Well I can say the wedding and honeymoon are over, but the memories will be with me forever. So will the fishing during our honeymoon. We spent a week at the Little Moose Lodge (www.littlemooselodge.com) on a chain of lakes known as the Pipestone/Clearwater Lake Chain just north of Emo, Ontario. It is 80 miles of connected water and the fishing was great. I have plenty of pictures so be prepared.
The fishing was tough going at first when we got there, new lake, new structure, new everything to me. We were also unlucky enough to be there after a cold front went through. I was able to find a hot spot for us. It was the best smallmouth hole I’ve ever had in my life. Although we were looking for walleye I didn’t care what we caught. My wife Susan and I both caught personal best smallmouths. They were both 21″ long and were very healthy fish feeding on crayfish. Susan is pictured here with her smallmouth. On this night we were jigging H2O jigs, tipped with leaches. Well I should say I was jigging she was using slip bobber. She had out fished me 8 fish, one being this monster, to my 2 small fish. I refused to switch to her method and it cost me. We were in 8′-10′ of water fishing around an island near a rock ledge dropping off to 20′. I was hoping whith the winds that day the walleyes would be there, but I was wrong. This wouldn’t be the first or last time either.
We decided to start trying our luck at trolling spinner rigs instead of jigging. I was pretty confident with the winds and the little bit I heard from people fishing I could find some walleyes. WRONG….we did manage one walleye, but I’m sure it was a total fluke. It was a 27″er. We caught it trolling crawlers in 8′ of water. I also think they weren’t all that interested in crawlers.
I was getting pretty disgusted and talked with the lodge owner Terry again. He told me forget everything I know about fishing, espcially walleye fishing and try a few areas were other guests had luck. He also pointed out a couple of his favorite spots which I would have never found in a million years. I did the opposite of what I know walleyes to to and it worked. Instead of looking at wind blown shores we went to the other side in the calm water. We found fish, we also forgot about crawlers and minnows and went to leaches again. It worked. Here is my personal best walleye at 30″ and tipping the scale at just over 11lbs. As you can tell by the look on my face I was VERY happy. I then released her back in to the water. We ended up catching several more fish there the smallest being 27″. We also fished a couple of mid lake humps catching 8 eaters. They were all around 16″-18″. There was also a guy in camp that had taken a 32″ walleye the day before in the same area. It ended up not living because of the hook placement. He was very sad he couldn’t CPR it. I also was amazed at the number of people that weren’t CPR’ing fish. We saw sevarl people keep 27 and bigger walleyes and taking them back to eat. I almost wanted to cry. Most of the lodges push for CPR and were rather disgusted to see someone keeping these big fish.
We were told that you didn’t catch a lot of walleyes on Clearwater lake but the few you would catch would be BIG! They were right.
I’m pretty sure the mayfly hatch had something to do with our lack of numbers, but what we lacked in numbers we had in size. The bugs also weren’t too bad. The mosquitoes weren’t bad at all unless it was right at dusk or near the fish cleaning shack. The deer and horse flies were terrible though, if there wasn’t a wind. I do have to say I was very happy to see a good healthy dragonfly population taking care of them.
I know the talk had been about bait recently with people coming and going to Canada, as far as prices. The leaches were $60/lb or $7 per dozen for jumbos, crawlers were $4 a dozen and minnows $4 a dozen. The only thing we noticed that was higher than other years were the leaches, and of course that is what worked best on spinner harnesses or jigging. Also I advise people to get passports. They told us they are talking about extending the deadline for them our to 2009, but the deadline is still right now January 1, 2007. We had no problems at all, we were only detained for 5 minutes going up and coming back.
I have to say we did a lot of fishing and there are so many little things that made the trip special. From Susan’s snag that was a fish to the sunsets. I have to say this speical time in my life will live on for a long time in my memories…not only for the events, but the speical people we met and talked to.
The trip wasn’t always hectic as you see here, we had plenty of time to relax an unwind and the wildlife and scenery was worth every minute we spent there. I’ll post some more photos and please check out the Little Moose Lodge and give Terry and Monica a call for an unforgetable experience. They make a Canada fishing trip affordable and unforgetable.
A bluegill that we were told didn’t exist in the lake so we had to take a picture.
Here is my 21″ Smallie.
Here is the typical 25″er you catch. I got this on a crawler harness, I thought it was a snag.
I’d have to say the coolest thing was the overland portage that you drive up onto and it takes you to another lake.
Here is a picture of the portage cart that takes you over land.
The lake we stayed at had a lot of fly in companies on our lake and many of them flew out at 7am or so…not much time to sleep in. Plus here are a couple of planes that were private on the lake…Who needs a car?
The last time I saw Susan she was on an island…she wouldn’t listen to me so there she stayed. Just kidding…but it make for a great last pic.
Great report Jeff. Welcome back to reality!
I took a number of trips through one of those outfitters (pipestone fly-in outposts) several years ago. That airbase turns out to be be place with the 2 planes in one of your pics. Nice to hear that a guy doesn’t need to fly 250 miles after driving all night to connect with some nice fish.
Great report Krisko!!!
here is to your wife for letting you go on a fishing trip for your honeymoon! I was lucky enough to find such a great woman also!!! We also went fishing for our honeymoon it was great!!!
Congrats on the wedding and
I fish a smallmouth tournament just north of Devlin Ont. which is not very far from where you were at!!! In fact, I remember snowmobling on clearwater lake a few times…Truly gods country up there!!!
I wish I could find some of those smallies durning the tournament!!!
Once again congrats!!!
Thanks guys, I messed up a little on the pics here is actually my 30″er, the other is only 28″ sorry
Great job on the report Jeff! It looks like you two had a blast!!
You and Cal are both lucky men, I wasn’t allowed to speak of fishing on my honeymoon…
Great report Jeff!! Looks like a blast, and I am sure the memories will last forever!
Jeff & Susan,
Congratulations and here’s many decades together in the fishing boat!!!!!
You caught both of those fish in the same spot?
Looks like quite a honey hole!
Same rock and tree…
We actually caught several fish in that spot. Many others did too. We trolled the entance to a small bay and would only catch fish on the troll towards the shore. We actually caught several fish there the smallest being 24″. I kind of sucked because there were 2 of us boats making the passes. We both would catch fish there and couldn’t do anything with jigs only trolling spinners. You had to duplicate the passes each time. We would line up with a boat house on one side ant that birch tree and rock in the background. If you did catching fish was almost automatic. If you were off to one side or another you didn’t get a bite. I’m sure it had to do with the weed edge. We all were taking pics before the turn and the other boat got a little to close to the shore once and ended up in the rocks.
This area produced a ton of fish that week. I know 4 fish over 29″ were taken from that are in the 2 nights we were there and many fish between 24″-30″.
“Gotter Done!”
Nice report Jeff!
Note to all other single guys reading this….The standard has been set! A fishing honeymoon sets the stage for years of life together!
Thanks for all the good wishes an congrats guys…It means a lot….and for everyone that missed the wedding the GTG should be a good time! Oh an here is a pic back the other way towards the boat house where we were fishing.
Congrats. We (10 of us) were just up at Trails End Lodge on Clearwater from June 7-11th. We fished Pipestone, Clearwater, Despair, Jackfish, etc… So much water, so little time. Reading your story sounded just like our trip, except ours had 10 guys
.
For those of you interested, it is a great trip and only 45 minutes from the border.
Congrats Jeff and Susan
Now if I can talk her into a week upnort for our 31st 
I’m sure you will cherish the memories forever
My wife and I camped/fished on our honeymoon, and for our 25th anniversary we made a trip to Manitoba & camped/fished. She even updated/redid our wedding album and included some of the anniversary pics
Very nice report and pics Jeff
dave
Wow…I married into a family that has gone to Little Moose every summer since 1978….I’ve been taking my son with these in-laws and now some friends as well since 2001. We didn’t make this year due to a family reunion in Colorado, so your story and pictures bring back great memories! We have a 35 lb muskie replica on a family wall from a fish caught in that lake, and two years ago I got a 20+ lb northern! I’ve never found the smallies like yours though…can you tell me more about your spot (I don’t recognize the boathouse) in relation to how to get there from Little Moose? Would love to find some smallies there in addition to the walleyes we always catch.
Thanks for the great story!
Mike