Moak Lodge Day Three:
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| Pete with a nice one! |
With the rain behind us, and another east wind blowing at medium strength we decided to head out on Cross Bay and check out some new water. As it turns out, it was a real fun day with a lot of nice pike caught and released. Pete unfortunately lost the fish of a life time. While trolling on the edge of main lake basin in the north end, a huge pike (we assume) grabbed his Live Target lipless crankbait and headed south. Line was just smoking off his reel so after quickly reeling in I jammed the boat in reverse to try and catch up this fish. Then the worst scenario happened, this big fish got Pete’s line wrap around a piece of sunken timber. While the fish stayed on for a short time, this piece of bad luck cost a break off. And though we caught a lot of pike this day plus a few bonus walleye this was the only really large fish we hooked up with. We did cover a lot of water this day and learned a lot about this body of water.
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| Every walleye over 55 cm has to be released. |
Meantime Boyd and the boys were working hard catching walleye down in the river. Fishing Tobin Lake all their life, they wanted to concentrate on some walleye. And with the help of lodge owner Chris and some hard work this all paid off in spades on Day 4 as we concentrated on finding some big fish on Cross Bay!.
HISTORY OF CROSS BAY-CEDAR LAKE
When people ask me about a great drive to place for big pike I mention Cross Bay and portions of Cedar Lake. This fishery is located above the dam at Grand Rapids, Manitoba, some four and half hours by paved highway from Winnipeg. The Grand Rapids Generating Station was built between the years of 1960 and 1968, and this huge structure was the first major hydro-electric project in northern Manitoba.
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| Flooded reservoirs grow large fish! |
Grand Rapids was the logical spot to build the dam because of a series of natural waterfalls along this stretch of the Saskatchewan River that formed a total drop of 35.6 metres. Alexander Mackenzie, first traveled this route in July of 1793 and in his journals described the area as abundant with wildlife and its waters rich with fish, especially sturgeon. As the dam was built, a large reservoir was created above the dam in Cedar Lake. Its water level was raised 3.5 metres, flooding a large tract of land, making it now cover an area of close to thirty five hundred kilometres. Cross Bay is on the east end of the lake were the reservoir drains into Lake Winnipeg. It’s closed to commercial activity and produces huge walleye and pike. Strict management regulations don’t hurt either. You have to release all pike over 75centimetres and walleye over 55centimetres.
