Canada 2008

Saturday, June 28, 2008
Les and I fished East Bay. We were going to fish the NW side of the little island straight across the bay from where you enter but the wind was too strong and we couldn't hold a spot. We pulled up next to Roger and Alan on the SE side, out of the wind, but didn't do very well there. We didn't stay there very long and ran up to Pindor Creek. We anchored next to Gary and Jeff, in the wind on the SE side of the opening about 30 yds off the shoreline and did really well.

Sunday, June 29, 2008
Les and I headed back to East Bay but went up to the cut just past Abalard Creek. James and Steve had a lot of luck there the night before. However, today was not good. We were anchored on the NW side of the cut and then drifted along that same side back into the cut and the decided to replicate the same conditions as the night before and fished the SE point of that cut. We were once again anchored in the wind about 30 yds off the shoreline and we caught a lot of fish. We did notice that the fish finder showed a structure every time we blew a certain direction and when it showed up we would catch fish. The Les brought up a log (the structure) and the fish stopped. So from there we went up to Abalard Creek where James and Steve were. They had caught some 22" and 23" walleye in the same general location we had been having luck with so we pulled in there and each caught nice fish. Then we tried the NE side of the little island but only caught dinks. Next we stopped in a little cove just outside of East Bay. Les caught 2 fish and we got prepared to troll the Post Narrows. We trolled the Narrows from the NE to the SW and decided to jig fish on the SW side of the little beach on the N side of the Narrows and I caught a 23" walleye.

Monday, June 30, 2008
Alan and I headed back to Pindor Creek with Les and Gary. We didn't do to well so we went to the next cut to the SW. We got setup to fish from the inside to the center of the mouth because we found a hump with a large drop but it turned out that they were on the other side where Alan could catch them. I couldn't catch a thing. So we went out and found the hump near the entrance to East Bay. We had to anchor 3 times, but we caught a lot of fish. In fact, earlier that day we decided that we were going to finish out our stringers before noon which gave us 15 minutes after we found the hump, but we did it with time to spare. After Alan caught a 34" northern and lunch we were getting tired of catching walleye we headed to the Post Narrows. Steve and Jeff were doing great trolling so we decided to do the same. After 3 passes and one lost lure we finished the day jigging the NE side of the beach. I didn't catch any.

Tuesday, July 1, 2008
Steve and I decided to go exploring to the E side of Martin Bay. We knew there were 2 humps out there and we found both, but no fish. Then we trolled around the islands just S of there. I caught one 22" walleye, but nothing else. From there we went to McNealy Bay and drifted from one point to another. Steve caught a few fish, but it was slow. Then we trolled around but had no luck and decided to head to the Post Narrows. We jigged the NE side of the beach for 20 minutes or so and decided to troll. We didn't troll but maybe 10 minutes and a storm was blowing in so we high tailed it for camp instead of beaching on an island. We almost pulled over twice but kept going and made it just in time. Between the lightning and hail we were glad to be back. Once it passed we went back out but stayed close to camp. We drifted the wall at the mouth of Martin Bay where Steve caught a few nice fish and one 23" walleye but again, it was slow. We went up into the bay but didn't have any luck. We made a quick run back to camp to find out what time we were eating and learned that James and Les weren't back from East Bay. It was late for them, but still early so Steve and I went back to Martin Bay and I finally caught my second fish of the day. By 7:00 we were back at camp. Gary, Alan and Jeff had left to go look for Les and James. By 8:00 or so they returned with boat-in-tow. Les and James had boat trouble, but weren't too pissed because they had a great day fishing.

Wednesday, July 2, 2008
Gary and I finally got to fish together. This is our second trip together, but our first day to fish together. After the day Steve and I had, I was ready to catch fish, and Gary didn't let me down. We made the trek to East Bay again and fished Pindor "Gary's" Creek. After getting there we made one small adjustment, moving from the middle to the west point, and caught good fish the rest of the day. I had two personal bests. I caught a 26" Walleye and a 32" and a 33" Northern. We spent the rest of the day right there catching one fish after another. Eventually I ran out of minnows and started throwing a crank bait, and still caught fish.

Wednesday Evening
I had never been to Parker Falls, and since James didn't want to go fishing, Jeff, Alan and I went up to Parker Falls. We nosed right up in the falls and started throwing spoons and crank baits. I only caught one 24" walleye, between Jeff and Alan they caught 11 walleye, smallest was 24" and largest was 28-1/2". It was AWESOME.

Thursday, July 3, 2008
While we were at Parker Falls on Wednesday evening, Gary and Steve caught a whole bunch of walleye just around the corner from Sunset Lodge so that's where Jeff and I headed. We caught about 8 walleye in a couple hours, all over 20" with a couple topping 25". After they slowed a bit we had to go find smaller fish so we headed to the Post Narrows. The first few fish we caught were still too big to keep for dinner so we moved off the east side of the south sandbar to the "rock" on the north side. We basically stayed here the rest of the afternoon. Jeff had a run-in with a Northern. It took his crank bait and then, later, we heard it come to the surface after something and you could hear the lure rattle. We did eventually get our dinner fish and headed in.

Thursday Evening
Since we had such good luck Wednesday evening at Parker, we headed back, this time Jeff and Alan in one boat; Les, James and I in the other. We each caught 2 fish. Les had a 24" walleye and James had one about the same size.

Friday, July 4, 2008
James and I started the same place Jeff and I started on Thursday, next to the floating propane tank near "Jack's Island" at the entrance to Sunset Bay. Nothing was going on there so we headed out. Jeff and Alan were headed back to Parker Falls to jig fish instead of throwing crank baits. As we left, Steve and Gary asked if we were going to Parker but we were headed to East Bay. Halfway across the main lake I almost turned around and went to Parker, but we didn't, and we went to East Bay. We started in Alabador Creek but it was slow and the male walleye (small ones) were moving in. Next stop was the "Hump". We caught a lot of fish here, but again they were mostly males. This time we moved looking for dinner fish. Back to Pindor Creek to the spot Gary and I fished. Ah, we found our dinner fish and decided to troll the Narrows. We saw Les and Roger in East Bay and let them know of our plan. We figured if the guys that went to Parker didn't catch fish they would be in the Narrows. When they weren't there I was almost sick. At that point I knew we had missed out on the best fishing of the week. After trolling down one side and back the other we saw Les and Roger coming into the Narrows and let them know we were headed around the back side of McKenzie Island to Parker Falls. We got there as Steve and Gary were leaving. No one had minnows left, they had all caught 50+ fish, it was nothing for them to have 24" and 25" walleye and Steve had caught a 30-1/2" walleye! Yup, James and I screwed up by not going to Parker that morning. James did land a 28" walleye and a 32" Northern before we left Parker and it was a good day of fishing, just not as good as it could have been.

Summary
Everyone agreed that this was the best fishing has ever been. Not only did we catch a LOT of fish, but they were huge. Typically, a good year is consistently catching fish and being able to put 3 walleye on a stringer that are 15" to 17-1/2" (dinner/freezer fish). If one person in the group catches one walleye over 20", that's icing on the cake. This year we seriously had to look for smaller fish. We cannot count the number of 24" and 25" walleye caught. Everyone caught at least one 24" walleye or bigger. We may never get to see this kind of fishing again, but we'll keep going back in the hopes that we do.