Lac Seul

Will be heading to Lac Seul in June.
Any Ice out & water level predictions?

No ice out predictions, but you can track the water level by looking at this website. Click on Lac Seul in the Water Levels & Flows section:
http://www.lwcb.ca/waterflowdata.html

Here’s a picture from today:

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I should have added that the yellow area represents the level 50% of the time. The dotted red lines are the upper and lower 10%. It looks on the low end of normal at the moment.

We are headed a fair amount North of Lac Seul the 1st week in June. I sure wish I could find someone who lives in the Pas area of Manitoba who could keep me posted on the ice out situation in that area. We moved out trip up a week earlier than normal this year hoping to be as close to ice out as possible. Just my luck this will be the year we have to worry about the ice being out when we arrive. Looking at the current forecast for the next 14 days for the Pas the night time temp is below freezing every night and the daytime temps are in the Upper 30’s to upper 40’s. That forecast is thru May 6th. Sure hope there is warm temps headed that way after that.

Check out Lake of the Woods Ice Patrol. Been watching that site for a few years now, and it’s been extremely helpful in adjusting our plans when needed. We’ve been going to Lac Seul for two-week trips starting with the opener, so we changed plans for the first week couple times now. They are now projecting that the ice-out date is setting to up to be the latest on record for recent history.

has anyone been up to Lac Seul so far this year? i’m wondering about road conditions getting to Ear Falls. we head up in a few short weeks!

Michael C. Winther wrote:

has anyone been up to Lac Seul so far this year? i’m wondering about road conditions getting to Ear Falls. we head up in a few short weeks!

It’s really a day-to-day thing. I was just up north of Ear Falls last week, there’s a detour on the first stretch of 105 that starts at Vermillion Bay. It’s pretty rough, dirt/clay road, lots of ruts, adds probably 45 minutes to an hour onto the trip. Since it’s clay, the more people drive on it the more water comes up.

The way up we had to go through 18″ of water for about 1/4 mile in between Dryden and Vermillion Bay, that wasn’t underwater on the way back, but if they get more rain…

Water levels are way up there, it’s crazy.

we are heading up this Saturday.
any updates on road and lake and fishing conditions?
TIA!

We were on Lac Seul last week. Walleye fishing was very good. We had 5 days of SE wind. The fish were stacked on the points that were hit by the wind. There is a good year class of 24″ to 26″ fish. Plenty of eaters. Jig and a minnow could not be beat. Tried Jigging Raps, all sorts of plastics, just didn’t work as good as a jig and minnow. The detour was a gravel road. Not too bad, couple of big potholes. They were working (hauling gravel) on the detour on our way home.

Had a buddy fish it last week. Their group caught 1035 in 3.5 days. He thought the average size has gone up.

AK Guy wrote:

Had a buddy fish it last week. Their group caught 1035 in 3.5 days. He thought the average size has gone up.

How many people you have in your group?
1035 WOW!
Nice trip. Congrats!

our resort owner (Scout Lake) emailed me this morning that Hwy 105 is fully open now, so it sounds like we won’t need to use the detour thankfully.

i imagine a few years without any fishing pressure helped bump the average size up a bit? this will be my 10-year-old son’s first trip to Canada (and my wife’s first since she was a kid), so i’m hoping there are plenty of willing biters!

had a great trip! (June 25 – July 2) we fished the middle west portion in and around Bay of Islands out of Scout Lake.

border crossing smooth and easy; roads were all open and in good condition, including Hwy 105 with no detour needed. we did not get a random Covid test selection, so that was nice too. gas is expensive in the U.S. and it’s…even more expensive in Canada.

lake is still very high, a good 3′ over normal – all the beaches are covered by water up to/in the treeline and many of the landmark rock reefs were covered so no longer visible. we could still have shore lunch every day easily enough, just had to look for rock spots with boat access. plenty of deadheads in new spots and loose logs floating around; one bay we fished through had two different trees in it, both around 30′ long with a full spread of branches still attached. definitely had to keep your eyes open.

high water with ongoing rain meant it was colder than expected as well and the weather kept it that way. resort owner said it had rained at least a bit every single day this season. we had lows in the upper 40s and highs were never above the mid-60s with lots of wind and some rain. so much wind. we found water temps as low as 59 degrees on the upwind side of deep main basin areas; warmest in far back bays was 64.

the fish we found were largely relating to rock points with wind blowing in. the cool water hadn’t triggered a major bug hatch in the mud yet so fish were pretty scattered – smaller fish were in deep water and bigger fish more shallow. the last 2 nights stayed warmer (50s-60) and more humid, and the mayflies were coming out which should pull fish into those bays over the next couple weeks. we dragged bottom bouncers with spinners running minnows and half crawlers – both worked equally well, and color didn’t much matter. i ran some Gulp crawlers at times and they really seemed to like that. a shorter leader was better due to less hang-ups from all the wood in the water.

50% of the fish we caught were over 20″, biggest were a 27″ and 25″ for my wife, a 26″ and 25″ for me, and a couple 24″s for my son. lots of 23-24″ fish, some 21-22″, very few 18-21″, and plenty sub-18″ when we moved to deeper areas.

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Good read and great memories I’m sure.