Lost Lake report for June

[joek]

Hi,

 

Just thought I would give a report on my trip to Lost Lake in June. Lew recommend this place for us. Thanks Lew. Sorry no pics, just took normal film pics and digital video. This is the place where you portage to different lakes.

 

Overall we had a good time at lost lake. First the weather report. Well, pretty bad. Week started out nice and sunny and warm, then then by tues the wind started and by weds the temp dropped nearly 30 degrees F. You know what a major cold front does to fishing. So overall the weather was bad, especialy the high winds. So windy one day we basically could not fish. We even had to leave a day early because it was 42F and high winds.

 

Now the camp and hosts. GREAT. The host Ed, his wife, Son Brian and his future wife were outstanding. Brian especially was in tune with all our needs and did everything and more for us. The food was outstanding. This was the first time I had a meal plan on a canadian trip and it did not disappoint. I dont really even care much about food when fishing, but it was really really good. The best thing was that if you miss dinner, because you are fishing, they take a plate of that days meal to you room and put it in your fridge. So when you get back all you have to do is eat. Cabins were clean, refinished(most of them) and comfy. Even a TV with a few channnel(Canadian Idol? whats wrong with you guys up norht). The boats and motors were all in very good condition and ran great. The portable fish finder they give you was a nice touch. I couldnt say enough about the hospitaility.

 

Now the fishing. Overall, considering the major cold front and high winds, we did well. In our experience we summed it up with quality and not qauntity. But I am sure with better weather the quantity, especially for smallmouth would have been there. There were just 2 of us and we managed 5 pike over 30 inches, the largest being 35 inches. We seen and lost several other bigger fish. The quality of Pike espeically in the more remote lakes was evident. I have no doubt there are some big lugger around and we did see some. We caught plenty of pike, but no big weedbeds of hammerhandle were you can catch 10-20 pike in a hour. Instead most of the lake are clear, and very very rocky. That leads to smallmouth. We caught plenty of small mouth. Around 20 each, and all were very "mature". Average size was 16 inches and largest was 19 inchs. Gosh those things fight like mad as you guys now. These lake are the most buetiful looking lakes for smallmouth I have ever seen. Rocky shorelines everywhere. It is certainly buetiful up there. We also ran into some walleye. Get this. We accedently caught a small walleye fishing for bass. So we put on jigs and quickly caught 6 walleye. We were pretty close to camp and it was the morning. So we took 4 walleye back to camp on a stringer at lunch, dropped them off and ask to eat them for dinner that night. They gladly took the walleye, clean them up and when we got back for dinner the kitchen was full of the smell of fresh fish. We were proud because we were the only table eating our catch that night. That was great, and we even let the other guys have a bite.

 

The biggest thing about the trip is that we managed a few firsts and vailidated sereral things. First thing is that we caught most of our fish on plastics! We caught almost all of the pike, and all of the bigger pike on plastic swimbaits(5-6 inch). It was really fun for us as we are used to catching pike on spinnerbaits. Having a pike gobble up big plastics was worth the tirp itself for us. We also caught most of the smallmouth on those same big plastics. That was geat also. You could basically fish for both speicis with the swimbaits. We also caught plenty of bass on xraps and husky jerks. Natural colors for everyting seem to be the ticket. No firtiger or bight colors, other than white seemed to work. Just natural pumpkin gold flek, black/silver colors. We also managed to both catch our largest pike to date. 35 and 33 inches. Ok, not giant, but our biggest. The other first was actually catching walleye on plastic jigs. Seems trival but we are not walleye guys and dont jig often, so that was fun. Overall we caught right around 30 pike and 40 smallmouth, all quality fish, no tinks. That was good considering we were getting rained on, blown around, and cold the last couple days.

 

The other part that is so enjoyable is the portages to the other lakes. What a peaceful, relaxing, remote commute portaging in creeks/rivers to the next lake. yea you had to carry stuff around, but for a small group that wants peace and quite, it cant be beat. We had nearly everylake to ourself all week. Only on one lake did we have guest. The camp was only half full though, and you do sign up for the lake you want to fish.

 

In conclusion, I would say it was definatly an "experience" and worth the trip. Ok we didnt "hammer" the fish, but the whole experience was very good. And we manged several first.

[Raf]

well done Joe. Glad you had a great time.

[setomonkey]

Glad you had a good time too, when where you at the lodge?

 

My buddy and I were there June 23 to 30, also on Lew's recommendation, and another OFC member (bronzeback) was there too. Check out my report, somewhere further down the page.

 

Would like to see some of your pics. I think you can get digital copies of your film pics on a CD at the processing place.

 

Mike

[joek]

I was there the week right before you, we left friday 22nd. I really liked your report also and it sounds like our results and report were about the same. I might scan some pics....