The 10
th week of our season highlighted the flexibility required to continue the trend of great fishing our guests have become accustomed to. Ever changing weather conditions, sun, rain, smoke, and wind…mother nature threw just about everything she had at this week’s group of anglers. This week the guides were kept on their toes switching the patterns to chase pike on rocks, weeds, drop-offs, and in bays! Big fish have started to set up on windy shores and summer weed beds, having veteran guides pays off in pike; big ones! They have a mental catalogue of milfoil, eel grass cabbage and 100’s of different addresses of big pike on Scott and the 20 odd flyout lakes we fish. Week 10, they fished them in the weeds when it was raining, on the shorelines when the wind howled and right back in the springtime bays when the sun shone. Anglers were treated to a full gamut of our big pike tactics, including the coveted sight fishing action of the shallows. 99 trophies hit the nets or cradles this week. The pike charge was led by John Borden with a 47” trophy northern pike. John and guide Jan didn’t rest on their laurels and added and big trout and grayling to the total to enter John into the growing ranks of the 100+ Club. Nick Tallman split his time between pike and trout, Graham found the right trout spot and put Nick on a monster 41” laker. A hike to the grayling rapids on the Dubawnt River netted Nick a bevy of big ‘lings; then back in the boat a 43” northern pushed Nick’s trophy total over 100”. Jeff Hoskins made his first trip to Scott Lake memorable with a Trophy Triple. The Olsons (Tom and Tim) along with guide Biff, put on a day 4 pike clinic finding big fish hunkered down in Smalltree’s famed cabbage beds. The duo caught an astounding 13 trophy northern pike between 40 and 45” …. truly a testament to what managing pressure on our network of lakes can do. How can you beat it, a flyin fishing trip to the border of Saskatchewan and the Northwest Territories at the end of July and fishing for big northern pike? That’s not the end of the story for this week though…
As summer progresses and trout become concentrated in “the holes” opportunities to do battle with the true giants of the northern lakes comes more frequent. Each year Mike Scheidt comes up to fish with guide Paul Hamilton, the pair are a terror on trout. Boating numbers and size the team were successful on many trophies with the biggest a girthy specimen of 39.5”.
A milestone was passed this week, on day 3 Chuck Webster caught a 42” northern pike, that put the total number of inches of just our trophy size pike (those 40” and bigger) over 40,000!!! In Canadian measure that is 1 Kilometer (0.6 miles) of trophy pike caught in 2017. A true testament of the successful pairing of great guests and a guide staff that can take just about any curveball the northern summer can throw at them and hit it out of the park! There is no reason to sit at home and reminisce about the good old days of Canadian fly in fishing…. they were not as good as things are now at Scott Lake Lodge, strict catch and release and fish handling rules and a plan to manage (even the limited amount in a summer) fishing pressure means there are more and bigger northern pike, lake trout and grayling in our systems. What are you waiting for? The time is now!
