Canada Fly-In Trip – Part 3 – The Walleyes

If you have been reading the blog, you will know that this is Part 3 of 5 of our Canadian Fly-In trip, through Air Ivanhoe, to Lake Kapukasing. The walleyes on our trip made enough of a presence to deserve their own blog post. We believe, that Lake Kapukasing, is primarily a walleye lake with great pike. We, however, in our quest for monster pike, did not put in nearly as many hours fishing for the walleyes. We viewed ourselves as pike trophy hunters that had the occasional taste for walleye. This does not mean that we didn’t put effort into this species, it just means it was not the number one priority. We still did very well despite this.

One of the great things about a Fly-In trip, other than the fact that it is so remote, is getting a chance to meet the group before you. When our plane landed, on Kapukasing, it not only landed to drop us off, but also to pick the previous group up. One of the first things we noticed, when we were helping the other group load the plane, was the heavy coolers we were loading. We soon found out that they were filled with walleye fillets, meaning that the google eyes were biting. When asked about their weapon of choice, the father of the group replied with “minners”, meaning minnows. We were somewhat disappointed to hear this, as our group did not order any minnows for the week, we had simply brought crawlers. George, the resort owner, quickly reminding us that the bait itself didn’t matter it was the presentation. George was attempting to be a good steward to his resort and convincing us that the fish, at this lake, would bite if you we just did things right. The group before us pointed out a few places for us to try, and we thanked them as they loaded the plane and wished us “good luck”.

I have never been anything close to an avid walleye fisherman. I have fished very few lakes that contain fishable populations, and at the ones that do, I can never seem to find those elusive fish. This lake, was a walleye lake, however, just find deep water and jig for walleyes…..right? The first problem was finding deep water. We knew that it was in short supply on this lake and without a depth finder, it would be looking for a needle in a haystack. Since we knew that was going to be tough, we decided to focus our efforts off weed edges. This was also difficult, as the weeds in this place were all over and rarely had defined edges. None the less, we were able to come across some good eyes, and I will try to get the details of each on with the pictures.

This fish, while it is hard to see, has a unique blue bacteria around its fins that I have never seen before. I am sure some of you regular walleye fisherman are familiar with it. It was caught on an orange Rapala.

Another orange Rapala fish.

Not a bad catch for our first days on the water.

Yet another orange Rapala eye.

A good northern Canada dinner.

My grandpa caught this eye on a small swim jig and four pound test while fishing for perch. It was a pretty good battle.

Grandpa chalks another one up

Now this eye I caught was pretty unique. I was chucking a Big Hammer swimbait into some timber, in less than six feet of water on a bright sunny day. I had to keep the lure just under the surface to avoid the snags. I was hoping for a good pike on my new lure. This walleye, a personal best 27 incher, blew the swimbait up like a bass hits a topwater. It was the most exciting walleye I have ever caught.

Another look at it. Check out the bait company’s website. The lures were able to produce multiple other walleyes for me on the trip. Big Hammer Swimbaits

Another day’s catch.

Barb with a smaller eye.

My next post will finally display some of the big pike we were chasing after.