had you share of misfortunes and good fortunes (fish).

Unfortunately the video clips wouldn't work for me though.

tbayboy · September 24, 2008

Quite the adventure Limey. Glad to see you guys kept your sense of humour and got into some nice fish. I've been in that logging road 'oh crap just make it far enough' scenario as well, happy to hear you didn't need the mac truck like we did

mattyk · September 24, 2008

thanks for the report! Looks like some good times.

Leecher · September 25, 2008

Great report, pics and videos limeyangler :thumbsup_anim:

Those are some real nice eyes you guys caught! WTG :clapping:

Glad you made it back safely.

Thanks for sharing

Leechman

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