Dang, wanted to post on here earlier, but got caught up at home, glad you stopped by! We enjoyed getting to know you guys a bit, absolutely were great neighbors :)! You even shared your evening hot spot with us, which we were extremely grateful for.
My wife and I had a game plan put together for the week basically before we got there, fish the Gull Rock early AM to try and get a big walleye, fish pike in the afternoon, and try to find some more walleye in the evening. Our plan mostly worked, except the pike didn’t cooperate as planned. I won’t write up a daily report, but basically this is what it boiled down to.
We fished early(6-10AM) at The Gull Rock, this is a big reef/underwater point that sticks way out into the main lake, tops out at ~12 feet, surrounded by ~30 feet of water. It’s also on the north end of the lake so it’s about an 8-10 mile jog to get there. It’s one of the closest, substantial, main lake structure spots on that end of the lake, which is connected to Ranger Lake, a fish sanctuary in the spring(shallow, spawning area).
We did well every morning in the spot. Some mornings we caught more numbers, other days we caught bigger fish, but it was consistent. We mainly slow-trolled or drifted lindy rigs or spinner rigs, we didn’t have as much luck vertical jiggin this year, they seemed to want something moving a bit here. This is where the majority of our bigger walleye came from.
We fished a number of islands, points and shorelines and found a few new spots we will remember for next year.
About half way through the week, we joined our neighbor out at his evening spot and just had a blast jigging in 7-9ft of water for walleye/sauger. This was fly-in quality action, real close to camp. We didn’t get any big ones here, but who can argue with non-stop action?
Overall, while I think we caught a bit fewer fish overall than last year, with the heat, sunshine and mayflies, I think we did quite well. I bet we still caught a couple hundred fish, and we had bigger ones overall.
My wife caught a new PB walleye(24.75″) within literally 15 seconds of fishing on our last day. She was sad she hadn’t got any big ones this year, and bang, first fish of the last day. Her very next fish was a 25.25″, which is now her PB.
I caught a 25″, 25.5″, and a 27.5″ walleye(which would have tied my PB if I didn’t have a ridiculous day on the water with FishBlood a couple years ago).
Overall, I think we had ~20 walleye over 19″, with 5 of those being ~25″+, not bad at all for someone with a…well…limited skillset.
Last year we were able to catch 6 pike over 32″ the last day by just trolling floating rapalas over some reefs and around some points. This year, we didn’t catch ANYTHING substantial trolling. I had even bought a bunch of new baits to try, and some more dedicated trolling rods, no dice :(.
I did catch three nice pike, a 35.5″, 38″(PB), and 39″(PB #2), all of which were caught on walleye rods doing walleye things.
35.5″: lindy rig snagged up on a rock, slowed down and ran to back of the boat to try and free it. Hook popped loose of the rock and then was hammered by a pike, off of a point.
38″: after finishing part of a drift on top of the Gull Rock reef, I hit the ‘bunny button’ on my Terrova to get back in position to start over. I was lazy and decided to keep my 1/4 oz jig in the water. Five seconds later, hammered by a pike.
39″: Was slow trolling lindy rigs around a point we had good luck for walleye last year. Got a bite, missed the hookset. Reeled up my line to check my minnow and with the minnow sitting like 5″ below the surface and right in front of my face beside the boat, BIG northern came and just did a little 180 turn and snatched it up. It was wild! This one fought like a mother, took a really long time to get in and had me running all over the boat. I could sense it getting tired and once Katie got it in the night(a fantastic net job I must say), my legs were absolutely shaking. A total rush.
All three of the bigger pike put up awesome battles on light gear, all were released and swam away strong!
Overall, it was a super fun trip, got to meet some great folks and even got more familiar with some returning guests from the year before. We re-booked for next year and can’t wait to get back. If anyone is looking for a great drive-to resort in Ontario, give Ian a call at Five Lakes Lodge. Cabins are clean, boats are great(if you need to rent one), fishing is fantastic and Ian is just a super great dude.
And I’ll echo what Go Spuds said, I’d be happy to share more specifics over PM.
