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Derby Day-Sioux Narrow Ontario
Posted On: February 3, 2010 | By: steil
Saturday AM started just like the day prior, brutally cold temps and some very stiff equipment. However, today we were going to be fishing the local Lake Trout Derby. What was particularly exciting about this Derby was the fact that you got to fish wherever you wanted as long as it was in Regina Bay. You drilled your own holes and fished as hard as you want to. All fish had to be weighed in by 4 PM and had to arrive at the scales alive and capable of being released.
At first I was a little skeptical of the fact that we could get a fish to the scales alive but we had a plan. First we had to catch a fish to weight. Second we would immediately put it in a cooler full of water and head to the weigh-in with the fish in the cooler. Matt from Crawford's Camp assured me it would work, and it did, just great.
Using the LakeMaster chip we split our group of seven into 3 groups covering 3 nice breaklines in 50-70 feet of water. All the spots were pretty similar, nice points extending out to deep water with sharp breaklines. Again, this was my first year having the LakeMaster Data on this trip and it yielded big results.
Spot one for Noah and I ended up being a dud. Lots of baitfish and tullibee but not the
big laker's we were looking for so we headed to spot two, near where Greg, Matt and Brian were fishing. After a short 5 minutes of jigging I tied into a decent trout. It was very interesting fighting the trout with money on the line as it brought me back to my summer walleye tournaments. I honestly love that feeling, it just adds a little pressure to the situation! The fight didn't take long and off we were on the sled to weigh the first trout of the day a nice 9.9 pound fish. Hey, we were on the board.
Upon arriving back at the group I was told that Moreno was hooked up with a fish so off Matt went with the sled to pick up Moreno's fish. As it turns out Moreno and I were fighting our fish at the same time, his was just a lot bigger and took over 20 minutes to land. Off to the scales went Moreno and weighed in a nice 17.5 pound fish, good enough for second place at the time as someone had weighed in a 23.5 pound fish inbetween Moreno and I. That was going to be tough to top for sure!
After a flurry of action we decided a move was in order. While Matt Carlander and Moreno stuck it out in the place that produced the 17.5 pounder the rest of us moved a couple miles to a nice steep shelf that extended out into Regina Bay. As I was clearing holes Noah hooked into what appeared to be a whitefish, until it made that long, drag screaming, 60 foot run down to the bottom. Yes sir, it was another trout and the move was paying off already.
This was Noah's first battle with a trout and at one point he asked for the "fighting belt"
which you saltwater guys can appreciate. Noah patiently battled his trout for over 18 minutes before we were finally able to get the big head of the fish in the hole. Out came our second biggest trout of the day a nice 16.73 lb fish. Man this was getting fun!
As Noah and I arrived back at the group Matt Crawford and Greg were working another fish that would not bite. Finally after some coaxing Greg had our 4th trout of the day hooked up. Greg battled this fish as it made drag screaming run after run. With cold hands and a sore back Greg wasn't sure if the fight was ever going to come to an end, but it did. Out came a 16.2 pound trout and left our group sitting in 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 10th place. Despite over an hour of fishing time left, we decided we should try to catch the evening walleye bite so we put a quick end to our tournament day and headed out across the lake for some quick walleye action before the tournament awards.
Being short of time we opted for a spot close to camp to fish walleye. The walleye bite would best be describes as slow but that didn't stop us from having a great time. I should clarify that slow means each of us only caught a "few". Hardly slow by certain standards, but after all, we were in Canada, eh! We ended the night absolutely exhausted from laughing and making jokes about the days fishing and how lucky we were to catch those nice trout.
Before heading back to camp for the night we headed over to the weigh-in to see if we ended up in the money and sure enough, we took 2nd, 3rd and 4th and all 4 of our Trout were in the top 10. Not bad considering there were 67 anglers fishing the Derby. It was truly a great ending to a great day of fishing!
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Crawford's Camp 2010
Posted On: February 1, 2010 | By: steil
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.
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Big Time Bluegill
Posted On: January 26, 2010 | By: steil
People the read my blog and keep up with the new material know I love to fish for big Bluegill. And, based on all the email and questions I get, apparently other peole enjoy fishing bull gills also. Last week I had the opportunity to hit one of my favorite lakes in Northern Minnesota for Giant Bluegill and once again it did not disappoint. So, what lake were you fishing you ask. Well, that is not important, I have talked plenty about this lake. What is important is the way I go about targeting trophy bluegill this time of year.
Since we are basically in the middle of winter, you know that point where the average temps are suppose to rise each day but never seem to do so. That point where the ice is over 20 inches thick and you can just about drive anywhere as long as the snow allows. That point where the local anglers in most spots are complaining about the bite and how tough it is. Yes, we all know what I am talking about. So, what do you do?
First, you have to realize that the fish have been under the ice for almost two months now and oxygen levels are getting low in most lakes. Low oxygen leads to inactive fish in most lakes and a void of fish in many of the shallow water hot spots that are popular early ice. It is time to change your old ways and use technology to put some fish on the ice. They are still there and willing to bite with a few modifications to your program.
When I say technology, I mean get out your GPS and LakeMaster mapping chip and find a new spot that incorporates deep water near a shallow feeding shelf. On a LakeMaster map it will look like steep contours near a point or shallow flat. However, for the most part you can forget about the shallow feeding flat and concentrate on the deep water. With low oxygen levels fish spend very little time feeding in shallow water. In fact, unless you fish just at first light or at dark, the shallow water in most lakes may be void of fish right now.
Those fish that you are accustomed to catching shallow are roaming the deep basin near that feeding shelf. You need to get out your auger and drill out that deep water using your flasher to look for fish. If you don't find fish, drop a bait down each hole and see if you can get them to show up. I generally give each hole less than a minute while looking for these fish. For the most part, they will be relating to the bottom 10 feet of the water column but may not be on the bottom. The higher off the bottom you find them, the more likely they are to bite.
Once you locate these basin fish you should have an excellent bite between 8-11AM and 1-4 PM. As I mentioned earlier, before 8 AM and after 4 PM you may want to look back in that shallow water because despite low oxygen levels the fish will still use shallow water to feed. However, locating the fish is only half the battle. These basin fish don't stay in one spot very long, sot is not uncommon to continue to have to move from hole to hole to stay after them If you chose to stay in one place it becomes a waiting game as the schools of roaming fish move around but they do generally come back. If you want to up your odds, you have to keep after them!
It is that time of year to get out and look for those deep water fish. By doing so you may be rewarded with some of the biggest bluegill in the system. I was fortunate to connect with this 10.5 inch giant bluegill last week while targeting these basin giants. We did catch about 30 bluegill on the day with most averaging 9 inches. This one was the only bluegill that broke the 10 inch mark and being big and fat like it was, I would estimate about 1.4 pounds. It is interesting to note that last year I got a 10.25 inch bluegill in the same spot and it weighed 1 pound 3 ounces. So, keep after those big bulls, they are out there and are still willing to bite when you find them!
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