Lake St.Joseph Fly-In Adventure

A few weeks ago I took a trip to Lake St. Joseph in north western Ontario with friends Mike, Jimmy and Rick. We flew out from Pearson on Friday morning to Thunderbay, then rented a van and drove 4hrs to Sioux Lookout where we stayed the night. We ate at a local joint and had some beers at the motel. The next morning we flew to Lake St. Joseph in an Otter into one of Verne's outpost camps. The lake is absolutely massive and could not be explored the way we would have liked with a limited 15hp motor. The boats were comfortable and handled the waves well, but slow. I believe the lake is 100 kilometers long! No way we could even fish half of the lake, but luckily there was enough to fish within 30k of camp. The cabin was really nice with solar energy. It powered the fridge, freezer and lights. Impressive and roomy cabin with a flush toilet, large kitchen and dining area, fish cleaning station, boat slips with hand rails to get in and out of the boat. The lake is chalk full of walleye with an average of 3lbs. Good size fish are common to 5lbs. That was not why Mike and I were there though. We were after large pike. We didn't target walleye much at all. Maybe a couple of hours the entire week. We solely targeted large northerns, while Rick and Jimmy almost solely targeted walleye, and Ryan from the outfit joined them one day. It was a good fit fishing with Mike while Jimmy and Rick fished together. The lake has really large pike, but late August is a tough time to find them. Mike and I had plans to both cast and troll specific areas, and we were mostly on the same page with how we wanted to target them. I would have liked to spend more time trolling certain high percentage areas adjacent to main lake structure, especially with the sunny weather. Other than that, we were on the same page. We both like to cast and troll and put in our time to find big pike. It is almost like musky fishing at times to find big pike in late August. Patience is a virtue, and why many anglers just end up targeting walleye. The structure was amazing with rock everywhere, humps, islands, saddles and reeds. It was a pike paradise. The trouble was identifying the better holding locations, because everywhere we turned looked good. We decided to target areas out from spawning bays by islands, saddles and rock humps that were adjacent to deeper water. We mostly cast to them, but we did troll as well at times. When we found areas that met our criteria with added reeds, we hit pike. Not all spots, but most of them held pike. It was easy to get pike to 34 inches, but that is not why we were there. We were after the high thirty to forty-inch plus sized pike. That was not an easy task, and we enjoyed unlocking the big pike mystery. We moved around the lake running and gunning from spot to spot. We got into a lot of pike trolling 8" Depth Raiders and Rapala Trolls To 20 stickbaits. The best lure to cast to them was the Dr. Spoon in orange and copper. It was deadly. Williams Whitefish worked well, spinnerbaits, in-line Mepps bucktails and I even got some great explosions on a big XRap Walk the dog topwater. The walleye were on every mid-lake hump and plentiful. Jig and 3.5 to 4" swimbaits like the 4" TriggerX Slop Hopper and minnow were deadly when they were not getting bit off by pike. They were the hardest fighting walleye I have ever experienced! It was crazy how hard they fought. Most likely from constantly running away from all the big pike LOL. We ended up getting a handful of quality pike over the week, and lots to 34 inches. We ate like kings and always had cold beer in the evenings. We had a few fish meals of course as well. Bacon wrapped walleye on the BBQ and fried in breading. We did not go hungry! All in all it was a great trip with a good group of guys. A well deserved vacation from a ridiculous work schedule. Good fishing! Aaron