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Lake Of A Million Walleye ~ Northern Ontario Fly In Adventure


solopaddler

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We had arrived at the airbase with our spirits running high.

Enroute we'd seen a bit of wildlife which was cool and a sure sign we were getting further north.

 

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For myself it was the 29th fly in I've done over the years. Old hat you'd think, but the prospect of lots of fish and a lake all to yourself never gets tired.

Dave and Jeremy had flown in the bush before as well, but not to an outpost camp.

This was a first for Bill and his excitement was contagious.

 

We quickly unloaded our gear on the dock at the float plane base:

 

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Then Bill took a few moments to sort through his selection of pike lures.

 

"What'ya think guys?"

 

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After a bit of a wait we quickly loaded the Otter and were off:

 

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As usual the view from the air was amazing:

 

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Although unfinished and a bit basic our cabin was fairly new and served our purposes perfectly: A place to crash after fishing hard all day long:

 

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One major bonus was an outdoor shower complete with hot and cold running water.

Pure luxury after a long day in the boat!

 

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After unloading the plane the pilot quickly walked us through what we needed to know and left us to our own devices:

 

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Alone on a fish filled lake for the next 5 days, does it get any better? :)

 

We quickly unpacked, rigged up our rods and got the boats ready. We had flown in late in the afternoon and had just enough time for a quick fish before nightfall.

 

We all piled into two boats and were off making a beeline for a small island right across from our camp.

One rod rigged with a crankbait to troll as we prospected the lake, another rod rigged with a jig to be used when we found the fish...

 

It didn't take long to get into fish. :)

 

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Jeremy managed the largest eye our first evening a long skinny 26"er:

 

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What a fantastic start! While overall they weren't huge fish we caught a ridiculous amount in a short period of time and kept a limit of 4 for sandwiches the next day. :)

 

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The next day dawned cloudy, warm and calm, perfect for fishing.

 

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There was an adjacent back lake that we all had our eyes on, but today we'd planned on working our lake thouroughly.

The action picked up right where we left off the previous evening. Non stop action on smallish to med sized walleyes and hammer handle pike.

At one point Dave actually did hook an enormous pike while jigging for walleye. It eventually smoked him and he never did see it but it was huge...

We caught fish every which way possible: trolling harnesses and cranks, live bait rigs, drifting and backtrolling with jigs....it all worked. B)

 

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This time we kept a few for dinner with Dave doing the slicing and dicing:

 

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Now as mentioned there was a nearby back lake that had us intrigued. The fishing was fine on our lake but the allure of near virgin water and a lust for exploration proved irresistable.

The 2 lakes were connected by a swampy log choked creek and the next day we began our ascent into the unknown:

 

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Things were going swimmingly up to this point. We had traversed one low beaver dam with zero difficulty and then things started to get tougher....

 

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Very soon we were faced with this :lol: :

 

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I'm not going to sugar coat it....it was tough slogging!

It took all 4 of us to push, pull and drag one boat at a time up and over an enourmous log jam and through a shallow rock garden with almost no water flow..

 

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Finally success!

The creek opened up again and we were able to navigate under power.

 

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The creek opened out into one of the nicest little lakes I've ever seen. A shoreline ringed with rock, it was extremely deep for its size, structure filled and crystal clear.

 

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Initially we began our assault at the south end of the lake. A small creek entered here followed by the only shallow weedy flat in the entire lake.

Casting a variety of spoons we caught a bunch of small pike:

 

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With the depth of the lake we began to troll the rocky shoreline picking up a fish here and there finally ending up in a huge bay at the north end. The wind was piling into it dead on...a definite walleye chop.

Bill started the festivities banging several in row on a yellow 5 of diamonds spoon. The fish were definitely

aggressive! :lol:

 

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I finally managed to get one, a decent little eye:

 

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Then followed that up with this hog on the jig. Felt like I set the hook on a finned bowling ball with this one! :lol:

 

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What was amazing about these walleyes besides their size and numbers was their colouration. They had normal gold body colours but all of their fins were tinged with a bright blue hue.

Not sure if you can see it, but I tried to take a couple of closeups:

 

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The balance of the day was possibly one of the best walleye days I've ever had. It was impossible to keep count they were too numerous.

 

Continued....

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The enslaught continued unabated.

In between walleye Dave managed this larger than average sized esox. (Can you tell he's happy? :lol: )

 

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Without trying to get overly redundant here's a few more highlights from our remarkable day:

 

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We had numerous doubles.

 

Some were more average sized...

 

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Some, well some were ummm... a bit bigger. :)

 

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I was handling so many fish my hands started to cramp up. This one ended up in Bills lap LOL!

 

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What can I say except it was totally EPIC! :lol:

 

 

We arrived back at camp super late that day, probably around 9pm, tired but elated.

 

Jeremy, young and full of energy treated us all to a late night fish fry. Having guided in northwestern Ontario the lad has done this before and it was like watching a maestro at work. :)

 

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Actually he treated everyone except Billy. Billy as some of you know is allergic to fish.

 

Here's my dinner next to Bills: :D

 

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After our incredible day in the back lake we had no desire to fish anywhere else and the next 2 days were almost carbon copies of the first.

 

I started things off with another monster:

 

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And of course the release....

 

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Once again Davey fluked off another decent pike:

 

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At one point I needed to stretch and asked Bill to drop me off an a small island. Not surprisingly I picked off a bunch on foot: B)

 

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It really was non stop insanity: :P

 

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At one point Bill hooked a decent 'eye and as is often the case a large pike chased his fish down and grabbed it.

 

We almost managed to net both, but the big pike finally let go just as we dipped the net:

 

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Not long afterwards Bill managed a brute walleye of his own. 30 3/4" long (might as well call it 31" LOL!).

(Yes he was a happy camper. :) )

 

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And the enslaught continued...

 

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These fish would hit anything didn't matter what you threw.

 

Bill even managed one on an oversized Grandma: (And I mean the lure not the family member :lol: )

 

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Our last day on the lake we once again fished late, getting in as much as we could before the plane picked us up the next morning.

We were cut, beat up, tired and sore and couldn't have been happier!

 

It was a perfect evening as we motored back across the lake our fishing over..

 

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We were all in a happy daze.

Jeremy was at the tiller of the 2nd boat cruising along when suddenly he jumps up and yells incoherently:

 

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Yeah baby what a trip!

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Awesome report, pics and fish Mike :thumbsup_anim:

WOW you guys definitely got rewarded big time on the back lake B)

You got to love it when you can hook into a multitude of quality fish like that :w00t:

Thanks for sharing your adventure with us! and great job!

Leechman

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Wow that is a great report and the pictures were awesome. Sounds like a dream trip you guys had, can't really get any better then that. How were the bugs when you guys had to drag the boat between the lakes? I can imagine it was horrible.

 

The bugs weren't too bad on the portage - though the mosquitoes back at camp at dusk were brutal. BBQ'ing or cleaning fish at that time of day was not fun. The worst thing about the portage was the treacherous footing in the creek while pulling the boat and lugging gear - it's a wonder that none of us rolled an ankle. Mike and I commented that it would have been nice to have our wading boots along for better traction.

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The bugs weren't too bad on the portage - though the mosquitoes back at camp at dusk were brutal. BBQ'ing or cleaning fish at that time of day was not fun. The worst thing about the portage was the treacherous footing in the creek while pulling the boat and lugging gear - it's a wonder that none of us rolled an ankle. Mike and I commented that it would have been nice to have our wading boots along for better traction.

 

I thought I was going to break an ankle wearing those boots without the inserts... Crazy....

 

Definitely a treacherous walk, although jumping the logs was the best part :)

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A great account of our trip bud (as usual)! That trip will be tough to top...until the next one!

 

This week back at work has been a tough one - my head is still somewhere up there amoung the lakes and forest.

 

You're right about the next one bud, are you in or what? :)

And yeah work has been tough this week....great trip!

 

 

 

I thought I was going to break an ankle wearing those boots without the inserts... Crazy....

 

Definitely a treacherous walk, although jumping the logs was the best part :)

 

Yeah it was trecherous for everyone except Jeremy.

I honestly don't know how the lad did it. He skipped through that rock garden like a leprechaun through a rose garden with the motor over his shoulder LOL!

 

(Getting old sucks! :angry::lol: )

 

 

Thanks for all the great comments everyone, glad you enjoyed!

Edited by solopaddler
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