2018 Ontario Opener at Lac Seul, Absolutely Incredible! Part 1

Pete With a Nice Walleye

the 2018 Minnesota and Ontario Canada fishing openers are now in the history books and what a difference a week and 350 miles can make!  As the last few years, the week after Minnesota Fishing Opener is the Ontario Fishing Opener and once again I was fortunate enough to be the guest of my friend Bruce Wiley at Lac Seul Outpost located in the Chamberlain Narrows area of beautiful Lac Seul, northeast of Sioux Lookout, Ontario.  Our other guests included Pete, Wayne, Tom, Chip, and Bruce's son RJ.  The drive is 460 miles form home and by the time you stop for gas, breakfast, crossing the border and buying groceries in Dryden, getting the boat launch it's about 12 hours plus at least another hour or so to get into camp. The forecast for Sioux Lookout said rain between 6 and midnight and upon arriving at the bait shop to get our parking passes it had already started to sprinkle.  I figured we could get into camp by 6 but that didn't seem to work very well.  By the time we go to the Deception Bay boat landing it had started to rain pretty good.  Luckily last year I had a Bimini Top made for the boat and although it helped to keep us somewhat dry, with the wind and rain coming down pretty hard, it was difficult to keep anything dry during the 34 mile boat ride into camp.  Figuring it would be uncomfortable but a lot drier than what it really was, it would have been smart to put on my rain suit, lesson learned on that deal.  Taking over an hour and 45 minutes, we finally arrived at camp just as the rain lightened up somewhat.  Being  all quite soaked, and after hanging our clothes to dry, it was time for a well deserved cocktail while Chip made pork tenderloins.  A warm meal in our belly's, a relaxing couple hours reminiscing about the wet ride into camp it was time to snuggle into the warm sleeping bags, getting ready for the walleye fishing opener the next morning!

Saturday's Fish Total

The next morning proved to that in camp, if you don't like the weather just wait a day, the clouds were intertwined with blue skies with the promise of a better weekend in store.  After a great breakfast of scrambled eggs, blueberry sausage, and toast the first stop was directly across camp where Bruce, Tom, Wayne, and Chip were anchored.  With Pete and RJ in the Ranger we headed over only to see that Bruce was anchored.  Apparently there was a problem with his battery system for the trolling motor and his anchoring system and we could not fix fix it for this trip.  I'm sure he missed it yet Wayne did a fabulous job of being his anchor boy for the trip.  After catching a number of smaller walleyes in the channel we moved up to the corner and fished the 10 foot break area and the walleyes were on fire.  At the bait shop in town, we picked up 3 dozen Large Rainbow minnows and did the big walleyes love them.  Catching 3 and sometimes 4 walleyes on a single minnow, there were times when we all had a fish on at the same time.  What was really a bonus was the amount of walleyes over 22 inches, over 50% of our catch.  As you see in the first picture, each one of us caught a number of nice walleyes like this. Still had plenty of fish for dinner that night yet it was astounding the amount of nice walleyes that were landed.  Putting a counter on the dash of the boat, a simple click kept track of our total catch and as you can see by the picture above, Saturday's total landed in the boat was 145 walleyes!  That was a new record for the boat and quite an impressive one at that!  Our fishing time usually ends around 5:00 and although the day turned out pretty nice, it still was a little chilly.   With Day one under our hats, it would be exciting to see what the next few days would bring.

This year my boat was forced to be basically beached up on the sandy shore for the night.  Although not my preferred spot, never the less it would have to do.  RJ did a great job making sure it was tied up securely while Pete got the electrical extension cords ran so we would be fully charged up the next day.  Hating sand in the boat, admittedly it was a challenge to jump in off the beach, wash one's shoes off then struggle to free the boat from it's overnight resting place.   Luckily there was enough dock space by the time we departed in the morning for everyone to properly wash the sand off their shoes before entering.   My guest realize that I am pretty anal about my boat however it's pretty nice to fish out of when on the water.  As tempting as it is to make this post longer, you will have to wait until next week to hear about my biggest walleye I have ever caught, finally a 30 incher!!!