Northern Light Lake, Ontario

A bunch of us are heading up to Northern Light for a fishing trip the last week of June. It’ll be everyone’s first time up. We’ve hired a guide for the first day but I’m looking for any advise from fellow IDO’ers who may have experience on the lake.

Thanks.

JD

Who did you hire as a guide. I know almost everybody up there. I have alot of time fish it 3-4 times a year. What are you expecting to fish for? Walleye trout bass. What were you promissed. I won’t give you any spot but can give insite on expectations for the time of year. I will be on Sag that same week and 2 trips in july and 1 august to NL.

I was up there quite a long time ago – probably 15 years ago. I recall a very long dusty trip on about 60 (or more) miles of washboard road. We camped. Walleyes were hard to find but the smallmouth fishing was superb. I think we figured out after the trip that the key to catching walleyes was reef fishing with bobbers. Good luck.

I was up there last week. Got back Sunday the 17th. The lake is up about 3 feet! Might be higher now. Saturday night it must have rained 2 ” and I don’t know if the rain that hit Duluth hit up there. I was tough,I personally only got 3 walleye’s all week. Nice size 24″ and 2-22″. The fish we caught were in 10-14 feet. We used Lindy type rig setups, 1/4″ sliding weights with single or double hook setups with spinners and/or floats and the preferred color was chartruse or an emerald green. We used nightcrawlers, but maybe leeches would have worked better. Tried Rapalas and other artificial for walleyes, but nothing. Most of the walleyes we caught were around the north side of Paradise Island
Be preparred for lots of snags and lost tackle. It is extremly rocky. If you have a GPS depthfinder (almost a necessity)and a map chip 2010 or newer it has the lake on it with 10 ft. contours. The lake is huge with 100’s of islands. Sunken reefs between resort and east side of Paradise island. Be careful!!!! Smallmouth bass have overtake the lake. So if you like to fish for them you will have a ball. We caught 100’s of them up to 20″. We casted the rocky shoreline and islands with Heddon Torpedos frog color and a golden yellow color. Also skitter pops silver with blue. Those 3 seemed to work the best.We had lots of windy days with whitecaps eveyday except 1. Hard to find walleyes under 20″.
Some of the guys in another cabin have been going up there for 15 years and they caught many walleyes 24-29″ long.
The last 23 miles of the road up there is gravel & rocks. I would get a deflecter to protect your boat & trailer!!!
Hope this helps. Good luck!!!