Hi all,

We took the kids from work to a local Provincial Park to camp for the weekend. I was on the night shift so was taking over from my shift partner at 6:30pm for the night and getting off work in the mornings at 6:30am. Of course I brought my tin boat with me , the kid I work with always wants to go out fishing(bonus).

We got out for 2 hours with the kids that evening but caught zilch. Its a deep lake with good trout fishing, but the kids wanted to catch walleye. Despite trying last summer a couple of times to find them from a boat , I only caught my first walleye on this lake through the ice accidentally while fishing for lakers this winter.

Anyway, since I knew i was off at 6:30am, I’d brought my downriggers with and had planned to get on the lake as soon as possible to get a couple of trout. What a perfect morning it turned out to be weather wise............



ABSOLUTELY GORGEOUS MORNING! LAKE WAS LIKE A SHEET OF GLASS








I decided to start at the drop off of a shoal/reef that extends from the point of an island, which drops from 20 FOW to 60 FOW. All last summer i was fishing with a faulty transducer, which would pick up bottom as long as you were not fishing water over 50' deep, i never knew it was faulty until i tried it as an ice transducer and realised it was not picking up my jig under the hole despite showing bottom, so i was excited to see how it would work in the deeper water , actually being able see trout on the screen at trolling speed.

I was also eager to try out setting up the downrigger with my new 'auto pilot' trolling motor, as it would keep me on a straight heading whilst setting up the lines, not something that’s easy to do on your own without that feature. Because i was trolling on autopilot on flat calm water, I had plenty of time to set up the downriggers and keep an eye on the fishfinder, it was then i noticed a whole bunch of fish arches at 28' on the drop off. I thought it was worth dangling a jig to see what they were, so i dropped the anchor and was happy to discover that it was walleye.


FOUND WALLEYE BY ACCIDENT WHILST SETTING UP THE DOWNRIGGER FOR TROUT




GOT SOME KEEPER SIZE STRAIGHT OFF THE BAT




i was glad i was using braid with a flouro leader as the fish were biting really light. A guy i know called Lonnie who lives on the lake said hello and asked if I’d got anything, told him i was on a bunch of walleye, he said he'd try the other end of the reef about 100 yards away and took off. I was kinda watching where he was going as i had not realised the reef extended that far when i felt a really light tap...tap bite....i set the hook and it felt like I’d snagged bottom............turned out to be a 27" beast of a walleye. Lonnie heard the commotion and came over and took some pics for me.


I WAS PRETTY PLEASED WITH THIS FISH





LONNIE WAS KIND ENOUGH TO TAKE A PIC FROM HIS BOAT WITH MY CAMERA




27" is a pretty decent Walleye...getting close to its cousin the Zander at that size





I got the fish back in to go spawn again some day, said thanks to Lonnie and set about baiting up. i dropped the line down again and waited about a minute before a fish arch showed up on the graph. It was interested but did not strike until i gave the jig a good shake at least five feet off the bottom....and he nailed it....straight away i could fell it was another good fish, and it was...exactly 27" inches again.....lightning does strike twice it seems........


ANOTHER 27" NOT FIVE MINUTES AFTER THE LAST!!!




LONNIE WAS TOO FAR AWAY TO ASSIST WITH THE PIC, LOL, I DID IT ON A TIMER BUT HAD IT SET ON 3 SHOT MODE SO YOU GET THE CATCH AND RELEASE SEQUENCE










MY CAMERA IS TOAST, BUT HERE'S THE TAPE MEASURE SHOT




After that one the bite died off, still marking fish but they were only inspecting the bait. I didn't really care though at this point, i was just a little pleased with the mornings results so far, I’d not even been out for an hour yet!

I was kinda worried that the fish fly hatch which happened over night would slow the bite anyway (you can see in the vids that the whole lake was covered in the larvae cases) but so far so good, i wanted to get the last eater and then head to deeper water with the downriggers for trout...took 20 minutes but i got the final keeper and headed off the reef.


GOT MY LAST KEEPER AND WENT IN SEARCH OF TROUT






Whilst i was talking with Lonnie, our conversation turned to whitefish which also live in the lake but have eluded me thus far both on open water and on the ice. Lonnie had said that he was marking what he thought were whitefish at the far end of the reef 15" of water. So i decided t slow troll over to the vicinity he was in earlier to give it a go. I could not find the 15' FOW part of the reef and ended up in 55' FOW where i thought he'd been anchored.

However i was marking fish on the bottom so decided to drop a jig with small minnow in the hope of some whities......within seconds of the jig hitting the bottom i had a hit, but missed it. There were fish following my jig all over the screen, and it was not long before i felt a light tap, i set the hook.........hoping for a whitefish it turned out to be a decent laker.....LOL....so much for setting up the Downrigger today!


OK...NOT WHITEFISH....I AM SOOOOO DISSAPPOINTED....LOL





The action was intense on the fishfinder, fish following the jig up and down all over the place. I was finding they became most aggressive and would chase he jig fast when you really cranked up the jig , but were shy biting. Great fun though, it was flat calm and i was anchored so watching the jig it was like ice fishing in a boat.


LOTS OF FOLLOWERS ON THE SCREEN




I was busy trying to entice one of the followers on screen to bite when i noticed a nice fish arch up at 40' FOW. I quickly reeled up and as soon as my jig went past the 40' FOW the arch shot up to follow and nailed it at around 20'FOW....electronics rock!!!!


THIS GUY NAILED IT AT 20'





I was working that night again at the camp, so decided to count m blessings and call it a day at that point, go home clean the fish, get a few hours sleep. But what a way to find your 1st walleye from a boat on a particular lake, and come to think of it that is the first time i have caught trout jigging............great couple of hours on the lake.


MMMMMMM....TROUT AND WALLEYE FISH FRY TONITE!

Starting to seriously consider emigrating. Just one question, why are they called walleye?

Great report as usual Simon, and some nice fishes too.



Den

Famtastic session there, epic write up and raging jealousy as usual lol. Ignore my video issue, god knows what happened there lol. Instead of a fish finder I was viewing a small girl explaining about intestinal tracts

All that intestinal stuff warped me for a min lol, noce one on the 27 inchers!

Absolutely brilliant report. I didn't know Torbay was fishing this well... ,............. Well done Simon

i want to move to canada now,is it still part of the british empire or run by frogs, that could change my mind!
great pics vids and report