# Whitewater Lake, Canada ???



## sowbelly101 (Apr 5, 2004)

Well it looks like a dream is going to come true for me in about 2 weeks. I am going to get to do a fly in trip in Canada for the first time ever. I was wondering if anyone out there knows anything about this place or give me some good advice as to what I need to bring, so far I am pretty clueless. Tackle and gear is something I really need to get some ideas for, I dont think my 12' crappie rods will do me much good up there.hehe. From what I know we will be walleye and pike fishing for the majority so what would everyone suggest. I have the rods and reels covered, except a good casting reel. Some info on tackle and anything else you can think of to bring along would be appreciated, Thanks in advance.

Brian


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## PapawSmith (Feb 13, 2007)

Take a big bottle of garlic and a box, or two, of dryer sheets. Put garlic on everything you eat and put dryer sheets in your pockets while your fishing. Not sure what part of Canada Whitewater is in but, rest assured, you'll find yourself in the fat part of blackflys and mosquitos this time of year. I personally don't get much bothered by them but I've watched my friends get literally tortured by them.
The best I've found for Walleye are 1/16-1/8 oz bucktail hair jigs tipped with a leach  or crawler. Anything yellow or gold always seems to produce well. Cast these into any rock outcrops, islands, shoals, etc, into about a foot of water and slowly work them out from there. Walleyes will jump onto them when they fall from rock to rock and I'm always amazed at how shallow I find them. During the warmer parts of the day we do the same thing on deeper rocks or troll just about anything, plugwise, in the 3" range.
For pike just about anything seems to work, including the 2 or 3 Walleyes hanging off the side of your boat on a stringer  . Thats happened more than once and it always scares the crap out of me. I've trolled and casted for Pike in Canada with everything in my box and caught the nicest fish on gold and black hot-n-tots and wiggle warts after throwing $500 worth of Pike/Muskie lures at them . Cruising the shoreline the last hour or so before dark and launching big buzzbaits for Pike is a blast. You don't usually catch the biggest Pike this way but you get a hell of a lot of action. A good big Pike method in the Canada lakes I've fished is the good ole Johnson Silver Minnow tipped with pork, midday, in weeds, in 4-6 feet of water.
Good luck, be safe, and please post a report when you get back.


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## Bassnpro1 (Apr 6, 2004)

PapawSmith said:


> Cruising the shoreline the last hour or so before dark and launching big buzzbaits for Pike is a blast. You don't usually catch the biggest Pike this way but you get a hell of a lot of action.


Agreed, it won't catch the biggest pike in there, but it is a blast to watch them destroy a buzzbait. I like the throw the biggest double-buzz I can find in the stores. What a blast. 

As for walleyes, like it was mentioned, it is hard to beat a jig/bait combo bounced around. Trolling hot-n-tots/shad raps works well too in order to find some fish. Then slow down with the jig.


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## olejoe (Jan 22, 2007)

This will be our 12th yr for fly-in fishing and they are right. Jigs and twister tails for the walleye and jointed rebels for trolling. Johnson spoons for the pike with a twister tail and shallow weedy bays. Reeds can be dead and right up to the bank for pike. Walleyes troll rocky shorelines and points and anywhere that there is currant as a river coming in or out is always good. You should see some of the best fishing of your life and more mosquitoes than you ever thought there were. Make sure you take good bug repelant Have a good trip


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## sowbelly101 (Apr 5, 2004)

The trip was awesome and cannot wait to get back up that way again. We caught Walleyes every way you can imagine and more Pike then I could dream of. Highlight of the trip was catching a 44" Pike on a light action spinning rod with 8lb fireline while jigging for Eyes, that battle lasted nearly 25 minutes. 




























































































Sowbelly


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## Gringo Loco (Mar 5, 2005)

Hey Sowbelly, was your outfitter Wilderness North? What were your expenses and accomodations like? Did you catch many larger northerns?


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## sowbelly101 (Apr 5, 2004)

Our outfitter was Mattice Outfitters and they were excellent. We had a camp attendant on site as well and he did an awesome job. He was Johnny on the spot waiting for us everytime we came in to beach the boats, took out the trash, hauled the fish guts to a remote island, filled the water tanks, gave us insight where to fish, offered to clean our fish, fixed any cabin issues on the spot and probably a few other items I forgot. I was simply amazed at the service, Ive been to all inclusive resorts that were not as prompt as this place. As for the pricing Im not real sure what the cost were, I didnt see any of the bills. The outfitter has a website, www.walleye.ca and has a run down of all that info. We got 5 northerns over 40, 25 or so 30-40 and all the under 30's you could imagine. We only pike fished 2.5 days but probably a total of 30 hours in that time.

95% of the fish came on silver minnows casting into flooded bushes along the shoreline. 

Sowbelly


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## yankee (Apr 8, 2005)

Great read sowbelly101 and very nice fish. Now your hooked


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## Redear (Apr 11, 2004)

Brian how was the walleye fishing i hear you can catch 100 eyes a day on that lake,but what size. the pike picts look great man.We went out with Thunder Hook last year there based right be side Mattice in Armstrong .We ate at the resturant/laundry in town with guys going to White water.If your like me it was a trip of a life time only i want another life next year.
Fred


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## sowbelly101 (Apr 5, 2004)

The Walleye fishing was fantastic. We caught them every way you could imagine. First few days were windy so we bottom bounced with harnesses n crawlers. Dropped it down, close the bail and bam had one on, funny thing was silver outproduced gold, coper and colored blades. When the wind would die down in the evenings we would jig, drop it down lift it slowly a few times and fish on. Sometimes the wind was good enough to drift, but a little too much to jig so we would just drag the jigs on the bottom, they would pick it up and run. Trolled deep diving cranks in 20ft of water and they would hammer it as long as you had it diving deeper then 10 feet. I would stand on the dock where the plane pulls up to which was roughly 4 feet of water around the beach and cast jigs and knock them dead. Casted little cranks and Husky Jerks from the dock and they were all over them. Ill have to admit at first I was a little intimidated fishing this 28,000 acre lake with no depthfinder and no knowledge of the lake but after only being on the lake for 10 minutes we had 3 fish on the stringer. We found fast water moving into the back of a bay and there was a pool in there with a 12ft hole and we crushed them in there vertical jigging. The lake has alot of rock piles and submerged Islands where there were always fish. Also drifting off off the sides of the sandbars produced alot of eyes. I would imagine the guy that I was fishing with and me caught around 400 walleyes during the trip. The sizes ranged from 12"-22" and most of them being around 17"-19" range. 

It was alot of fun exploring that lake with 14ft boats and 15hp Yami's.. 2 of the days we made runs that took over an hour to get back to camp. Hand held GPS were a must to navigate around, that lake is a maze of islands and bays. We just rode around and played connect the dots (waypoints) to find our way back several times. The weather was crappy the first 3 days, 45 degrees, windy and rainy but the fishing was so good you really didnt care. The weather turned nice on Wednesday evening and the fishing really slowed. Blue skies and 80 degree temps seem to shut the pike and eyes off, but by then we were pretty much satisfied with the trip.

Got lucky with the bugs, they were not bad at all, never needed the bug suit and the OFF seem to keep them away. Saturday when we flew out at 5:30am the bugs were starting to get bad, real bad in my opinion.


Sowbelly


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## Snakecharmer (Apr 9, 2008)

Where is the lake? how long a drive? How long a flight?


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## Stauff (Mar 7, 2005)

It's a long, long drive to Armstrong. We usually allow 22 hours (from Cincinnati), including a stop in Thunder Bay for groceries. I've not been to Whitewater, as we usually go to the Ogoki Reservoir - probably larger walleye & fewer big pike there. The Elliot's run a top-notch service at Mattice - Don, Annette & family are just plain good people. Nice to hear you had a terrific trip!


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## sowbelly101 (Apr 5, 2004)

Stauff hit it on the nail, I think we had a total of 19 hrs of driving from Columbus. Once at the outfitter we were only airborne for 20 min and I think they said it was 45 minutes from the base camp. It was my first experience and it was top notch in my book. I cant think of one complaint, well besides its a long haul but the quality of fishing makes up for that.

Sowbelly


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## Snakecharmer (Apr 9, 2008)

Thanks for the info. BTW.Great photos!


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