Ontario Walleye & Pike

Last week, a good friend booked a corporate retreat for his colleagues and associated vendors. During their stay, he and I served as guides for the rest of the group. As you can imagine, we had a little healthy prodding going on between both of us revolving around who could put the group on the most fish and biggest fish.

On Thursday, Bob (the names have change to protect the innocent) put on an Onaman Lake education while I was stuck back at camp doing admin things and chores. The day landed them several healthy walleyes over 26”, with two 28” and one 29” that is being replicated for the wall. With little wind and water temps hovering in the 68 – 70 degrees, he was surprised to find the active fish in 5-10ft of water. Big boldery shoals were Thursday’s key to success. Add to their daily catch some respectable pike and it was a great day of fishing.

On Friday, I brought the crew to Northwind Lake. Upon arrival, we were greeted to a very high sun and glass clam waters. The scenery was what Northern Ontario postcard picture perfect dreams are made of, however my internal warm fuzzy, good fishing meter was well below normal. And true to my intuitions, the day started out a little slow. By noon however, the fishing gods reined down and kicked up a perfect walleye chop. I was reef jumping and found the mother load on the second reef we hit. It was game on from there. Water temps were that same as Onaman, maybe even a little warmer, however the fish were feeding heavy in 28 – 31ft of water.

Saturday brought Bob and the crew to our famous BIG pike lake. Although I shy away from doing a lot of guiding for big pike this time of year, I thought it was worth a shot for him. So Bob brought out his crew while I stayed back and prepared for Sunday’s trip to the same lake. After a long day on the water, in his words, he got “spanked”; only a handful of mid 20’s and some long faces from those that accompanied him. When I asked Bob what happened, he said he had a lot of follows, but the pike wouldn’t close the deal. I must admit I took pleasure in reminding him that casting this time of year, especially up close and personal casting, isn’t as effective as trolling.

With Bob’s lack of success weighing heavy on my mind, yesterday I dawned my crankbaits, fire line and pike pole. After an adventure in getting to the lake, we sat in the first bay and began preparing our lines, while I plugged in the fish finder. Almost immediately, I saw balls of bait fish in 30ft of water with what looked like lingering pike not too far behind. Within 5 mins, I boated a fat 38” pike on a deep diving Rapala. And that was the theme of the rest of the day. Deep water, deep diving lures and slow trolling produced a decent day of fishing, much better than I expected. At days end, we had boated one 40” pike (pictured above), a couple of 38” (also pictured above), a couple of upper 30’s and some 20’s.

And what is really exciting? Fall fishing is right around the corner!!!

Until next time.

Chad
Pasha Lake Cabins