Canada fishing report

Another fun Saskatchewan Tobin lake fishing trip is in the books. Fished from 9/10-10/16. Had decent weather. A few days were a little more windy than we would have liked but overall good weather. Tobin lake is know as a world class walleye lake with the world record ice fishing walleye caught there ( 18+ lbs and over 35” ) it’s also a Great Lake for big pike. It’s the pike that we go there after. We ended up with 11 fish over 40” this year which is down some from most years. We did catch a ton of fish in the 36-40” range. All of the pike from Tobin in the fall are all THICK/HEAVY fish. Our biggest fish on this trip was a 45” fish and had several others at 43”. Most of the bigger fish came on a suick or a Shadzilla. I purchased some Poseidon’s and some swimming dawgs hoping they would work as well as the shadzillas but for some reason those big pike prefer the shadzillas. I just wish those shadzillas would hold up better and were easier to get. If anyone is looking for a nice place to stay at Tobin lake I’d suggest the Rusty Hook. They have nice fairly new cabins. The price is reasonable as well. I think we paid around 280 a night us $ for a 3 bedroom cabin that sleeps 6. Here are a few photos from the trip

Attachments:

1. 

   4B8C035A-8F01-456E-895B-47BF24D8470C.jpeg
   

2. 

   2B8EBDD8-7FF7-4CCB-B8F2-7D1E024D89AD.jpeg
   

3. 

   93CF2D19-813C-4CE5-BAD1-8AE3B39EAA75.jpeg
   

4. 

   B079C633-D00A-41A7-908D-434127230E4A.jpeg
   

A few more photos

Attachments:

1. 

   6A340253-0438-421A-BFC6-EC626A003A8F.jpeg
   

2. 

   48F28688-E842-4CFA-AB9F-4699609DBDB9.jpeg
   

3. 

   B451BAB6-EB5E-40B7-802C-E29DA10B585D.jpeg
   

4. 

   E82A7822-1B0B-4F06-B18B-7D2ED9435E9E.jpeg
   

5. 

   02AACC4C-F1F0-467B-A7B5-5B99F23C2263.jpeg
   

6. 

   B47A95DB-91AF-4470-906B-379854645F50.jpeg
   

Those are some nice fish. Looks like you brought your own boat, how are the roads how long of a drive? Does your resort have a C&R policy or is it left to the anglers? Do you have to go barbless?

Nice report.

Dutchboy wrote:

Those are some nice fish. Looks like you brought your own boat, how are the roads how long of a drive? Does your resort have a C&R policy or is it left to the anglers? Do you have to go barbless?

Nice report.

Yep we brought our own boat. Good roads all the way. It is about a 14hr drive from here in Saint Cloud. I believe it is close to 900 miles. The lake does have some slot restrictions but to be honest I could not tell you what they are. Nothing that would prevent you from getting keepers or a trophy fish if you want. Almost all of Canada is barbless.

Thank you.

My guess is 90%+ of those who fish Tobin do so for walleyes. I have never seen anyone fish pike the way we do ( casting large baits ) the few who do fish pike do so by trolling. The water temps were much warmer than normal on this trip. They were in the mid 60’s to the low 70’s. Normally this time of the year they are in the mid to low 50’s. I think those warm water temps effected the # of big fish we caught. They were just not feeding as much as normal and were not in some of the normal spots.

Looks like a successful trip. Definitely warmer than usual not only here but apparently also 900 miles north.

Sounds and looks like a great successful trip.

Awesome- thanks for sharing!!

A funny thing happened on this trip that I doubt will ever happen to me again. I finished a cast and looked down to see if any fish was following my Suick, not seeing any I reeled up for the next cast. Just after I pulled the bait out of the water a pike around 8 – 10 lbs. jumped out of the water after the lure and cleared the edge of the Boat and landed on the rear deck and slid into the middle of the boat. It never touched the lure at all. Keep in mind that this is while in a crestliner 1850 and the back edge of the boat is a good 18 or so inches off the water. I was so shocked that it took me a few seconds to even figure out what happened. Probably the craziest thing that has ever happened to me while fishing

fishthumper wrote:

A funny thing happened on this trip that I doubt will ever happen to me again. I finished a cast and looked down to see if any fish was following my Suick, not seeing any I reeled up for the next cast. Just after I pulled the bait out of the water a pike around 8 – 10 lbs. jumped out of the water after the lure and cleared the edge of the Boat and landed on the rear deck and slid into the middle of the boat. It never touched the lure at all. Keep in mind that this is while in a crestliner 1850 and the back edge of the boat is a good 18 or so inches off the water. I was so shocked that it took me a few seconds to even figure out what happened. Probably the craziest thing that has ever happened to me while fishing

Haha. Gets your attention doesn’t it. I’ve had that happen with a small pike too. It sailed right over the transom into the splash well.

That is hilarious! Yeah, that probably wont happen again. Nice pics and great fish! A coworker was up at Reed lake last week too and they had similar luck as you. They caught something like 15 fish over 40 inches. His biggest was 43.75″ but unfortunately it inhaled the lure so bad that it didnt survive and apparently on that lake you cannot even keep a trophy so its turtle food now. He also said the water temps were far higher than normal and their fish were pretty skinny compared to yours.
I asked about getting through the border and they had no trouble except the one truck got sent back into the US because they had eggs (even though I already told him about all those changes). They had to dump the eggs in the US then return.

CaptainMusky wrote:

That is hilarious! Yeah, that probably wont happen again. Nice pics and great fish! A coworker was up at Reed lake last week too and they had similar luck as you. They caught something like 15 fish over 40 inches. His biggest was 43.75″ but unfortunately it inhaled the lure so bad that it didnt survive and apparently on that lake you cannot even keep a trophy so its turtle food now. He also said the water temps were far higher than normal and their fish were pretty skinny compared to yours.
I asked about getting through the border and they had no trouble except the one truck got sent back into the US because they had eggs (even though I already told him about all those changes). They had to dump the eggs in the US then return.

We fish Reed in the Spring. We Have Never fished it in the fall. In the spring those pike on Reed are much skinnier, I would have thought by fall the fish on reed would be much heavier. Maybe they just are skinnier fish there overall. Hope they got into some great Walleye fishing on Reed. Last spring the walleye fishing on Reed was INCREDIBLE. It seems like each year the walleye fishing is getting better and better on Reed. I wish we would take time to chase some walleyes on Tobin while we are there because they are some monster ones in there. While we were there the locals said the walleye fishing has been really slow. They say that it will really pick up once the water temps drop into the 50’s or low 60″s. We only caught 3 while casting for pike. One on a BIG suick, one on a bulldog, and one on a Large lipless crankbait. We had no Border crossing issues at all this trip. Showed our passports, answered a few questions, and we were on our way.

That looks like a great trip. Hope one day the restrictions will be lifted and I can make it up there.
How big is the walleye in the first set of pictures. Obviously it’s held way out, but it looks like a tank

Bearcat89 wrote:

That looks like a great trip. Hope one day the restrictions will be lifted and I can make it up there.
How big is the walleye in the first set of pictures. Obviously it’s held way out, but it looks like a tank

It does look way bigger in the picture than it was. It was around 26″. All the fish there are really healthy and thick. Lost one last year at the boat that was a real Tank. Would have liked to get it into the boat for a picture. Now have lost a monster walleye at both Tobin and Reed lake. Both of them would have been my personal best. I believe both of them would have been pushing 32″ We hand land all fish and don’t even have a net in the boat most of the time. The net would have really helped on both of the lost Big walleyes.

Great trip! Catching those monster pike never gets old. We hand land all our pike also because it is such a pia to get them out of the net but do have a net for the walleyes along. Never know up there when the big girl will come along. Fantastic year of fishing on your two trips!!

fishthumper wrote:

We hand land all fish and don’t even have a net in the boat most of the time.

You guys don’t use a big muskie net for those pike?!

Bearcat89 wrote:

Hope one day the restrictions will be lifted and I can make it up there.

Might be in the works by the end of the month.

https://www.startribune.com./official-canada-likely-to-drop-vaccine-requirement-to-enter/600208716/

Hope they drop the requirements. The kid and I would be up in a heart beat

According to the other post this morning, it looks like your dreams just came true, BC!

ThunderLund78 wrote:

According to the other post this morning, it looks like your dreams just came true, BC!

Yeah that is great news! My son will get to go next summer if that is the case. Woohoo.

gim wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>fishthumper wrote:</div>
We hand land all fish and don’t even have a net in the boat most of the time.

You guys don’t use a big muskie net for those pike?!

Nope. No net for us. The few times we used one it ended up a big mess. We try and get the fish in as quick as possible and unhooked and back in the water. A net most always slows this process down. We are just catch and release fishing so if we lose a fish or two in the process of hand handing the fish its not a big deal.

Pike really like to wrap everything up when they get in the net. Muskies dont seem to do it as bad in my experience.

CaptainMusky wrote:

Pike really like to wrap everything up when they get in the net. Muskies dont seem to do it as bad in my experience.

They tend to roll a lot even when not in a net. But you are correct, once in a net they roll and wrap everything up. That is the reason we hand land them. If I was to go back to Muskie fishing someday I would most likely just hand land them as well. Once you hand land several large fish you really start to get the process down. Does it cost you a cut up hand and a few hooks in the hands – Yes. Just the price of fishing and landing them this way.

Attachments:

1. 

   cut-hand-4.png
   

2. 

   Cut-hand-2.png
   

3. 

   cut-hand-3.png
   

4. 

   Cut-hand-1.png
   

Not a chance I’d hand land a large pike or muskie. That’s what a muskie net is exactly designed for. They can sit down in there fully emerged in water while I unhook them.

gim wrote:

Not a chance I’d hand land a large pike or muskie. That’s what a <em class=”ido-tag-em”>muskie net is exactly designed for. They can sit down in there fully emerged in water while I unhook them.

Its been a long time since I’ve fished muskie. The last 4 or 5 muskie I’ve caught I did so while bass Fishing. There was no way they were going to fit in the net we have with. I hand landed all of them. This included a 46″ fish just last summer. When I did do lots of muskie fishing we used a cradle to land them ( You don’t see cradles being used much these days. I do believe that big Pike do act much different when netted than Muskie do. All I know is the 3 or 4 Big pike we have netted ened up being a huge mess and each time we ended up saying we will never do that again. This year we made the decision easier. We left the Muskie Net at home. I'[m sure had we had it with we would of ended up netting the first fish over 40″ and ended up with another big mess and once it saying ” We are not doing that again ”

gim wrote:

Not a chance I’d hand land a large pike or muskie. That’s what a <em class=”ido-tag-em”>muskie net is exactly designed for. They can sit down in there fully emerged in water while I unhook them.

If that method works well for you and you can get the fish unhooked and back in the water in a timely manor so that it will live to be caught again by another fishermen – Great. I’m all for whatever works the best to see that the fish has a fighting chance to survive. Even with using barbless hooks. We still end up cutting hooks from time to time. Once again to give the fish the best chance to survive.

fishthumper wrote:

Even with using barbless hooks.

I forgot you had to use barbless hooks there. That would make a big difference in how quickly hooks can be removed.

I fish a fair amount by myself and there have been a number of situations where I would not have landed a sizable muskie if I had not had a big muskie net.

I like to run them in a net and leave them in the water to calm down. Everybody does it their own way. Really not a right or wrong way as long as you aren’t dropping them and bouncing them off the floor. Have you ever tried a glove? I didn’t like it but I know some guys do like them and it saves their hands.

Dutchboy wrote:

I like to run them in a net and leave them in the water to calm down. Everybody does it their own way. Really not a right or wrong way as long as you aren’t dropping them and bouncing them off the floor. Have you ever tried a glove? I didn’t like it but I know some guys do like them and it saves their hands.

I’ve got one of those Lindy snag proof gloves. I always forget to use it because I’m so excited that I just caught a muskie.