The Last Open Water trip of the year

The incredible string of great fall weather up until last week extended the open water fishing season for many anglers. With a change in the weather this week though, it’s almost time to think about ice fishing but not quite. A couple friends and I took advantage of the great weather in mid November to head out to Pine Falls and Traverse Bay. A southeast wind was blowing at about 15 knots but with comfortable temperatures it was a special day to be on the water. As we headed out to the first small island in the bay itself I took a quick look around on the sonar to see if any fish were marking. In order to cover some water we decided to drift in twelve to fourteen feet of water with jigs. After a couple of bites with no fish landed, we dropped anchor. After fifteen minutes with no fish, we headed further out into the bay. In the past I had considerable luck fishing the north side of the river channel in an area that had a sharp drop from shallow to deep water. Marked Number 002 on my Humminbird GPS this spot seems to consistently produce good walleye fishing. I believe the walleye like to hold on the edge of the river channel waiting for the current to wash baitfish into this area. It doesn’t hurt also that there’s a dip in the channel which tends to funnel baitfish into this one area. After carefully positioning the boat, I got friend Darrin Bohonis to drop the heavy anchor in twenty one feet. Watching my depthfinder carefully, I waited for the boat to drift back into fifteen feet before telling him to tie off the anchor rope. Luckily the anchor held and we seemed perfectly position on the side of the drop-off. Sure enough, we soon started marking fish on the electronics with Darrin setting the hook on the first fish of the day, a solid twenty three inch emerald green specimen. While the bite was not hot and heavy we patiently waited for travelling schools of walleye to pass under our boat. It seemed that about every half an hour a new school of fish would come by and we would land about three fish during a short brief period. On this particular day we found 3/8 ounce orange and chartreuse jigs the best. These were tipped with a Gulp smelt minnow as well as a salted shiner minnow. Darrin and Steven Wintemute were using monofilament line but I switched to Fireline though I usually prefer monofilament for jig fishing. We all caught about the same amount of fish, though Steven managed to land five different species including sauger, white bass, pike, perch and of course walleye.
Personally I have found that in the colder water temperatures of late fall (below 43 F), fishing for walleye from an anchored position is by far the most effective technique if you can locate areas that areas holding fish. Smell also becomes an important consideration at this time of year. Darrin was spraying his bait with a scent product while I made sure to wash my hands periodically with a no-scent soap that takes away any unwanted odor off of your hands. Jigging technique is also critical. I had great luck putting my rod in a holder. I positioned the jig so that it was slightly off the bottom. With the swells slightly smaller than two feet, the jig was being lifted and dropped on a regular basis, with it touching bottom on the lowest dip of the boat. This also produced a double hitch which really seemed to trigger an aggressive bite. This was also the key last week when fishing on Tobin Lake. Friend Jim Price and I triggered aggressive bites from a lot of huge walleye using a simple long lift, drop to bottom, then double twitch of the rod tip. Wham!!! Give it a try when cold water jig fishing.

Day Four, Tobin Lake

There was no frost on the boats when we got up at seven the next morning. All of us were hoping another monster walleye would be caught by the group on our last day. The weather continued just to get better and a high of plus 13 celsius was forecast. Don't forget this was the second day of November and we were a long way up the eastern side of Saskatchewan. As Boyd cruised into the mouth of the river, we noticed a ton of walleye showing up on his sonar. Quickly motoring back to check these fish out we continued to mark a huge school of fish extending out into the lake itself. Dropping our jigs down and drifting with the current in twenty feet of water, we caught one walleye after another. Unfortunately most were small fish, less than eighteen inches. Well at least we had found some good eating size walleye but we figured we should work the stretch were the big walleye had been caught the day before. As it turned out, it was a wise decision.
Boyd had us on a slow drift in anywhere from twenty to thirty feet of water. A short time later Jim hooked into his biggest walleye of the trip, weighing an even twelve pounds.

Ten minutes later Boyd landed one over eleven pounds. In a one hour stretch I landed five walleye over eight pounds, four or which were over nine pounds but none made the ten pound mark.

It turned out to be our best day ever, with more than sixty walleyes caught and released. At the end of the day, we decided to troll out in the lake and it again paid dividends with Boyd catching our last fish of the trip....of course it weighed an even twelve pounds and tied Jim for that days big fish.

Day Three, Tobin Lake

THE FISH OF A LIFETIME! AGAIN!!

As dawn broke on Day Three, the thermometer on Dales Cabin showed a balmy minus one Celsius. Everyone had gone to bed early the night before even though it had been Halloween and it was a very excited crew that hit the water that morning. Conditions were prime and three days of stable weather would only improve the bite. Since it was a Monday, Saskatchewan Power was running a bit more water through the dam at Nipawin. That is a good thing, because current on this system triggers an intense walleye bite.We were also pretty confident we had found the pattern that would consistently catch us both numbers of walleye with some trophies thrown in. What transpired shortly after lunch though, was past our wildest expectations. Boyd, Jim and I, along with Russ and Dale in the Ranger, started at the mouth of the river as it enters the reservoir. While we caught eighteen walleye on our first drift with jigs, none was bigger than nine pounds. A second drift around the corner produced only eight walleye. This was enough to convince Dale and Russ to move up one river bend, about a half mile away. A little later we were to join them on that stretch of water. It was on this stretch in 2003, while fishing with Russ and Dale, that a walleye that weighed fifteen pounds, three ounces was caught while cranking at night. Who was to know that this mark was to be shattered by the man who caught this fish. Thats right, Russ had taken our advice and tied on a big pink jig tipped with a shiner minnow. Dale was working the front troll motor up the side of the channel when a monster walleye slammed the pink jig. After a tug of war that last almost ten minutes, Dale was able to get the net under this behometh. Both Dale and Boyd carry digital scales in their boats for moments like this. With so many big walleye available on this stretch of river, they want to make sure they get the weights of these fish correct. After a careful weighing, Russ had done it again, another walleye over fifteen pounds!

This one tipped the scales at 15 pounds 8 ounces, beating his old record by five ounces.

After a few quick pictures this incredible fish was released to live another day and the celebration was about to begin.

Day Two, Tobin Lake

As the weather had cleared overnight, there was a considerable frost in the morning on all of our boats. The thermometer had dropped to minus eleven celsius but there was not a breath of wind.
Our Captain had decided that we should head out to the big lake, some fourteen miles from the resort to check out the walleyes. A couple weeks previous, they had caught a number of nice fish using bottom bouncers and spinners in twenty two feet of water. We waited until about 10 a.m to make the long drive, the sun driving up the temperature quickly, making the drive managable. As we pulled up to spot 057 on Boyds GPS all hell broke loose immediately.

Jims spinner rig, tipped with a shiner minnow, had barely hit bottom when his rod bent over. Boyd was not far behind, landing a chunky five pound walleye. I then had on two nice pike in the ten pound range, fish that pulled and jumped all over the place, an indication of how active the fish were.

Unfortuntely for us, after this initial activity, things slowed down and around two pm we decided to head back to the mouth of the river, some eighteen miles west. Dale and Russ were in Dales's beautiful Ranger. They had decided to head back an hour earlier than we did. As we turned a corner of the reservoir, a southwest wind had been piling up some good waves. Slowing down, Boyd trimmed the nose of the boat down, pulling back on the throttle. That sure made it a lot easier on my old arthritic back and half an hour later we were back in the mouth of the river. And it was a wise decision as we immediately we started to catch walleye drifting a jig in twenty two feet of water. I had tied on a white and pink glow jig in 3/8 ounce, tipped with a shiner minnow. I quickly landed a number of good solid fish. The rest of our boat quickly switched over and the bite was on. As the sun started to dissappear behind the trees along the shoreline, we put away our jigging rods for nine and and ten foot trolling rods and line counter level wind reels. I put on a Bomber Long A with eight five feet of line out. Wham, in five minutes a six pound walleye slammed the lure. Jim quickly switched over to a Bomber as well, this one a pretty purple rainbow colour. Five minutes later another nice fish was on!
Later, as we headed back to the resort, a brilliant night sky full of stars ended up telling us a story. Jim Price pointed out the twin star Betelgeuse
shining brighly in the northwest, just off the tail of the Big Dipper but closer to the horizon.

Jim recounted the history of this mega giant. As he did both Boyd and I thought he was pulling our leg, because the brilliant greens and reds this giant was emitting made us think of an airplane. As we sat there in the dark for another ten minutes, we realized this "airplane" had not moved. What a sight it was, something a city boy had never seen.

Check it out for yourself at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betelgeuse

Next: Day Three at Tobin is big fish day!

Tobin Lake, Day One

Wet snow was falling from the heavens I loaded up my vehicle with fishing equipment for my annual fall trek to Tobin Lake, Saskatchewan at the end of October. Stopping in Portage la Prairie to pick up friend Jim Price, we headed up the Yellowhead Highway during the night, slowing down to sixty kilometers at times as we navigated slippery, snow covered road conditions.
Located near Nipawin, Tobin Lake has been producing trophy walleye for years. I first fished it in 1979 when working in Prince Albert and since that time I rank it as one of my top three favourite places in the world to fish.

While the pike fishing on this reservoir can be outstanding it was trophy walleye we were after. An annual trip, we were a week later than usual. In this case it worked out for the best. We had escaped the weather bomb that had hit the prairie provinces, dumping large amounts of snow in certain areas. In our case, it had made the highways a mess but the forecast held promise of beautiful sunshine and unseasonably warm temperatures.
As we pulled up to Russ's driveway in Carrot River after a trip of close to nine hours, anticipation was incredibly high. After a delicious breakfast we headed out to Tobin Lake Resort and friend Dale Pihowich's cabin which was to be our fishing headquarters for the next four days.
Jim and I where to fish with friend Boyd Holmen in his Lund rigged out with the latest Minnkota front troll motor and top notch electronics, all keys in fine tuning our fishing. Fog greeted us as we launched the boat in plus one celsius conditions. Cold and damp was the best way to describe the first day on the river. While we caught a few walleye the conditions weren't optimum.



Jim with a first day walleye

The sun finally broke through the fog about three in the afternoon and we decided to fish until dusk on the first day, the long day and damp conditions zapping some of our adrenlin.


Next: Day Two on the Big Lake.