Saskie & Saskette's Opimika Weekend
Posted: Mon Mar 28, 2005 8:26 pm
What an AWESOME weekend. This weekend was our annual (I guess we can call it that now) weekend with Opimika outfitters on Troutbait Lake NE of North Bay. We went there last year, looking for walleye, only to discover tha trout was the main quarry there. This year, we came prepared.
We arrived late afternoon Friday and settled into the 3 bedroom palace that was ours for the weekend - WOW!
inside:
We headed out for the evening, but other than a couple encouraging taps we went fishless. No problem, it was entertaining enough watching Chester (our dog) and Bud (the camp dog) get acquainted...more on that later
Next morning we're back it bright and early. Following Mike (the owner's) advice, we punched several holes right in front of our cabin. It was good advice... we were onto fish right away. It was without a doubt the best trout fishing I've EVER had...we iced 8 specks in 2 just over 2 hours and both set new personal bests...
Not a bad morning
Toward noon, the wind picked up and things started to get a bit chilly. After taking a break for lunch, we sat down to plan the rest of the day's fishing...as we listened to the wind whistling through the trees it came down to a choice between heading back out on the wind-swept lake or staying in the sun drenched lazy-boy chair...hmmmm, wind-swept lake...sun drenched chair....wind swept lake..ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ. When I woke a couple hours later, I discovered I wasn't the only sleepy head...
We spent what was left of the afternoon on the deeper waters of the main body trying without success for the other species in Troutbait...lakers.. On the way back to the cottage we dropped our lines down the holes from that morning and promptly had 2 more specks ready for the pan.
(Try not to drool too much on the keyboard
)
The next day was more of the same...we spent the morning chasing specks and then went looking for lakers. Although the action was a little slower we always managed to find some specks like this one:
Unfortunately the lakers eluded us...oh well.
One more funny story...remember I mentioned Bud - the camp dog. Chester and Bud became instant best friends, however Bud never could understand Chester's fascination with chasing a ball or stick. Every time Chester would run after his ball, Bud would look at him like he was an idiot. Finally, Bud had enough. As Chester was chasing the ball, Bud went off into the bush and a few minutes later returned with a present...if you're going to "fetch" something, at least make it something worthwhile - like a moose leg:
All I can say is it was the perfect ending to our ice fishing year. In all we iced 13 specks from 8 - 14", with 10" being the norm. Small white jigs with a (dead - live bait ban in effect) minnow in 2-6ft was the go-to set-up. Troutbait's lakers eluded us, but in fairness we didn't put in the effort required..it was too hard to sit out in the middle jigging for hours when we could move in shallow and go to town with the brookies. We also never tried any of the other lakes in the area such as Round, Spring or Shanty. There was no real reason to since some of the hottest speckle action around was 20yds from our cabin...maybe next year
Thanks to WIG, BASSSTALKER, BACON, UL and everyone else for their tips. It was a blast!!! CHeers
We arrived late afternoon Friday and settled into the 3 bedroom palace that was ours for the weekend - WOW!
inside:
We headed out for the evening, but other than a couple encouraging taps we went fishless. No problem, it was entertaining enough watching Chester (our dog) and Bud (the camp dog) get acquainted...more on that later
Next morning we're back it bright and early. Following Mike (the owner's) advice, we punched several holes right in front of our cabin. It was good advice... we were onto fish right away. It was without a doubt the best trout fishing I've EVER had...we iced 8 specks in 2 just over 2 hours and both set new personal bests...
Not a bad morning
Toward noon, the wind picked up and things started to get a bit chilly. After taking a break for lunch, we sat down to plan the rest of the day's fishing...as we listened to the wind whistling through the trees it came down to a choice between heading back out on the wind-swept lake or staying in the sun drenched lazy-boy chair...hmmmm, wind-swept lake...sun drenched chair....wind swept lake..ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ. When I woke a couple hours later, I discovered I wasn't the only sleepy head...
We spent what was left of the afternoon on the deeper waters of the main body trying without success for the other species in Troutbait...lakers.. On the way back to the cottage we dropped our lines down the holes from that morning and promptly had 2 more specks ready for the pan.
(Try not to drool too much on the keyboard
)The next day was more of the same...we spent the morning chasing specks and then went looking for lakers. Although the action was a little slower we always managed to find some specks like this one:
Unfortunately the lakers eluded us...oh well.
One more funny story...remember I mentioned Bud - the camp dog. Chester and Bud became instant best friends, however Bud never could understand Chester's fascination with chasing a ball or stick. Every time Chester would run after his ball, Bud would look at him like he was an idiot. Finally, Bud had enough. As Chester was chasing the ball, Bud went off into the bush and a few minutes later returned with a present...if you're going to "fetch" something, at least make it something worthwhile - like a moose leg:
All I can say is it was the perfect ending to our ice fishing year. In all we iced 13 specks from 8 - 14", with 10" being the norm. Small white jigs with a (dead - live bait ban in effect) minnow in 2-6ft was the go-to set-up. Troutbait's lakers eluded us, but in fairness we didn't put in the effort required..it was too hard to sit out in the middle jigging for hours when we could move in shallow and go to town with the brookies. We also never tried any of the other lakes in the area such as Round, Spring or Shanty. There was no real reason to since some of the hottest speckle action around was 20yds from our cabin...maybe next year
Thanks to WIG, BASSSTALKER, BACON, UL and everyone else for their tips. It was a blast!!! CHeers
Funny guy....You make me laugh so I kill you last OK?