Arvid’s Fishing Report

Camping was the order of business Memorial Day weekend. We were with six other couples at the Long Lake Park & Campground south of Bagley.  The weather showed us a little of everything. Saturday was wet and miserably cold.  Sunday was sunny and breezy; a nice day and the day we spent fishing.  I was in a boat with the chief guide, Clyde, his two grandsons and Gerry’s daughter, Christie.  We fished for a couple of hours and had lots of action before the grandkids wanted to go in.  We caught a limit of rainbow trout; most were 10″ to 12″ with about six in the 15″ to 16″ range.  We had two other boats out, but they didn’ have the guide we had.

Grandson’s Kaleb & Emmit and a double they caught

Christie with a nice 16″ rainbow

Clyde the guide

It has long been a tradition as soon as the ice is out of the trout lakes in northwestern Ontario that there is a large exodus of the male population from Baudette for long weekends. They cross the border and head for their favorite rock on their favorite lake. They don’t even have to be avid fishermen to participate; they just to go along to be part of the program. The comradeship, food, beverages, card games and maybe a “run” that will result in a nice lake trout for supper are all part of that time honored tradition.

I hadn’t fished trout for a few years, but gladly accepted an invitation to go fish Whitefish Bay on Lake of the Woods for a long weekend with some of the “Bosch Boys”. We met early Saturday morning, had breakfast, stopped for beverages and left for the resort in Sioux Narrows. Upon arrival we unpacked, got licenses, loaded up the boats and headed for the islands. It was cold and windy, but we caught four nice lake trout and that was important as two were for supper. Sunday morning there were a few snow flurries, but by afternoon the weather stayed windy, but quite nice. The fishing was good that day as the group caught eleven nice trout and kept the daily limit of six. Monday the weather got better and so did the fishing. The group caught fifteen trout; kept four and released the rest. Jim’s dad, Bill, caught and released six that day. Our license permitted a daily limit of one and a possession of two of which one had to be under 25-1/2″ and one over 25-1/2″. Of the thirty trout that were caught only six were under; most were in the 10-12 lb. range. We also caught about a dozen northern pike and only one could be kept; that was under the bottom of the slot of 27-1/2″. Everything else was in the slot and needed to be released. Tom caught one that we estimated to be near the top end of the slot; maybe 39-40″ and about 18 lbs. Jim also caught two nice smallmouth while casting a spoon for a few minutes each day. We came home a day early with our limit and out of bait. Everybody caught fish; it was a great weekend.

Jim, Tom, Bill & Steve with a catch of nice lake trout

George & Tom with another days catch

Five nice lake trout

A very nice pike

A nice lake trout

Opening day in the Lake of the Woods area was beautiful; mostly sunny with temperatures in the upper seventies.  More often than not, we’d have snow flurries in place of the weather we had.

After spending a good part of the day working on deer hunting projects, Wally and I gave the river a try in the early evening. With the nice weather there were a lot of boats out, but we didn’t see many fish being caught.  We tried three different spots before settling in on one by the airport. We caught a few fish and it was a mixed bag; we had three sturgeon, two bullheads and about a dozen walleye and sauger, of which we kept six walleye and two sauger. We were well satisfied.

Wally with a 17-1/2″ Opening Day Walleye