Manitoba, Canada

[vince]

Spent a week at No Name lake, Outfitter was Dogskin Outfitters, web site, www.dogskin.com. We had a great time, we spent a week at one of their outpost cabins on a fly in trip. We started with eight people and lost one checking through customs at the border, he had a couple of DUI's and they would not let him enter the country. It was a 1125 mile drive to the airbase on the Winnepeg River and then a 50 minute flight to the outpost. We stayed in a 3 room cabin that slept 8, with solar panels for lights and water pump and propane for frig,cook stove, and hot showers. We fished out of 14 ft v bottom alum boats with a 15 hrs power 4 stroke motor. They told us fishing was slow according to Canadian standards due to ice out being just two weeks previous and the walleye had just spawned and were lethargic. They were lethargic but deffinitely not uncatchable. The morning bite was slow but picked up later in the day. We found them in 10 -12 dept on the edge of weed lines, weed lines were hard to find since ice out was so recent. The best bite was on jigs tipped with minnows worked slowly and I mean slowly on the bottom. I used a med rod with 6 lb line and had a blast. A couple of days caught up to aprox. 70 fish in a full day fishing. Slow maybe by Canadian standards but I don't know anywher in the lower 48 that you can see that kind of action. Average fish sizes aprox 18 - 19 inces, I caught walleye from 7 to 28 1/4 inches. The last day it was storming and the wind kept us off the water till 2 and we had to come in by 5:30 to pack, my partner and I boated 35 walleye and 7 pike. I landed 1 25", 1 26', 2 27", an 1 a quarter " over 28"s. The 28 was just over 8 pds on a digital scale not bad for just coming off their spawn. Due to lack of weeds, (not yet up) it was hard to locate pike in shallow water for fly fishing, but I did find some. I caught aprox 20 pike on the fly and what a blast.. my largest was 32"s. What an awsome and explosive fish. My best fly was a bait fish pattern tied with EP fibers. It is heart stopping to see a big wake rushing through the weeds and explode on your fly as your stripping it in. Steel leader is a must for the pike I don't know how many jigs I lost to pike while eye fishing you set the hook and you just get limp line they cut it so quick you never even feel the fish. This was really a great trip, you can go to their website for pricing they have several different packages for trips. I will try to post some pictures later.

[Phil Lilley]

[Danoinark]

Excellent report with pictures. Thanks for sharing.

Dano