MANITOBA
Hooked Contributor Matt Gelley spends his summers at his parents cottage on the Lee River. Matt takes that time to chase a variety of fish including really large smallmouth bass. While he has to look for them many of these larger smallmouth eat ciscoes during the summer. They are located near main lake basins on ledges near the deeper water were they can corral these high protein forage. This diet makes them fat and sassy.
While many of our rivers in the southern part of the province are low from a lack of rainfall it is concentrating fish in deep pockets next to current. This gives the necessary oxygen and coolness to survive the hot days of summer in low water conditions. It also makes them easy to target. Check out this 29 inch walleye from the Assiniboine River.
Carter Manser caught this walleye while enjoying a bit of shore fishing during the summer holidays.
NORTHWESTERN ONTARIO
RAINY LAKE-JEFF GUSTAFSON
For the last 25 years I’ve spent the third week of July at Rainy for the annual Fort Frances Canadian Bass Championship and it’s always one of the weeks I look forward to most of the entire year!
If you have never ventured down to the might Rainy Lake you are missing some of the best multi species angling in the world. While it is big water it also holds big fish! There are plenty of lodges to choose from and water to explore.
SASKATCHEWAN
Last Mountain Lake and Tobin Lake continue to produce some great walleye fishing. Look for them on their summer spots. These include deep points and humps.
SUMMERTIME CISCO PATTERN
With the advent of the hot weather, insect hatches become intense on our lakes, rivers, and streams. This pattern should hold for most of this month and anglers should key in on it if they want to catch trophy fish of all species. Ciscoes exist in many of our lakes across western Canada, growing to a maximum size of 40 centimetres and an age of 10. They are easy to spot when surface feeding with a dorsal fin that becomes very visible when they are up scooping insects. Lake trout, walleye, northern pike, burbot and even channel catfish will feast on these high protein fish when given the opportunity.
Read a more in depth article I wrote after a trip in July to Tobin Lake https://www.hookedmagazine.ca/keying-in-on-open-water-forage/
BRITISH COLUMBIA-WES DAVID-FISHING THE WILD WEST
After returning from ICAST, in Orlando, Florida, I had a day and a half at home before boarding a plane to Comox, British Columbia. I was exhausted, but the excitement of fishing salmon on the Pacific Ocean made it easy to keep my spirits up.
The Comox and Campbell River areas of British Columbia are well known for incredible salmon fishing. I would be fishing with Tim, the owner of BuzzBomb Tackle, out of Courtenay, BC. Not only were we shooting an episode of Fishing the Wild West TV, but we were also field-testing some new BuzzBomb tackle and the new Sunline Big Bait FC, Fluorocarbon fishing line from Sunline, which was released at ICAST.
While many boats were trolling flashers and a variety of bait presentations in known salmon areas, we were setting up on bait balls and jigging Green Holographic Zzingers, from BuzzBomb Tackle, into the bait and manipulating the lure to look like a wounded bait fish. Salmon would hit our presentation with aggression, and it rarely took very long before one of us had a salmon on. The most aggressive and consistent fishing was an hour before and after slack tide.
We were fishing in depths ranging from 55 to 85 feet of water, and the new Big Bait FC Fluorocarbon line from Sunline proved to be a real key to fighting and landing salmon weighing from 10 to 20 pounds. The Big Bait FC Fluorocarbon line is manufactured to absorb the shock of casting, trolling, or jigging heavy lures and to withstand the shock of aggressive strikes of big fish, while maintaining the sensitivity that Sunline is known for.
I will be jigging BuzzBomb Tackle and trolling #4 Len Thompson Lures for lake trout in a couple of weeks at Stockman’s Lodge in northern Saskatchewan and will be using the Sunline Big Bait FC.
Wes David. Host and Producer of Fishing the Wild West TV