What a week is all I can say! I was very fortunate to be able to join a good friend and guide customer Tom on a trip to Elk Island Lodge on God’s Lake in northern Manitoba. This would be Tom’s 5th trip to this resort, and his third to Canada this year alone. We started with a 7 hour drive from Minneapolis to Winnipeg. After a short night we boarded our plane at 6am with 24 other lucky fishermen. 1.5 hours later we were landing on a dirt runway cut through the woods on a good sized island. We were greeted off the plane by greg, meet our guide Freddie that would get us on fish the next 4 days, and were seated for a quick breakfast with our luggage was delivered to our rooms. No roughing it here boys.
Tom knew that fall on God’s Lake meant big lake trout. The lake has good numbers of trophy walleye and pike, but as the water is cooling, it’s trout time. The first day Freddie took us to a milk run of spots, and it didn’t take long to figure things out. Our first few fish hit white crankbaits 14′ down in 22′. The fishing was ok, but not crazy, until Tom switched to the old reliable #4 Len Thompson 5 of diamonds. He put a beating on me until I finally switched. By the end of the day we had 38 lakers, with Tom getting a trophy at 36″ with most fish coming in the afternoon. (A laker need to be 35″ to be a trophy)
On day 2 we tried a couple new spots first thing in the morning catching good numbers, but not the trophies. About noon we went back to our 1st day hot spot, but the afternoon was slow. Day 2 37 lakers, Tom with another trophy at 39″. The best bait again was the same spoon, but I did make a change to a white with red strip with good luck.
On day 3 we went back to our day 2 hot spot. More and more fish were moving shallow as the waters were cooling. When we started the trip temps were 58 and were down to 51 when we left. The morning was ok, but when most of the other boats headed in for shore lunch, the fish went nuts. It was a good thing Tom suggested sandwiches instead of shore lunch as he was fighting a 39.5″ fish as the other boats were coming back out. I also managed my first trophy at 38″ and boated 51 lakers for the day.
On our final day we started in the same area and beagn hammering them right from the start. The fish were now up in 6-8′ and would hit trolling, but even more fun was catching them casting. The best bait was a white 1/2oz Outkast swim jig. There was 1 point that had the wind blowing on it that was on fire. By noon we had 40 fish. By this time there were 8 boats working the same areas so we choose to look for the 40″ fish in other areas. We caught a few fish, including a 36″ for myself, and called it a trip with 57 on the last day. Each day we caught a dozen of so pike by accident, with most about 8 lbs. We did hear of 1 trophy pike that was caught during the trip for another duo that met the 41″ minimum.
I used a 7’6″ Fenwick HMG with a Revo SX with 30ld Stealth for my trolling and casting, basiclly flipping gear. Tom used a 7′ medium heavy spinning rod with the same line and it did just fine.
This was an excellent trip and I woud suggest it to anyone looking to visit a high end Canadian resort. My arm still hurts!
A couple more pics including our guide Freddie ready to release another nice one we caught. All trout were released and fishing is done with barbless hooks. Elk Island Lodge is located on an island that once housed a gold mine. Many remants are still there. God’s Lake is roughly 60 miles long by 30 miles wide with scattered islands. We also had a fox in camp the would come 10′ from you. Rumor has it that he will eat from your hand.
that sounds like a real northern adventure, lakers in God’s country! nice fish.
Nice fish Mike! Ya gotta love the pull of a Laker!
The crushing hits too! I had often went to a lake called Atikwa in the Spring for Lakers. We would get them shallow with cranks…but my favorite was Sonars burned up from the bottom fast for about 5 cranks….and STOP! If you don’t get bit in a few seconds…do it again. Bites are jarring!
Great report!!!