Learning the pattern on new water

ELK LAKE, Ont. — It doesn’t matter if you’re fishing in West Virginia, Louisiana, Florida, Wisconsin, or in Canada there are certain universal truths. One fact which never changes is fish will follow food. Hank and I began to strike a pattern on the fish here in the lakes of northern Ontario Monday. We discovered huge numbers of small fry on beaver lodges. Wherever you’ll find the fry, you’ll find bigger fish feeding on them. We have caught at least one fish from every single beaver hut we have fished. We now concentrate on them to save time.

There are no largemouth bass this far north, but when you look at the chain of lakes we are fishing out of Lost Lake Wilderness Lodge, there is abundant habitat which would hold largemouth if they were here. There are long expanses of coon tail grass, lilly pads, and other weed beds. Every bank is dotted with fallen logs and piles of driftwood. The banks are also lined with rocks and you’ll find large boulders off shore. Typically rocky shoreline is where you would target smallmouth. While we’ve found some smallmouth on the rocks, most of our fish are caught off submerged woods and out of weed beds.

Somebody asked about baits we are using in a previous post. Our most successful baits have been wacky rigged worms, three inch and four inch.
We’ve also found success on spinnerbaits and crankbaits. We’ve tried topwater a few times, but with little success. Because of the wind, the water is almost constantly choppy and the top water has proven ineffective. I’ve also tried to use a dark colored tube jig, but haven’t caught a fish on one. The fish seem to be drawn to bright colors. Neon green, pink, and white have drawn a hits more than any other color.

Today we took a 20 minute shuttle down the road to Everett Lake. The lake is accessible from the road and gets a good bit of public fishing pressure. Today, we were the only ones on the water. We caught a mix of pike and smallmouth, but most were small. The lone exception was a 16 inch smallmouth caught out of a weeded.

The weather has taken a turn for the worse. The sky was overcast today, but this afternoon it’s starting to rain. The wind continues to howl and the temperature is dropping. All this week has felt like fishing in September in West Virginia. This afternoon, it’s starting to feel more like late October. Last week when we left there was a prediction of a polar vortex due to drop temperatures across the northeast by Wednesday. We feared the conditions wool worsen, so we brought rain and cold weather gear, but hoped we would need it.

I had a conversation with the lodge owner Tony Thomas. He indicated grouse hunting is phenomenal in these parts. He said the limit is five a day and a possession limit of 15. He indicated it’s not hard to limit out. The habitat for grouse here is perfect. The forests are extremely thick and there is intermittent logging happening up and down the highway where we are located. The thick underbrush is perfect for the ruffed grouse and spruce grouse which live here in a abundance.

It’s another day with no wildlife sightings, but two people staying in another cabin reported spotting a lynx while out Monday.

That’s all for today, but enjoy the video above. Hank caught a pike in a pool where Wigwam Lake dumps into a creek which feeds into the remote Bloom Lake.







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