Gods Lake Manitoba

The cabin my buddy Joe and I stayed in.


Sunset from shore at the cabin.

This is a lodge trip, meals and a guide. We come mainly to target northern pike, we also caught walleye and a few lake trout.
I almost exclusively fish a fly, Joe is fly and spin, about 50/50 - leaned a little heavier on the spin rod this year.

We did not have much good sight fishing this year. Every day had a fair amount of wind, and or cloud cover, also fished some tannin stained water. There were times we got to cast to fish, but it was a lot of blind casting and some trolling to find them.

I didn’t boat a fish on our arrival half day of fishing. I had some great days to make up for it. No official trophies but a lot of mid 30” fish to the boat as well as 2 @ 40” within an hour.
I love these fish!

More to come

 

[Dave Westburg]

Did you have a genuine manitoba shore lunch during your trip?

 

[SculpinSwinger]

Did you have a genuine manitoba shore lunch during your trip?

Our guide Eddy filets the fish,

Joe starts the fire, & I gather wood to move it along and reduce the guides work

Joe and Eddy working together, almost meal time

Joe leaves a couple folding chairs stashed
Eddy about to start frying the potatoes and onion, a can of corn and a can of beans are placed at the edge of the fire and are heating up. Time for a Labat’s Blue !

 

[Long_Rod_Silvers]

This looks so rad.

 

[SculpinSwinger]

This is a big lake with 400 miles of surface area. Our guide knew the lake well and was excellent at keeping the pounding over rough water to a minimum, he also had the fastest boat in the fleet. 18’ Alumarine boats with casting decks and 40 hp Yamaha props. You often spend 20 minutes between spots. You never travel straight for long as there are reefs, really need a guide on water like this.

 

[SculpinSwinger]

This looks so rad.

I am fortunate to have experienced this. Financially foolish but memories to last a lifetime

 

[Kado]

Absolutely beautiful!

 

[Kado]

What weight rod do you use for that fishery?

 

[SculpinSwinger]

What weight rod do you use for that fishery?

I use an 8 wt NFC Iconoglass, really happy with it. Flies don’t need to be huge, and a glass 8 is super fun.

 

[SculpinSwinger]

A couple I tied today for my next trip for pike.
SA Titan sonar I23, 4’ of #40’ fluoro Albright knotted to 10” #40 bite wire, perfection looped to a #60 swivel and duoclip. The extra weight in front of the fly makes it cast better for me than just tying the fly to the wire directly, and makes fly changes easy when the get worn out.

 

[DerekWhipple]

I am fortunate to have experienced this. Financially foolish but memories to last a lifetime

I read an interview with John Gierach where he said "If you want to go fishing, go fishing."

 

[SculpinSwinger]

As always it is about so much more than fishing. We saw a black and tan wolf, I watched him come out of the woods, when I yelled to the others to look he froze and observed us for 20 seconds, started to move off, turned and looked for another 10 seconds and went back into the woods. He was definitely bigger than #120, awesome to see from the boat, I was so in awe that I didn’t even think of getting a picture. Sandhill cranes, arctic terns, trumpeter swans, pelicans, and more bald eagles than I have seen at any one time.





It is a long way from home but many of the plants are the same or related.

 

[SculpinSwinger]

I am still haunted by the fish that bent the hook on the right. I thought I had blown my hook set, it was a huge boil, fly came in and I couldn’t believe it.


My biggest from this trip, one of many good fish that day
Biggest fish in our boat, top water plug in the weeds. It was awesome to see the boil.