Have you ever wanted to go to Canada and experience fishing without the hustle and bustle of the people? Yeah I know what your going to say “Its to expensive for the whole family to do.” Well people your wrong! I found a place this year by doing some Internet searching in an area I was semi familiar with. (Atikokan, Canada) Atikokan is only about 1 1/2hours from Fort Francis border crossing. I found a resort called Finlayson Lake Resort (www.finlaysonfishingresort.com) and the price for there cabins was unbelievable! Like most families we were traveling as a family of 4 and also with another family of 4. We needed a cabin that slept 8! “No Problem!” Says Christine. Christine and Terry are the relatively new owners of Finlayson Lake Resort. The Next Question for us was that we only could stay from Friday till Monday. Yep, the dreaded extended weekend for us working folk. Much to our surprise again Christine says “No Problem!” We booked right off the website and plans were set! We had a pre-trip meeting that mapped out some meals/times and we were ready to go! We set off last Friday June 11th in the rain. We made it to the border in about 4 ½ hours and set out for Atikokan. Much to my surprise the tires I thought I would need in the fall told me unexpectedly with a loud “BOOM” I needed to use my spare! The tire change turned into lunch on the side of the road and with a short delay we were off. We made it to the resort about 2:00pm and were welcomed with big greetings from the whole staff. We had our Canadian fishing licenses within minutes and we were out to the cabin. They told us they would of really wanted us to stay in there new cabins that housed I believe 11 people but this is all they had left. I must say that if what I stayed in was the worst I am going to start taking the worst of everything at this place. First thing my wife says is that it is very clean! That is huge for any guy bringing their wife’s on trips. We were unpacked and had the boats loaded within a hour. Terry handed us a map at check-in, warned us of a few killer rocks and highlighted hot spots for us to check out. We hit the lake and within 15 minutes we had our first steroid walleye on the line! I can’t say enough about the hospitality and facility. I will tell you that it only cost us about $550US to stay and about another $450 in food, Gas and Bait making the trip total around $1000 for a great Canadian Experience. Please let me know if you have any question about what we did or how they operate. Oh and by the way it is very common to catch 10-20 walleyes per 3hour trip with a mix of small mouth and pike. Enjoy the pictures!
This picture is dedicated to “Crappie Keith” because my son “Turtle Boy” sees him eating his rod and wanted to do a picture like him!
The Lemon Pepper fish is to die for on the grill!
This is my son Codi with a 25 incher!
This is Tonys son Trevor with a 24incher!
This is my better half with a standard 19 incher.
Codi with some of the Spectacular small mouth lurking these waters.
Mike with a pesky northern!
My wife and I got to spend the last two hours on the lake Monday morning and end up with some take home fish.
