My family and I went on our annual fishing vacation in paradise – northwest Ontario around Nestor Falls/Sioux Narrows. The camp is called Jim’s Caviar Camp and it is located on Caviar Lake. Caviar feeds into Dogpaw Lake which, in turn, feeds into Whitefish Bay of Lake of the Woods. We have been making our annual trip for around 40 years, so we pretty much know where the fish are – although we learn things every year, which makes the fishing new and fun!
This year, for me, the hot tactic was using my new boat (2013, 17ft. Alumacraft Trophy) and the newish electronics (Lowrance Elite 7) to find and then jig for lake trout. Basically, as long as you know where the lake trout usually hang out, you can sit over them and watch the screen while the fish chase around your jig – kind of like playing a video game. I had several instances where I watched, on the screen, as a lake trout shot up 20-30 feet to grab my jig on the fall. I also learned a lot about lake trout and their tendancies when feeding. They like things on the drop and they like to chase lures. The almost always feed “up” and not “down” and they are very aggresive when active. I probably netted 20+ lake trout from 6-10 pounds using this technique. Needless to say, I cannot wait to get out and try it again.
What else did we catch? Pretty much everything. My younger brother talked me into going to a portage lake which holds muskies. We hooked three and caught two – including our biggest to date: a 43 inch fish at 17-20 pounds. Beautiful fish and I was very happy netting that bad-boy for my brother.
Another fun story is that we were using spinner rigs for walleye an I kept getting bit off by northern. I decided enough was enough and I tied up a spinner rig on my tieable steel leader. It worked great and no sooner was I fishing with it than I hooked into a nice 11 pound pike who did not bite me off this time. We also limited out on bass, walleye, and northern. We even picked up a handful of nice crappie which was a bonus.
It was a great trip and my new toys did very well. I really enjoy trying out new techniques and learning more about the fish I chase. I can’t recommend enough how fun it is to go out to a lake, find the general location of big lake trout, and then watch them hit your jig on the electronics. Great technique!
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