When we pulled into Canada’s Lake of the Woods country in early October, it was 70 degrees under a bright sun. Five days later it was still that way and it hadn’t changed much in the entire week we were there. In all the Octobers I have fished in northwest Ontario; I have never seen that kind of weather. Normally you can count on some temperatures in the 30s and 40s, some strong cold winds, and some rain at least part of the week. It is in most areas a wilderness, and beautiful with fall color and migrating waterfowl.
It has never bothered me to go up to Canada and fish alone because those conditions have never concerned me. My ancestry is from French Canadian trappers and Canadian Cree Indians so maybe that has something to do with it. In bad weather, you find a place out of the wind and concentrate on fishing those areas. And, in the fall, you don’t do much lure-casting unless you are fishing for northerns or bass or muskies. If it is walleye you are after, you fish in 25 to 30 feet of water jigging bait or quarter-ounce jigs up and down off the bottom. You catch yellow perch that way and occasionally a bass, crappie or northern as well.
This year I didn’t go alone as I usually do. I took with me an old friend from college days who is a river guide in the Ozarks. Dennis Whiteside grew up on the Current River, and we began hunting and fishing together when we were 18. He is a very good fisherman who often contests my assertion that I am a better one, and a better boat paddler as well!
We spent the first day or so trying to keep up with who caught the most and the biggest. No doubt Dennis caught the biggest fish, a six- or seven-pound northern, but I got a bigger bass, a close-to four-pound smallmouth whose size my fishing partner questions to this day. The thing about Canadian Smallmouth is, they often have a 15- or 16-inch girth when their length doesn’t reach 20 inches. But do they fight! On the light gear we were using they made it a tussle in 26 feet of water. As for the walleye in Lake of the Woods today, they are a fish made for light action gear because most of them are 14- to 15-inch fish, caught deep beneath the boat on sand or small-rock substrates. Every day we fished different areas, most that I found years ago, and caught dozens of walleye, plus some 12- to 13-inch yellow perch and a few 15-inch smallmouth. I also caught a15-inch black crappie. Dennis caught that northern pike while fishing for walleye, and I hooked another big one minutes later that bit off my 6-pound line pretty quickly. It is the perch you would like to catch because you can bring home thirty of them and the filets are just like those of the walleye when it comes to eating. They are usually as large as those of an Ozark Crappie.
On two different days I caught 17-inch walleyes. This year Ontario biologists, worried about the ever increasing fishing pressure on that giant lake, set a regulation requiring that no walleye above 16.9 inches can be kept. But who cares? We ate a bunch of 15- to 16- inchers at our cabin. If you should catch a walleye above 29 inches you can keep it according to the new rules. Twenty or thirty years ago there were no more walleye than there are now, but most were larger. I remember catching some 20- to 25-inch fish on each trip, sometimes two or three per day. Those days are over, but I make the most of it. On my light outfit, a 12-inch yellow perch or 15-inch walleye fights like a slab-sided lunker.
Last year on my birthday in mid-October I landed only two walleye above 17 inches in three days, a 19-incher and a hefty 23-incher. But I also boated the only genuine six-pound smallmouth I have ever caught. He weighed two ounces more than that on a Nestor Falls grocery store scale and later swam off to find the underwater haunts he likely still rules.
Each day the 70-degree temperature with light winds gave us the opportunity to fish in shirtsleeves, and we caught so many fish it was hard to complain about anything. We headed home one morning at 4:30 and got to Lightnin’ Ridge at 10:00 that night with a cooler full of walleye and perch filets.
Anyone can go to Canada and fish on a budget if you contact my old friend and bush pilot-guide, Tinker Helseth. I can put you in touch with him if you’d like, and tell you how to make a trip in the spring, summer or fall affordable. I have some numbered copies of Tinker’s book, “Tinkers Canada… Memoirs of a bush pilot.” You can get one by contacting me at 417-777-5227.
Our address is Box 22, Bolivar, MO 65613, and our email is lightninridge47@gmail.com. You can read most everything I write on the computer at larrydablemontoutdoors.
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