The Woodsman Magazine featured
resort Minor Bay Lodge and Outposts Ltd.
I
Left My Heart at Minor Bay
By Bob Riege
Situated in a sheltered, pristine bay
in the southeast corner of Wollaston Lake, Minor Bay Lodge offers its guests the
opportunity to enjoy the worlds finest trophy pike fishing while being pampered
at a first-class lodge.
When it comes to monster pike, Wollaston Lake in Saskatchewan is hard to beat.
Consistent catches of 50” plus specimens have made this the ultimate destination
for the trophy pike hunter. Wollaston Lake has 1100 square miles blessed with
countless shallow fertile bays that fill up with big “northerns” in
the spring, and supplemented with an equally impressive number of deep weedbeds
that many big fish call home in the later months. These factors combined with
Wollaston Lake ideal geographical positioning, low fishing pressure and long standing
catch and release policies have created the perfect pike fishery.
Believe me when I tell you that this is a five star lodge and the fishing is as
unbelievable as the meals in the lodge. If the shear beauty of the lake or the
abundance of excellent meals doesn’t capture your heart, the fishing surely
will.
I left my heart at Minor Bay. What does that mean? Well first of all you might
ask yourself, what would you do if you saw a 48 inch pike rise out of the water
and grab a lure. Better yet what would you do if you could catch five trophy northern
pike in less than two hours of casting? What would happen if you lost a 50 inch
pike along side of the boat? What type of sound would come out of your mouth and
where would your heart be?
My wife, Ginny confessed she has never had a more exciting experience fishing
then when she pulled in a pike almost as big as she was.
Everyone who fishes would love to run into a situation where the fish literally
jump onto their hook. In fact, if they put bare hooks in the water the fish would
smack them just like they hadn’t eaten for days. But unfortunately most
of us don’t experience fishing in this manner. In fact, in most cases there
are three distinct types of fish. There are fish that are fairly active, and usually
bite when presented with any type of bait. Most of the time these fish are small
and they are “beefing up” for a change of weather or seasonal dictations
of storing fat for the spring spawn. There are also fish that are totally shut
off. You can drop the most delicious looking morsal in front of their nose and
the response is avoidance or a simple yawn. And last but not least, are the fish
that can be taken if a precise presentation entices them to strike. This last
group of fish are the ones that you should be fishing for.
Nothing short of dynamite will take the totally inactive fish. A mistake here
and there might get the suicidal fish. If we do things right, the suicidal fish
should become automatic. We want that fish that will eat something put right in
front of his nose. What we want to do is match the level of presentation to the
level of the fish. We are going to make it easy for that fish to catch our offering.
The expert guides at Minor Bay will give you inside tips as to what you should
be offering in lures so you don’t have to guess at what the fish are biting
on. Generally the idea seems to be that you use gradually larger lures throughout
the season. For the first month or so the most popular lures have been the Mepps
#4 and #5 spinners both dressed and undressed. Similar Blue Fox varieties are
also very popular. Plastics and jigs are also effective at this time. Although
these lures seem smaller than what you would normally envision as pike tackle,
they are producing record class fish. Over the course of the season the most popular
lure may well be the Manns 1- in various sizes.
Once mid-July rolls around things take a dramatic twist. As the water warms and
the weeds start to grow in earnest, we enter what we call the cabbage season.
Once Pike move into the weedbeds they seem to be looking for somewhat larger baits
such as jerkbaits, big bucktail muskie spinners, and large plastics. Popular jerkbaits
are the pig, reefhogs, eddy’s baits, etc. Another good method is to work
floating crankbaits very slowly over the tops of the cabbage. This is where the
Manns 1- comes in very handy. Your chances increase to catch those head banging,
heart thumping pike. In other words, you have enticed them to jump on your lure.
Once you experience this heart stopping pike action you too will leave your heart
at Minor Bay.
If you want to experience leaving your heart at Minor Bay contact Randy Duvell
at:
Minor Bay Lodge and Outposts Ltd. 204-1700 Corydon Ave., Winnipeg, MB. Canada
R3N 0K1
Phone (204) 982-9680 Fax (204) 982-9687 Toll-Free 1-888-BIG PIKE
Email info@greatwhitenorthlodges.com
