Author: Gord Ellis

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Gord is life long resident of Thunder Bay, Ontario. Since 1986, he has made his living writing and talking about fishing, hunting, camping, outdoor tourism and resource conservation. Gord currently writes for the Times Star in Geraldton as well as a weekly newspaper column Sporting Life in the Thunder Bay Chronicle Journal. Over the past 25 years, he has managed to write roughly a thousand magazine, book and newspaper articles for a range of publications including Hooked Magazine.

As a keen trout fisherman, I like to keep an open mind and try many different lures. Over the past three decades I’ve caught trout on  and live bait. Breaking the classic trout lure mold has helped me account for some really nice fish. But day in and day out, and when the money is down, the trout spoon is tough to beat. I never, ever leave home without them. A couple of years back on a stocked brook trout lake in Northwestern Ontario, I was fishing with my long time fishing partner Gene Balec.This was new water, so after some…

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Catching Lake Superior steelhead through the ice is one of the most challenging and exciting types of winter angling there is. These big, nickel plated rainbow trout are tough to pattern at the best of times, and under the ice they become even more unpredictable. Yet hook up with a winter steelhead and it’s likely to be a fight you will remember. These fish strike at full snort and make mind boggling power runs. More than a few winter anglers have been spooled when they connected with a steelhead and didn’t have adequate line to handle the runs. Powerful stuff…

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Steelhead fishing in late summer and fall is one of the coolest angling options in Northwestern Ontario. Nearly every large stream and river that runs into Lake Superior has some kind of “steelie” run. The larger the river, the better the chance of tangling with one of these great fish. The fall run steelhead is essentially a rainbow trout that has lived at least a year in Lake Superior, and has returned to the river. Late season steelhead are feeding, but may also hold over and spawn in the spring. They are a fish of some mystery. They are also…

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The trail into the small lake was a mess. Dead trees were everywhere, and there was a smattering of snow to deal with. Yet expectations were high as we got closer to the small jewel sitting on the very top of the hill. When my partner got his first look, he said “uh oh.” The reflection of the grey skies made the alpine lake look ice covered, and we knew that it was an unusually late spring. On closer inspection, however, the lake proved to be ice free. “False alarm,” said my relieved friend. “It’s wide open.” We had no…

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We decided to start by slowly trolling along the out flow of a muddy creek. The line between the brown river run off and Superior’s crystal clear flow was easy to follow. My son Devin Ellis, and myself, trolled #7 Rapala Shad Raps. At the front of the boat, Sandro Fragale cast a Mighty Mitch and Jungle Jig fly. I kept the boat moving relatively slowly and we cast the Shad Raps out behind the boat. Sandro started working the river mouth , swimming a black headed bucktail slowly back to the boat. Then he loaded the rod but his…

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