Who has fished in Canada?

[Bullet&bow]

I have a trip planned for August in Northwest Ontario. It is a fly-in cabin that is on Loonhaunt Lake. Walleye, Pike, bass, lake trout and muskie. What was your experience? We are driving 16 hours to the main lodge and flying about 60 miles to our cabin. What would you do to ensure success and spend as little time fussing around with non-neccessary things? Lures/baits? Thanks

 

[HeadedWest]

I have nothing to add but this sounds like an awesome trip.

 

[carnivore]

Hope to see the full report post trip. Have fun and be safe!

 

[120+]

I'm like everyone else. Haven't done it but would love to and look forward to the reports.

 

[WaterDog88]

I went years ago while on a bear hunt. We’d fish in the morning and hunt in the afternoon. We used a lot of leeches on drip lines for smallmouth. I also caught some really good pike on mepps spinners. I don’t recall what we used for walleye. Maybe minnows? It was a blast. We caught huge smallies and walleye. Watch out for eagles. They’ll try and steal your fish while your reeling them in

 

[mcbuck58]

Been to Canada many times including Saskatchewan Ontario and Quebec. Flew in and drove in hunting for bear or moose or fishing. Even canoe in from Minnesota to Ontario. You will need a passport. When the border first opened from Covid you had to have vaccine and test before. Don’t know about now. Do not take any firearms. You’re not hunting so you don’t have to meet any firearm requirements and those might have change since the government is making some guns illegal to own. Usually the fly in has a weight limit on gear per person. Find out what it is or if there’s any. My advice is take all the gear you can and extras. Especially since you have all those different fish species. Find out what the outfitter is providing. Bulletandbow if you still have my number you can call me if you want.

 

[Redlined]

When I went the guides all wanted to troll red devils or 5 of diamonds spoons all day. If they wanna troll take along some husky jerks or shad raps. You'll catch all the walleye and pike you care to without too much effort.

 

[Feedman]

If i was fishing for smallmouths, swimbaits and some jigs plus some spinnerbaits if you are get to fish any at night.
Crankbaits for the walleye and pike

 

[Drahts]

I was in Northern Ontario at the Algonquin Provincial park in the late 70's. We only had a canoe which was all we needed. We caught oodles of trout that we ate there, and a ton of smallmouth trolling shad raps and rapala minnows. Caught a bunch of smallmouth on spinners and crank baits. Caught a 3-4# yellow perch on a shad rap trolling. And by trolling I mean paddling. I'd take a bunch of swim baits and thunder cricket and jackhammers for smallmouth as well as 3/8oz jigs and spinnerbaits. Also take some drop shots, as if they are suspended just off the bottom you can catch a bunch like that.

 

[1wildcatfan]

Spinner baits, jerk baits, 3" curly tail grubs. 6-9" wire leaders.

 

[Bee]

An orange crawfish shad rap will load the boat with smallies in August. We took at least doze for three of us for the week. We loved the Smallie fishing and we would work boulder shorelines a lot. And also rock piles /transition depth water in middle of lake if you can locate it. The water is warmer in august than you might expect.

I Have fished in the BWCA in Ontario/MINN. Also flew in to a drop off cabin in Ontario lakes adjacent to BWCA. Been about 25 different trips beginning 1954. It was my parents annual and only vacation for three generations.

Not sure you can fly with aresol bug spray but I would have plenty of 100 % DEET somehow. Sketers and black fly and horseflies can eat you up.

The lake trout are typically really deep in august. That can be some tedious fishing unless you have really good maps of the lake bottom and depth or excellent electronics.

Take all the portable electronics you can. A simple hand held depth finder is critical if you don't have anything else in electronics.

Early morning and late afternoon/evening shaded shoreline bass fishing on boulder shorelines can be epic surface smallie fishing . A black jitterbug or other surface plug like a rapala or even jerk bait fishing slowly right at twitch twitch /pause speed. Throw it out , let it sit motion less ...wait a minutes or so , twice it and hang on. Keep twitching all the way to boat.

For your shore lunch or dinners target the walleye. Walleyes were in deeper water where we fished in AUgust. There were not hugging the shorelines or in shallows like they are in May or early June. Walleye with leeches or minnow is very effective. WE always did well on walleyes in August in 12 -16 feet of water on any boulder pile/bottom hump at that depth if you can find boulder mounds at that depth . A night crawler with a june bug spinner rig on a very slow troll is effective too.

We fished northerns and muskies with large perch or orange colored plugs. Spoons too if the fish are uneducated. Big rattle lure effective. Wire leaders critical to northern or musky fishing unless you don't care to lose fish and plugs.

I used both spinning rods and big Garcia ambassador reels with tough rods for the northern/musky. Take plenty of extra line, snaps, swivels etc.

Id ask for a complete list of furnished food boxes items at the cabin and supplement as you need.

is this is a NO Motor lake ? Fishing from canoes or from gas. boats makes a world of difference obviously. Is there a generator or power at your cabin. Some where we have stayed on fly ins were propane only for lights and cooking. If you have access to charge a battery and can use a trolling motor your fishing will be a lot better. We rowed a lot when when fishing smallies on shoreline. Some lake the gas motor idle didn't bother fish but we thought it did on lakes that had more fishing pressure. Find out in advance how much gas is allocated to you . Some lake we went to was one five gallon tank a day others were unlimited.

 

[Feedman]

Jerkbaits an a Sammy for some early morning topwater action.

 

[Bullet&bow]

Thanks everyone for the replies. There's a lot of good info here. I haven't done a trip like this before and I look forward to employing the tips!

 

[Killroy]

Mepps comet number 5. They look stupid but pike can't stand the things. I don't know why. They are pretty much a straight retrieve lure. That being said, work everything else erratically. Safety pin spinners in pulses and twitches on a straight retrieve. There is a guy on ebay that runs a spinnerbait store that sells tons of 1 ounce twisted eye spinners. The pike like them. Also, buy some of the largest bass size hotntots. Not the magnum. They troll really well and work equally well for pike and walleye.