Adventures from the “near” North

Well it has been quite sometime since my last post.  To not go too much into personal stuff, I recently joined the Canadian Forces meaning I have been gone for training for quite sometime.  Currently I am living in North Bay, Ontario and will be until I leave for training again come September. I will be doing my best to blog about my fishing adventures while I am out here.

I’ve been in North Bay now since May 7th and I’ve been spending a lot of time learning about all the areas to fish around here. I have been out 4 times now, fishing Trout Lake, Lake Nipissing (Callandar Bay), the South Shore of Lake Nipissing and the Mattawa River/Turtle Lake.

My first outing 2 weeks ago to Trout Lake saw myself mainly doing some exploration hearing there is great muskie and smallie fishing, but of course none are open yet. I through a few hours for Pike and managed to hook into a muskie (on a xrap) but lost it boat side. It was just a small guy but still fun nevertheless.

Callandar bay was another touring type day, getting some info from a friend I fished waters less then 10fow and hooked some rockets, and out of season smallies but nothing exciting or picture worthy. Once again though, I saw a very good sized muskie swimming the shallows which makes me excited for opener in a few weeks.

A couple weekends ago I befriended one of the locals (met through a co-worker, their buddy a 30 year old self proclaimed hippee construction worker lol) and was convinced to fish the South Shore in a 14ft “pimped up” fishing machine that slowly leaked.

The scenery out here was amazing. Clear water and thousands of shoals to fish, with the islands of Nippissing in the background. We were looking for the elusive big pike Nippissing apparently holds, but although the numbers were good… the size was not:

I’ve been chatting with a few bait shop owners, and one directed me at an area called Turtle Lake. It’s connected in between Trout lake and the Mattawa River. Well you launch at the end of Trout, and run up the Mattawa for a while then you find Turtle Lake. It’s all in the new Mattawa Conservation Area. Sunday it was the game plan with the Sea Nymph and my friend Mike.

It was a wild ride going through there. The depths changed drastically, from 100fow quickly to 20fow, back to 80ft, then you nearly miss a shoal just below the surface.

And there’s plenty of man made narrows to go through.

Turtle (and Trout) are deep, cold lakes. Something I am not to use to fishing. But we saw some action, briefly. Throwing a spoon I see a flash and bam… a big pike hooks into it.

I was pretty pumped as no its not a big Northern Ontario pike, but bigger then what average lakes have to offer. After the release, my 2nd cast after same thing! I first thought it was a muskie but it was another pike just a bit bigger then the last. I left my big muskie net at home, thinking we were just going to get into some small pike/walleye and when my friend went to net it with my smaller net he knocked off the spoon from its mouth.. gone…. oh well, I consider it )almost landed.

That’s my update on my fishing adventures here.   Now to prepare the muskie gear and getting ready for bass in less then 2 weeks.