NW Lac Seul

Headed up in a week. Anyone been there recently?

Wesley:

Where ya going to be???

Had a friend who was up there the week after I was… I was on the east side though SW of Chamberlain Narrows. He sent me pics of walleyes up to 29″ and Pike that had to be close to if not 40″… Where he was at, I wasn’t able to get to talk to him about the where’s…

Mark

We will be at Whitewing, a little south of Ear Falls.

mbenson wrote:

Wesley:

Where ya going to be???

Had a friend who was up there the week after I was… I was on the east side though SW of Chamberlain Narrows. He sent me pics of walleyes up to 29″ and Pike that had to be close to if not 40″… Where he was at, I wasn’t able to get to talk to him about the where’s…

Mark

We will be at Whitewing, a little south of Ear Falls. We usually run down to McKenzie if the weather will allow. But there are some good spots closer to camp as well.

How are things at Chamberlain? We used to go there years ago.

Wesley:

They got back 10 days ago… said there were lots of people fishing the McKenzie Bay and Big Island areas… that doesn’t mean that they spent a lot of time there, but he also had this to say, “Fantastic week, 400 walleye, 29″ the biggest, 4 – 27.5″” and a 40″ pike with numerous 30-36″ fish as well… dozens and dozens of fish in the 18″ – 23″ range as well.

Regarding McK. Bay and Big Island, I asked if he could tell if the were catching, he said “here and there, but not worth fishing that close to someone”…

We were SW of Chamberlain according to the path feature on Google Maps about 28 miles. We were staying at Mahkwa Lodge this time and we used to fish Silver Water Wheel to the west of us about 20 miles or so yet. The wind allowed us to make the trek to the west to fish some of those old spots, which treated us well one day in a moderate wind, but the second day there was not wind at all and it was the only day we struggled to put fish in the boat.

The key and I believe that my friend used the same pattern… find the wind and the structure its blowing on. Search for fish, fish them, if they don’t bite, move on, but don’t forget them… we were catching at 3 ranges of depth, 16″, 20′ and 24” and tried to never fish deeper than 35′. taht’s what I got for now, gotta go fishing now.

Mark

Thanks for the info, gives us some good starting points.

Heading up on Monday. Any reports from this area? Bait, presentation, secret spots;), etc?

We usually fish the Steamboat area and run down to McKenzie a day or two, weather permitting.

Thanks in advance!

Monday: Got into camp around 3:30pm, went out for a quick couple hours of fishing on a reef close to camp, and almost got blown off the lake. Still managed to bring in a couple of unders that first night though.

Tuesday: Ran down to the Steamboat area for our first full day of fishing, not very windy and pretty sunny if I remember correctly. Struggled on some spots we fished previous years, picked up a few fish but nothing consistent. Managed a few shorelunch fish just in time for lunch. Found a nice spot with a 24′ top surrounded by 35-40′. Fished that right before lunch and stayed there all afternoon picking up quite a few slot fish.

Wednesday: Made the run down to McKenzie. Again we had very little wind and it was a very bright, sunny day. Struggled to catch fish in some good spots from previous years. The morning was VERY slow for our boat. Met up with the other boat in our group and caught fish around the edges of a rock pile/island and picked up a few fish after lunch. Decided to start heading back toward camp and hit a few spots on the way back to camp. Found a 3′ top just as we were coming out of Shanty Narrows and ended up fishing that the rest of the day. Picked up some fish as high as 6-8′ right around the top and then in the the deep 20s drifting onto or off of the structure.

Thursday: Was forecasted to be a very sunny and hot day. Had a very manageable breeze that ended up blowing some smoke from the fires around and it turned out to be a really hazy day. Started out at the same spot we ended on Wednesday and picked up right where we left off. Even got into some perch on that spot. Not jumbos by any stretch but big enough that we felt like bringing a handful home. From there we moved down to McKenzie again found a new rock pile/island that we had never fished before. Picked up fish all around the island in 15-20′ and basically fished that the rest of the afternoon. This was our best day of fishing IMO.

Friday: Ran to Mckenzie again. Started off with a slight breeze and we hit a reef right inside McKenzie and picked up the last under and over we needed for limits right away on that first spot we stopped. From that point on the wind all but died and the sun as beating down on us pretty hard so the rest of the morning was slow. Fished the same rock pile we ended the day on Thursday, we picked up some fish but it wasn’t as crazy as the day before. Did pick up a nice 23″ just hanging my line in the water while I was trying to eat my sandwich for lunch Then we found a spot that topped out at about 19′ surrounded by 25-30′. That spot was very productive to end our trip after what ended up being a slow morning.

Overall not our best numbers trip but the quality fish we caught was good as usual. We caught tons of fish in the 18-22″ range, it got to the point of “just another slot fish” in our boat. The other boat in our group had a 24.5″ and we had the lunchtime 23″ in our boat, those were the big walleyes for the week. Orange jigs seemed to be the ticket, although when fishing was really good the color didn’t seem to matter. We fished minnows and crawlers, I’d say minnows were probably slightly better but there were times it didn’t matter. My brother fished almost primarily bottom bouncers and most of time caught just as many fish as we did on jigs. I tried jigging raps a couple times and picked up a few fish on that as well. I’d say the most productive depth was 18-22′ but it really depended on the spot. We did pick up some fish shallow as well but those deeper tops we found were definitely the most productive while we were there. Water was down 3′. There was a big fire going on in Steamboat and another smaller fire down in McKenzie so there was lots of smoke lurking around.