WINTER IN THE WHITESHELL

Whiteshell Provincial Park has been a playground for people in the eastern part of Manitoba since the turn of the century and earlier. It has a multitude of different lakes, most ringed with cottages and roads, allowing easy access. Accommodation is plentiful, with a number of lodges and resorts in the region, many staying open year round to cater to the myriad of winter recreational users, which does include snowmobilers and ice fisherman.

Over the years I have managed to fish a number of the different lakes in the park, some of which are better accessed in the winter by snowmachine.

Two examples of that would have be George Lake, located in the northern section of this 67,000 acre park. George has the distinction of holding the Manitoba weight record walleye of 18.48 pounds or 8.4 kilograms. This massive walleye was caught back in 1954 by D.L Gibson of Saskatchewan.

Since that time walleye have died off in that lake and smallmouth bass and lake trout are the dominant species. Many winter anglers take advantage of a trail into the lake from below Pointe du Bois at this time of the year and try their luck for these two species. Manitoba Conservation stocks George Lake regularly with lake trout and last year put in 25,000 fingerlings.

Anglers who have gone in this year have had great success fishing the various points and islands that exist on this scenic medium sized late oligotrophic lake. The excellent water clarity and abundance of forage also grows some pretty big smallmouth bass in George though the fishery suffered in the late 1980's from overharvest. The bass have not come back as well as hoped though there are still some master angler fish caught every year, some through the ice, so don't be surprised if you are deep jigging a point or reef for lakers and all of a sudden you have something on that make the old rod tip shake, rattle and roll. That would be your jumbo smallie!

Another favourite wintertime lake in the Whiteshell is Tugby. A few years back I snowmobiled in with my t.v. crew and did an ice fishing show from this pretty little lake located south of Echo Lake in the north-central Whiteshell. My guest on that episode of The Complete Angler was the head of the Whiteshell Fish Hatchery, Trevor Smith. Trevor makes sure Tugby is stocked every second year with brook trout and because of difficulty of access, especially in the summer, the fish have grown to a good size.

There are many stocked trout lakes in the region, and another favourite is Bear Lake, which is located 10 kilometres west of Caddy Lake. You can access it along Provincial Trunk Highway # 44 but the lake itself is three kilometres off the road which makes a snowmobile your best option to get in.

Bear is stocked on a regular basis as well and last year Manitoba Conservation dropped in about 10,000 rainbow fingerlings by helicopter. I have fished this lake a couple of times over the last few years with good results and reports indicate action this winter has been pretty darn good. In Bear, we fish a couple of obvious shoreline points as well as reef off the island on the east end of the lake. We had our best luck fishing right along the drop-off in about 4 metres of water. There was a fairly sharp break at this depth and most of the fish were moving in and out of the shallow water when actively feeding.

There are a number of stocked trout lakes in the park which provide action just as good as Bear with a little easier access. Lyons Lake which is located on the Ontario border, just south of the Trans Canada highway had over 20,000 nice sized rainbows trucked in last fall from the Whiteshell Hatchery, which is just a short drive away. Behind the Lyons Lake parking lot is Camp Lake and depending on the amount of snow on a given year, it's a pretty easy walk of some one kilometre down a snowmobile trail. While perch have gotten into both Camp and Lyons Lake, if you fish off the bottom you will catch rainbows or in the case of Camp you might also hook into one of the 10,000 splake that were stocked there in the past year! Reports from my sources say fishing in Camp this year has been darn good.

Strawberry Pond with 500 rainbows, located 14 kilometres west of Falcon Lake on the south side of PTH # 1

If you want to try your luck for stocked trout on some of the lakes in the Whiteshell or elsewhere in the province, here are some techniques that have worked for me over the years.

First of all, it is important to fish with light, clear line. I prefer four pound test Berkley clear XL line but when using such light line it is imperative that you have a small spinning reel with a good drag system because if you hook into a bigger fish, there will be some line smoking action. A nice medium action ice fishing rod will also tame these hard fighting fish.

Now, with rainbow and other trout species, you don't have to worry about using a leader, which means tying on a small lure directly will be of immense benefit in increasing the number of fish you will catch. In fact, it will probably mean you will catch some fish. Bigger trout are extremely wary and any noise above the ice will usually mean the trout will be long gone. If you really want to see what goes on down below the ice surface fish out of one man portable ice fishing shelter. You will be able to see your lure a fair distance below the ice and by constantly watching your bait, you will be able to see how the fish react. My best trout producers are very small jigs (1/16 ounce) tipped with Berkley Power Wigglers, mealworms or maggots, or Berkley Power Eggs. My favourite rainbow jig is a Northland Jiglet, but for brook trout, I like a small orange ball head jig with marabou. Very small thin jigs lightly jigged will dance a bit imitating fresh water shrimp or other chironomids that these fish feed on. For bigger trout, a shiner minnow can also be very attractive. For the most part, fish stocks in the Whiteshell Park have been holding their own. A recent reduction in walleye harvest through stricter regulations seems to be working and many anglers who pursue these tasty creatures in the Whiteshell, say the stocks are rebounding. By the way, the minimum size limit for walleye this year in eastern Manitoba was raised from 38 centimetres (15 inches) to 40 centimetres (16 inches) April 1 to reflect this. So now as it stands all walleye between 40 centimetres and 70 centimetres must be released.

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