Here on the border of Saskatchewan and the Northwest Territories, Scott Lake Lodge offers three distinct seasons during our eleven weeks of operations that begin on June 10 and end on August 29th: two weeks of spring,six weeks of summer, and three weeks of fall. We don’t know what the summer and fall will bring but the two weeks of spring fishing are in the books. And what a first chapter to the 2016 fishing year. Three groups of anglers have thrown flies, spinners, spoons, plastics and about anything else you can put on the end of a line at the pike of the 60th parallel. Were these pike picky? Not in the least. They have been ferociously attacking anything they can see in these clear northern waters.
SHALLOW WATER MADNESS
Our first three groups with five precious days each have witnessed some incredible scenes. Imagine standing in the front of a boat in a quiet bay. Off to your left near the grassy bank, in water no more than eight inches deep, you spot a rather large tail sticking right out of the water. You gently toss your spinner to the edge of the grass. There is an explosion. You have the fight of your fishing life and then the guide scoops up a magnificent northern pike. The tape does not lie—51 inches of controlled fury. This not long after you landed a 48.5” pike under similar circumstances. If you’re long time Scott Lake Lodge guest Joe Novicki you don’t have to imagine it. You did it! Just one in a five day string of memorable days where Joe boated ten trophy pike. His fishing buddy, Bill Calabresa, didn’t do so badly either, getting eleven total trophies with some monster lake trout—39, 41 and 44”. That’s a great five day run. Fly out Team Lynch (Dave, Patrick and Mike) joined by fishing friend John Sanderson boated an incredible total of 20 trophy pike for the foursome. That’s great fishing.
IT’S ALL IN THE NUMBERS
For people who love the visual excitement of shallow water pike fishing, the first three sessions here at Scott are hard to beat. It’s all about temperature. When the sun beats down on our shallow bays, creating a temperature differential of about six degrees between the cold waters of the open lake and the warming waters of the shallow silt-bottomed bays, all hell breaks loose in those bays. It takes sunny days though. We didn’t get the sun every day and our second group of the season did get cheated with a three day cold front, but we got enough sun to write quite an opening chapter. The action was unreal. Conversations about landing 50 to 100 pike per day with many in the 35-38” range were common around the dinner table. And the trophy numbers were off our charts: raw numbers of big fish caught (not counting all the “ones that got away” stories) tell the story eloquently. In just fifteen days of fishing we racked up 370 trophy fish. The species breakout: 352 pike over 40”, 10 lake trout over 35” and 8 grayling over 15”. That’s around five trophy fish per angler. Sometimes numbers are better than words, if they are numbers like that.
The next set of numbers are even more inspiring: 32 pike over 45” with five of those at 47” (caught by Dan DeChamps, Don Granada, Dave Thome, Dave Lynch and John Sanderson (well his was 47 and a half); five at 48” (taken by Skip Jewett, Jake Jaffe, Joe Novicki, Mel Deane and Dave Thome, a double dipper; and of course that monster at 51”, fought to submission by Joe Novicki, a serious double dipper. We are on track right now to have by far our best trophy season ever. We’re not sure if the fish around here are getting bigger or our guides and anglers are getting better, but we do know that we have over the past five years been seeing many more huge pike. It’s enough to give one spring fishing fever.
CATCH THE FEVER AT SCOTT
Openings for the first three groups of our season are precious and rare. While there aren’t many openings for spring fishing at Scott for 2017, there are some. Our 2017 spring season sessions are June 9-14, June 14-19 and June 19-24. If you want to have a moment like Joe Novicki, watching a monster pike turn and savagely engulf your lure, give Jon Wimpney, our guide/sales manager, an email at j5@scottlakelodge.com When? Right now of course. Get a case of spring fishing fever at Scott next year. We held our prices for 2017. Our packages come very well wrapped: charter flights from Saskatoon, SK, hotel on your southbound return, use of high quality fishing tackle, wine with our extraordinary dinners, complimentary soft drinks and all transfers to the lodge are included. Just get yourself to Saskatoon. Our guide team which now has an average tenure at this Lodge alone of 15 years (a number no other Canadian lodge can even come close to) will take care of you in the boat. Our experienced and dedicated shore staff will take care of you on our 12-acre island in the middle of fishing paradise. Get a conversation going with Jon, now.