Author: Don Lamont

Illustration by Sara Wilde The more I get into fishing, the more I want my hands in every step of the process. I’m not so far gone that I’m hammering spoons or weaving super line (yet), however I think good fishing begins with catching bait. Nothing man-made can match the attraction of the smell, texture, and action of a living creature, and trophy fish have refined tastes. But catching your own can bring about a new set of challenges. As a parent, you may not want to spark that food chain/circle of life conversation before your Saturday morning coffee on…

I have known Jim Lindner for years, back when he was filming for the In Fisherman television show. I did a number of shows with his uncle Al with Jim behind the camera both for In Fisherman and my show The Complete Angler. I caught up with Jim recently when he was the Mid Canada Marine Dealer’s Boat Show doing seminars. Hooked: When was your first fishing experience? Jim Lindner: It came about when we visited our grandmother’s place in northern Illinois. We would fish off the docks and wander the shoreline collecting turtles and frogs, just learning the love…

Persse Lake     It was noon when Ryan Suffron and I decided to load up the boat from Laurie and head west back towards the edge of the Duck Mountains to Persse Lake. Located just to the east of Twin Lakes, the 132 acre lake was fully developed in 2010 to include a road, parking lot, launch area and hydro right of way. An aerator building is on site and this equipment keeps the lake alive during the long Manitoba winters. This lake has a large population of both brown and brook trout. According to Suffron, because of a…

Laurie Lake- Part TwoI had deliberately delayed my ride home a day so I could get a chance to fish with Ryan Suffron of Alpine Country Outfitters. Working out of his home south of Benito at the base of the Duck Mountains has allowed Ryan to become an expert on the different trout species that exist out his back door. Funny, but on this day, he too wanted a crack at the big brown trout that exist in Laurie Lake. In fact the Manitoba length record brown of 31 inches comes from this beautiful lake.Ryan fishes out of 16 foot…

Master Browns Part One Yours truly with a chunky brown   It had been a number of years since my last visit to the Duck Mountains in west central Manitoba. This past week that all changed when I spent five days in the region. I was on a speaking tour to six schools in the Swan Valley region as part of a Stewards for the Resource program sponsored by Swan Valley Sport Fishing Enhancement Inc.  I travelled up from Winnipeg on the Saturday to participate in their annual banquet and fish fry in the community centre in Swan River.…

Shore fishing 101!!!Part OneBy Don LamontHow did you get your fishing start! Was it out of a boat? Chances are pretty good that it wasn’t but rather from shore. Did you know that the majority of anglers that fish in North America fish from shore? In a recent interview with James Lindner from the Angling Edge television show, he told me that 52 per cent of the angling effort in this hemisphere is indeed along the shoreline. Lindner is just developing a pilot series that will highlight this huge part of the industry. Brent Jakobson, who manages the Fishin Hole…

Micro baits not always the answer, so upsize your game for jumbo perch! Thinking back years ago, Jumbo Perch weren’t top on the minds of many local ice anglers in and around Thunder Bay. Fast forward to the past couple of years, where these two words are spoken often among ice fishing circles, with much excitement and along with any talk of Jumbo Perch, two more words generally follow, Black Bay. This unique bay along the North shore of Lake Superior is an amazing part of the big lake, with its warmer, shallower waters making it a very different environment…

So you’ve done your research, you know what lakes are producing and the locations where fish are active, you have the right rods, reels, lines, leaders, and flies and your ready to hit the water. You mark fish on your sonar, you observe active fish, there everywhere! You cast every line, leader and fly combination in your possession but you continue to come up empty. You cast and retrieve, you troll, and you sit and wait. Hours later, in a desperate frame of mind you ask yourself, “What am I doing wrong?” Welcome to the world of stillwater trout fishing,…

Whether you care to admit it or not, we all have vices, and we all have room to grow as not only a person but as a better angler, wait a minute, wouldn’t a better angler, be a better person!? Maybe your New Year’s resolution is to shed a few pounds, quit smoking, or try something new? As a seasoned tournament bass angler it’s hard not to fish the same lures and techniques year after year, especially if you have had some success on the tournament trail. ‘Fishing memories’, whether that be spots you’ve caught fish on in the past,…

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…