Went fishing last week in Northern Ontario with several family members at a chain of lakes mostly known for Walleye and Northern Pike.
We caught a good number of fish over the course of the week both on the fly and with gear, i.e. lindy rigs, jigging, and suspended baits.
Walleye fishing proved difficult on the fly, as expected, due to the fact that you really need to present the fly just off of the bottom of the lake in anywhere between about 15 and 30 feet of water. I had picked up the Cortland sink 9 specifically for this trip and found that it was absolutely necessary to get the fly down in a reasonable amount of time and to keep it there on the retrieve.
Pike were present and active but really only seemed to be receptive to the fly a couple of days out of the week. The other fly fisher in our group and I worked the shallows and found some success both with surface poppers and streamers stripped just a few feet beneath the surface. Gear fishing for pike was excellent all week long - amongst our group, several 40+ inch fish were landed!
In the future, I think I would probably skip Walleye on the fly and spend more time chasing Northerns.
Thanks to @Northern, @Ryan Smart, and @RichS for the advice shared over in the Lakes forum, and thank you to @JLT for setting me up with the backup rod - proved to be a great rod and helped in landing several nice fish.
The camp dog stopped by, most days, to say hello.
This ~30" Northern took a Miyawaki Beach Popper from the surface just a few feet off of a weed bed.
This happens to be the only popper pattern I know how to tie. Unfortunately she took this fly fairly deep and was bleeding some - not sure if that is a function of fly size or just the result of a very aggressive strike.
We were lucky to have these beautiful sunsets all week long.
Stickers were in the mail when I got home. Thanks to @Evan B and the team for getting these made, they look great!
We caught a good number of fish over the course of the week both on the fly and with gear, i.e. lindy rigs, jigging, and suspended baits.
Walleye fishing proved difficult on the fly, as expected, due to the fact that you really need to present the fly just off of the bottom of the lake in anywhere between about 15 and 30 feet of water. I had picked up the Cortland sink 9 specifically for this trip and found that it was absolutely necessary to get the fly down in a reasonable amount of time and to keep it there on the retrieve.
Pike were present and active but really only seemed to be receptive to the fly a couple of days out of the week. The other fly fisher in our group and I worked the shallows and found some success both with surface poppers and streamers stripped just a few feet beneath the surface. Gear fishing for pike was excellent all week long - amongst our group, several 40+ inch fish were landed!
In the future, I think I would probably skip Walleye on the fly and spend more time chasing Northerns.
Thanks to @Northern, @Ryan Smart, and @RichS for the advice shared over in the Lakes forum, and thank you to @JLT for setting me up with the backup rod - proved to be a great rod and helped in landing several nice fish.
The camp dog stopped by, most days, to say hello.
This ~30" Northern took a Miyawaki Beach Popper from the surface just a few feet off of a weed bed.
This happens to be the only popper pattern I know how to tie. Unfortunately she took this fly fairly deep and was bleeding some - not sure if that is a function of fly size or just the result of a very aggressive strike.
We were lucky to have these beautiful sunsets all week long.
Stickers were in the mail when I got home. Thanks to @Evan B and the team for getting these made, they look great!