Hi Y'all,
here's another very long report as I will squeeze three days into one. I am back to work after 3 weeks off so i was determined to fish as much as possible the last 3 days.
Thursday 20/03/08 Lake WabigoonWent out Thursday on Wabigoon with the missus, we only had a couple hours but my hope's were high for a good walleye session cuz the spring run to their spawning grounds starts about this time of year and they are fattening up for it. It was a bit of a mad dash to set up as having to unpack the snowmobile and drill 4 or more holes through 3 feet of ice with up to 2 feet of snow on top of that was cutting into our limited fishing time.
MAD DASH TO SET UP
Well as per usual when i go fishing for Walleye with my wife she out fishes me, she started with numerous bites before she landed a small perch which had being playing with the bait for about 10 minutes. She swiftly followed up that fish with a small walleye. For the second time in row fishing in the exact same spot we lost another huge Pike, well if it wasn't a Pike it was a world record Walleye!!!
LITTLE PERCH
LITTLE WALLEYE
After those to fish it went completely dead for the next hour. Did not mind that much as the weather was stunning again and it gave me a chance to play around and get used to fine tuning settings for different locations and water depths etc . on my new fishfinder so to waste time while we were waiting for the bite to start we snapped a few pics .......
As soon as the sun started to set the bites started to come, this time it was my turn and my two rods started to get all the action. We had plenty of fish for supper but they were all small as shown in the piccies, so as far as the spawning run feeding frenzy goes looks like it ain't quite started yet. We started to pack up at about 7pm and what a gorgeous evening it was, an amazing sunset in the west and then a full moon rising directly to the east at the same time. We headed off happy, although as with most of my fishing trips lately i need to catch more as its been very slow. But hopefully tomorrow was another day and i was off to try Big Sandy Lake which i had been researching for a while and looked very promising
I GOT 3 OF THESE SMALL GUYS
FULL MOON TO THE EAST
SUNSET TO THE WEST
Big Sandy Lake 21/03/08, Google Earth coordinates 49 47 20.08 N 92 21 50.06W I had been researching this lake for a while and liked the sound of it because it holds Whitefish, Trout, Walleye and Pike. Because my catch rate had been so poor lately i wanted to be on a lake where if the bite was slow for your target species you could have the option of switching up for another type.
I was really excited about this mornings trip because everyone i had asked who had fished it highly recommended it, i even had my local tackle shop guy mark a few hotspots on a map for me. I had experience of catching whitefish and trout so was fairly confident i had all the tackle in my arsenal to catch something and had spent the night before sorting out my rods, tackle etc.
Bit of a slow start this morning, everything seemed to play up, shear pin broke for sled, strap broke etc...etc..Even after finally sorting and loading everything I remembered we did not have the live bait. I went into the sun room to get the bucket but it was not there...hmmmmmmm? Oh s*#t....i had asked my wife to bring it in from outside the night before because i did not want it to freeze, she forgot and it had frozen!!! It was crazy, the ice had formed a fully enclosed tank around the minnows which you could still see swimming around inside the block of ice. I had to immerse the bucket in hot water in the sink to free the edges of the ice block and i was then able to lever the whole thing out, hatchet the top off, like it was a soft boiled egg and retrieve the minnows, all of which seemed fine!!!!! (except for one)
NEW ECO FRIENDLY TOTALLY RECYCLABLE FISH TANK
SLICED THE TOP OF WITH A HATCHET TO GET THE FISH OUT
THE MINNOWS ARE FINE!!!!!http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hRXqX3vynRAAfter all the messing around we finally headed out almost three hours later than i had wanted to, and given the missus was working that night i was beginning to feel a bit rushed, as i still had to unpack at the other end ( and reload afterwards) and find the 'hotspots'. Luckily we found the obscure logging road which goes to the lake without much trouble, it was an hours drive, and i got lucky and managed to reverse the trailer up to a snowbank first time round( i suck at reversing trailers). We headed off down a small trail and 10 mins later the forest trail opened up and we motored out onto the lake.
I had memorised some landmarks, i.e. a group of islands which made it easy to find the spot i had in mind straight away. Problem was when i drilled some test holes in the spot we had been directed to it proved to be just 8 feet deep, not really deep enough i thought for whitefish and spent another hour trying to find deeper water.
We actually ended up scooting of half way across the lake and finally found a promising spot near a mid lake reef with deeper water . I set up and started to mark fish on the fishfinder. Almost immediately i had a fish on which snapped my 6lb flouro leader. A couple minutes later i lost another fish half way up the hole. After that i did not get a bite on all four rods. There was a lot of signal showing up on my screen which i mistook for a malfunction of my machine....it was not until we left and stopped by some other guys on the lake that i realised that they too had the same signals on screen, which in fact were shoals and shoals of bait fish, the whole lake is absolutely chock full of it, and they were catching fish hand over fist the whole 10 mins i stopped to chat. So i quizzed them about tactics, baits, watched there every move without seeming to be spying, but they were happy to share the info, and we all had a good laugh at me only managing to catch a crayfish!!!! Now i had some knowledge, and wanting to try the east side of the lake where they were, i was definitely coming back tomorrow!!!!
MY ONLY 'FISH' OF THE DAY
THESE GUYS ACTUALLY KNEW WHAT THEY WERE DOINGDUDE DID NOT LOSE THIS ONE!!! THE TROUT AT THE TOP OF THEIR SECOND BUCKET (BOTH FULL OF FISH) IS A 15lb TROUT!!
Big Sandy Lake (again) Saturday 22/03/08Like i said above, having seen all the fish those guys were catching when I'd caught nish made it a foregone conclusion i would return the next day and here's what happened.
In an attempt to learn from my mistakes i spent 4 hours sorting out ALL the gear the night before to avoid yesterdays fiasco, and it paid off as i was heading off the drive from our house at 7am sharp..........
ALL PACKED AND READY TO ROLL BY 7am...A BIT MORE LIKE IT!!!
I was going to be held up a bit though, not because i had forgotten anything but because at 6:30am Dave calls from work (he does waking nights) saying he convinced his wife to let him come today so drop by and pick him up...cool....Dave's an excellent fishing partner...even though he never shuts up...lol. I even managed to sneak past Tim Horton's . Dave thought i was just being mean and selfish, well i was a bit but i also did not want to try and manoeuvre the d**ned trailer around a packed drive thru...Dave saw the logic in this as he has experienced my poor trailer skills before in the summer with the boat.
We got there in good time in glorious sunshine again and were set up in no time. I had spent the drive running through the rigs, baits and lures the guys from yesterday had suggested with Dave, and shared my limited knowledge of catching whitefish, i.e. where they are , what the bite feels like and how to set the hook as Dave had never caught a whitefish before, just like when i had taken him fishing for his first ever Trout about a month ago.
One of the guys there yesterday had exactly the same fishfinder as me, and when i saw the screen i knew i had it set up right because it looked the same, and what i had mistaken for interference was in fact shoals of baitfish, which i was happy to see were still there today. I was busy staring at my screen not really paying much attention to Dave, so i had to laugh when i turned round to see Dave in his T-shirt....lol...it was still minus 3 ....flippin Canadians, a little bit of sun and they lose the plot......
DAVE SUNBATHING!!!!
I was marking fish following my bait but no takers, I had considerably downsized my bait using very small minnows and a very small plain white ball jig because the big spoons and Swedish pimples they were using yesterday were not triggering strikes. As soon as I had changed up and tried bouncing off the bottom below the baitfish as opposed to above them I hooked into one, a really nice size whitefish.......
1ST WHITEFISH OF THE DAY....A BEAUTY!!!!
Dave was getting frustrated because having the fishfinder was definitely an advantage, but we needed to get him his first whitefish and I'm just a generous sharing caring person so we took turns all day. Dave was getting the hang of the sonar but still struggling to hook one even though he was getting bites. I had fished for 'whities' once before and those fish were a lot more aggressive, you can hardly feel the bite from these fish, and the lightest tap means its time to do thehead ripper strike or you've missed it. Its incredible how light the bite is from fish that were averaging from 2 to 4lbs.
Funny thing is my next fish which was a trout was a very light bite as well and took the tiniest minnow and jig as opposed to the big whistle jigs and 4-5" minnows we use on Snake Bay.
MY SECOND FISH OF THE DAY ( I swear once in this video clip, so don’t play if strong language offends you)Dave was not far behind me with his first whitie and he got another 2 whilst I managed 4 for the day. Dave also pulled up a ling on the last rod to be packed away, we did not keep it as all the other fish had been cleaned and filleted and the gear packed away and we did not want to have to skin the fish ( you have to skin the ling similarly to how you skin Doggies) , and both of us were fed up of cleaning fish anyway, taking a leaf outta Snakehunter's book i have included pictures of the slaughter, although Snakehunter catches more than me (not for long Glen)
DAVE"S FIRST EVER 'WHITIE'
WE CLEANENED FISH FOR AT LEAST AN HOUR!!!!
DAVE'S LAST MINUTE LING
All in all a fantastic day out and loads of big fish for a change....superb! I will be heading back to this lake next Saturday as i showed my mate Matt these piccies and he cant wait to come down there with me, even my wife is asking to come with us!!!! Amazing how a little bit of local knowledge from those kind fellas the day before can work wonders!
it did take almost another 3 hours, if not 3 days to create this report, but i enjoy doing them. I was knackered after 2 hrs of copying pasting, downloading (i always copy paste to word document as i go along cuz my mouse has a 'previous page button on the side which i hit accidentally and have in the past lost whole reports which took hours to do !!!!AAAARRRRRGH!!!) so i went for a half hour break (yup fishing out the front of the house Lake Wabigoon) and got these two.....
NICE PIKE
SUCH A NICE LOOKING FISH I TOOK ANOTHER CLOSE-UP PICCY
TINY LITTLE WALLEYE
Still waiting for the Walleye Run ....not long now i hope. Or maybe i just need some more local knowledge to get me off and running!!!
