<font size="4">Lac Seul Walleyes From a Guide’s Perspective </font>
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<b>This article showed up as a posting on the Message Board. I asked the author, Mike Willems, if it was OK to use in this Tips Section. Mike not only knows where to go to catch walleye on Lac Seul in Northwestern Ontario, he regularly conducts therapy sessions with them, giving him a keen insight into what motivates their behaviour.</b>
I became a fishing lodge owner as a means to an end. I tolerate the hassles and headaches of the business, because <u>I am a Guide at heart</u>. The regulations, annual repairs, paper work, and bills are all an acceptable price to pay for the thrill of guiding on a great fishery every day and the satisfaction of being part of a professional guide staff.
<img border="1" align="right" src="http://www.fish-hawk.net/tips/lac-seul/Wally27M.jpg">
Even after hundreds of guiding days, I still consider myself to be one of the profoundly fortunate few who truly loves what they do for a living. Part of the allure is the land itself. Northwest Ontario is one of the few remaining areas on this planet that maintains the feel of a Frontier. I could never imagine taking for granted even the smallest of its charms; the call of a loon, the taste of a freshly caught shorelunch, stunningly silent sunsets, the magical “tap†of a bite that sends a lightning bolt of electricity through your arm, or just the pleasure of being alive in a beautiful natural world that is still much the same as it was hundreds of years ago. There is no other place on Earth I feel more at home.
Fresh air, clean water, the camaraderie of a good guide crew, and moments and memories shared with guests, friends, and family all add to the experience, but the core of my passion for guiding is the <b>puzzle</b>. Every new day the slate is wiped clean and we begin a new hunt.
<b>What’s the wind?.... Will it clear off?... Surface temp.?.... Check the shallows first?</b>
<b>Where are they?....Why?....How Deep?....Are they Aggressive?...How Many?</b>
<b>Should we move?....How big?....What are they eating?....Where did they go?</b>
<b>In the weeds?...Back to the shallows?....On the rocks?...What about the sand?</b>
If you fish hard, are a little clever, and a little lucky, you may have a few answers by the end of the day, but tomorrow is a brand new ball game.
The surface of every lake home to fish is an opaque membrane hiding the secrets of a 3 dimensional puzzle below. The larger the lake, the greater number of species, the more diverse the habitat, then the Greater the puzzle becomes. It can never be totally solved, because it is dynamic and forever changing with the randomness of nature and weather, yet it is still regulated by the predictability of the Seasons. As a fishing guide, the best I can do on any given day, is to study the clues, make predictions, mentally prepare plans, and hope to just scratch the surface of one or two of that days countless underwater dramas.
I began fishing and guiding on smaller bodies of water across the Canadian Shield. During that time, much of my guiding strategy was grounded in the Fundamentals of aquatic biology. With an understanding of seasonal motivation (the relative need for food, the urge to reproduce, or the desire for comfort), I could generally predict fish location. With cumulative experience on these smaller lakes, I began to consider myself fairly adept at isolating patterns and finding fish. During those years I heard many comparisons of one lake to another and the bench mark standard of comparison for an excellent walleye fishery was the legendary Lac Seul. Before I fished and guided on the lake, I dismissed the majority of these stories as the tall tale exaggerations expected of fisherman. I mean walleyes are walleyes right? How much of a difference could there be?
During the past five seasons, I have often reminded on a daily basis that Lac Seul and its Trophy walleye fishery are truly a breed apart. I have been surprised, stumped, puzzled, and humbled. And I have caught, guided, photographed, and released the biggest walleyes I have ever seen in my life. The learning curve has been steep and the biologist in me has been forced to admit that when it comes to complex fisheries, the more we learn, the less we “know.â€
<u><b>The Lac Seul Difference:</b></u>
The following is an email I received last year.
<i>Mike,</i>
<i>All of you guys claim to have big fish!</i>
<i>Why should I believe You?</i>
I am keenly aware of the bias expected from a lodge owner and that is why I rely heavily on our annual guiding statistics to provide an accurate description of the Fishery. All of the guides are required to keep a log of walleyes over 18†and pike over 30†caught and released each day. At the end of the season, I compile all of the stats and publish them in my brochure and on my website. A quick glance at the 2001 walleye stats reports that 470 anglers caught and released 99 walleyes over 29 in., 590 walleyes over 27 in., and 3037 over 24 in.
<img border="1" src="http://www.fish-hawk.net/tips/lac-seul/Wally3M.jpg">
<b>The proof is in the pudding!</b>
To describe Big Lac Seul walleyes in terms of length is a discredit to many, because some aren’t just long, many are huge! I had caught and guided for a few big walleyes prior to fishing Lac Seul, but I was not prepared for the numbers or for the physical condition or the unbelievable proportions attainable. I had never before seen walleyes with thick meaty shoulders, bulbous guts, or that were thick through the tail. An average 27 inch walleye on the shield weighs 7 pounds. I weighed a portly 27 inch ‘eye in my boat last May that tipped the scales at 8 lb. 13 oz.
I am a confessed big fish junkie and that is a big part of the thrill of chasing Lac Seul walleyes, but it also has a lot to do with the water itself. The lake is huge. Lac Seul has over 3,000 miles of shoreline and covers 560 square miles (358,400 acres). In 5 years of guiding, I have seen less than 1/3 of it, have fished less than 10%, and consider myself familiar with less than 5%. In a lifetime, you could not run out of new places to fish. Along with the immense amount of fishable water is an incredible diversity of habitat. Deep clear main lake basins, mazes of islands, immense shallow fertile bays, sunken islands, reefs, miles of weedbeds, clay banks, clear streams, and huge sand flats can all be found within just a 10 mile radius. The options for prey are just as diverse. Walleyes can choose from yellow perch, ciscoe, smelt, aquatic insects (including mayfly larvae), a half dozen species of large minnows, and literally dozens of others depending upon the local and seasonal abundance. Combine this diversity of forage and habitat with the fact that many walleye populations choose to take advantage of many different types of opportunities all at the same time and you realize Why the Lac Seul puzzle is so incredibly complex.
I strongly believe that the size and complexity of Lac Seul are responsible for its incredible Trophy walleye fishery through the process of two mechanisms. First, the size of the lake produces an incredible diversity of habitat and forage, allowing walleyes access to readily available nutrition, regardless of seasonal or annual fluctuations in the populations of different food sources. No matter what the time of year, or if a year class of perch, or ciscoe fails, there is always something else to eat. The second, is that the immense size of the lake provides so much fishable water, that if just a fraction of the walleye populations does something a “little differentâ€, they can go for years without crossing paths with a hook and that dramatically improves their chances of reaching trophy size...
This is the end of the first half of Mike's article. It was so large I had to put it into two parts. Stay tuned for Part Two of the article Lac Seul Walleyes From a Guide's Perspective. Mike will be writing about the shallow water bite, the connection to turbid water, sand structures and preferred depth - I can hardly wait.
