Crawford's Camp 2010

I just returned from my first trip of the year to Crawford's Camp at Sioux Narrows Ontario.  Once again we had an excellent trip filled with fun, friends, food, fishing and photos.  Despite the extremely cold temps, which touched -32 Fahrenheit, we were fortunate enough to get a chance to fish Lake Trout, Crappie, Walleye and Perch.  A true multi-species paradise, the Sioux Narrows area offers it all.

Since we had very little time to fish and lots of bites to sample, we kept a strict schedule on this trip that would allow us the chance to fish a local Lake Trout Derby on Saturday.  You will hear more tomorrow on how that Lake Trout Derby worked out and of course the results.  But, lets get back to the fishing Friday.

Friday morning started off a little slow as everyone unpacked their gear in -22 degree temps .  For the most part all the gear started with the exception of one auger and one snowmobile, not bad considering the extreme cold.  By 9AM we were on the ice jigging for Lake Trout and anxiously awaiting the first "hook up".  This was my first time fishing the Sioux Narrows area with LakeMaster surveyed data and I can say it makes a HUGE difference.  Not only does it make navigation much safer but in makes finding that spot on the spot possible, which tended to yield big results.  Our first spot of the morning produced only only one large fish, a nice 11 pounder that I hooked into just after setting up.  Despite seeing 5-7 other larger fish on the Humminbird's and several misses, we couldn't put anymore on the ice.

So, with mid-day approaching we opted to make a run for crappies.  Since the area we fish crappies has some dangerous narrows we had to make several portages, which is typical when fishing the Northern reaches of Lake of the Woods.  However, at the first portage we were greeted with fallen trees, and lots of them.  The area had received 7 inches of new, wet,  heavy snow prior to our arrival and it knocked down lots of trees that needed to be cleared before we could fish.  Matt Ryberg from Crawford's Camp and Greg spent an hour clearing trees as we inched along behind with the sleds.

After our hour delay we caught just the tale end of the midday crappie bite, which we thought we had timed perfectly prior to our delay.  I believe I had 6 nice slabs on the ice before the bite turned off as the were just SLAMMING the tiny Demon Jigging Spoon pictured to the right.  We all got to see a glimpse of what is usually an excellent crappie bite, just before it shut down.  But, that is how fishing goes and that is exactly what we knew we had to do....go!

After only fishing crappies for roughly an hour, we decided to make up some time and head out to fish walleye a little early.  Fishing Walleye always yields a few huge jumbo perch so we decided to get out early and try to hit the perch before the walleye moved in.  And, just as planned, the perch were hitting the ice fast until the walleye showed the last hour of the day.  The group decided a fish fry was in order so we kept our limit of walleye and about 15 perch. Now that is some good eating!

We ended the day back at our Cabin at Crawford's Camp enjoying a few cold beers and telling fish stories.  Since we were fishing a Derby the next day we put together a game plan as to how we would set up to jig for trout.  Despite the laughs and fun it is jigging trout together in the same area, we decided our best chance to win some money was to spread out and cover some water.  With that, we shut it down for the night all anxious to tie into that winning Lake Trout tomorrow.