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Gord Pyzer
2012-09-08 18:00:41

Count Your Way To Outrageous Lake Trout, Northern Pike and Walleyes


I've been in the outdoor communications business - magazines, television, radio and newspapers - for a lot of years now. Too many, as a matter of fact, to begin to count. But, the last four weeks may have been the best four weeks I've ever enjoyed catching big fish. Are you ready for this: over the last 30 days, we've landed more than 200 pike, with at least a dozen of them measuring better than 44-inches long - the biggest being a 48 1/2 inch behemoth that was the largest northern pike landed this year at Arctic Lodges on Reindeer Lake, in northern Saskatchewan. Closer to home, we've caught and released over 200 walleyes the last four trips out, with more than a dozen of the fish weighing between 10- and 15-pounds. And the lake trout ... oh, my goodness, the trout! Better yet, there was a common theme to the catches - namely, duplication and replication. Especially, when it came to putting the lake trout and walleyes into the boat. More specifically still, it was trolling with a Shimano Tekota line counter reel. Truthfully, I have never before seen a single piece of fishing equipment, single handedly account for so many big fish. It all got started with the lake trout up on Reindeer Lake where buddy Mark Stiffel and I were actually gathering story material for an upcoming magazine feature on northern pike. But, whenever Mark and I get together, and there are lake trout in the lake, well, you can bet we're going to put aside some time to chase them. And chase them we did trolling C90 Williams Whitefish spoons in the half gold/half silver Nu-wrinkle finish. We also replaced the trebles on the spoons with single siwash hooks, tipping them with 5-inch, white, Mister Twister Curly tails. You simply cannot believe how hard the lake trout thumped those things. But here is the catch. It took a fair amount of time, out on the water, experimenting, to figure out precisely how much line we had to let out in order to catch the trout. I'll concede something else: Mark is a much better lake trout troller than I am. I am pretty good - Mark is better! Just don't tell him I said that. But, on this occasion, Mark didn't pack his trolling reel with the line counter built into it. We were restricted to bringing only 40-pounds of clothing and gear on the flight into the lodge, and since we were specifically targeting pike, Mark left his large capacity line counting trolling reels at home. I snuck one into my pack, however, and drove him crazy. That is because with an eight-ounce keel sinker ahead of the spoon, I would let out 144 feet of line, (I always end the last number being "4", in recognition of Bobby Orr, or "9" in honour of Gordie Howe, Bobby Hull and Wayne Gretzky) click the lever into gear and smack the lake trout. Poor old Mark, on the other hand, was forced to keep counting the number of passes his levelwind made across the face of the spool, in order to try to guesstimate the length of line he had trailing behind the boat. It is an accurate way of keeping track of things, and he definitely caught trout doing it, but it is not precise. And, thus, I drove him crazy. As he has done to me many times in the past. Now, fast forward to last week when I was trolling crankbaits for walleyes, here in Northwestern Ontario, with buddy Tom VanLeeuwen. It's always a fantastic late summer pattern for big walleyes, and Tom and I encountered the same thing here, as Mark and I did up on Reindeer Lake. We spotted huge schools of big walleyes bunched up on structures lying anywhere from 24 to 29 feet below the surface. Knowing the depth the fish were using and the specific dive curves of the lures we were pulling, it was easy for Tom and me to keep them within inches of the walleyes' noses. Indeed, once we caught a couple of walleyes and fine tuned the precise amount of line we needed to let out behind the boat, we could go back to the exact same depth immediately, thanks to our Tekota line counting reels. Bottom line: the action was insane. CLICK HERE TO READ THE REST!
2 anglers like this post
Sep 09, 2012 09/09/12
Scott McGill
Nice job Gord...well written as per usual!
Sep 08, 2012 08/09/12
Mark Hordyk
Another great read Gord! Thanks for sharing!
Sep 08, 2012 08/09/12
Matt Nicholls
That is an amazing 30 days Gord. Nice report!
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