Author: Don Lamont

Current accommodations Nestled on a small bay at the start of the Winnipeg River at Pointe du Bois, Trail End Camp is a favourite destination by anglers in the know. Not only is the fishing great but the place is affordable, allowing anglers to spend money on bait and boat gas instead of accommodation and frills. And travel you will, with some 60 kilometres of river open to check out and navigate, all of it prime fishing waters as you headquarter out of this extremely comfortable and friendly lodge owned and operated by Vance and Maureen Hrechkosy. Now get this, you…

I had the opportunity to attend the Manitoba Lodge and Outfitters Conference last month in Winnipeg to listen to a panel headed by the Manitoba of Chamber President and CEO Chuck Davidson titled “ Getting Tourism on the government’s radar.” Having worked in the past as Outdoor Product manager for Travel Manitoba even I was surprised at the small amount the province reinvests to promote tourism. Travel Manitoba has a budget in the neighborhood of $7 million a year; a drop in the bucket considering tourism brings in more than 1.4 billion a year. Davidson is advocating more of a…

RED RIVER SHOULD BE HOT!Ice conditions across the province are improving. Many anglers are taking advantage of This one was near the bottom!good solid ice to get onto the Red River north of Selkirk. Anglers are targeting deeper stretches of the river all the way to the End of Main and catching some real nice fish. Check out the Manitoba Fishing Forum at http://www.manitobafishingforum for all the latest updates.Most ice anglers are reporting ice thickness of five to six inch inches. This means walking out, not riding! Caution is always required because there are always thin spots when current is…

Tim Au and the author holding a couple of beautiful greenback walleyeIt’s not often that Tim Au gets an opportunity to get out of the gym in the fall time. As a highly respected high school volleyeball coach at Miles Macdonnell Collegiate in Winnipeg, Tim devotes much of his spare time to honing the skills of his players. When volleyball season winds down at the end of November, he then is almost full time with his young family, at least until spring rolls around. He then takes on his role as the organizer of the very successful Miles Mac Angling…

DAY 3: As we rolled out of bed, we were pleasantly surprised to see the wind had settled down and switched over to the south finally. It promised to be beautiful day with temperatures slowly rising to five Celsius. Boat control was not going to be a problem which meant we had all kinds of options open to us. We decided to start at the mouth of the river, fishing in water from 16 to 24 feet. Watching the depth finder, we noticed that the bait and fish we had seen on Day One, were really not there in any…

Now that is a walleye!As we rolled out of bed and looked over the lake all we could see were whitecaps and trees bending over along the shoreline. The forecast this day was for winds steady at 50 kilometres with gusts of 70 kilometres. This meant we had to trailer our boats from the Tobin Lake Resort were we were staying out to the Nipawin Provincial Park. As it turns out, we had our best big fish day partly because we decided trolling cranks in this heavy wind was the only option. It also meant we decided to stop at…

Boyd with his first nice walleye After two poor fall fishing trips in a row, we were a little apprehensive as we headed north to Tobin Lake this past week. While we were about three days earlier than the previous year, we hoped the weather would cooperate. Last year we fished every day with wind chill in the minus 12 Celsius range, a bone chilling experience that would have been almost bearable if the fishing had been good. After a smooth trip up to the Tobin Lake resort, the weather forecast gave us hope for at least three days of…

Inspired by the great fishing we had on the Thanksgiving Monday, I headed back out Thursday on the Red River. I was a little apprehensive on the conditions though, since the drawdown of the river in the city had begun and this usually slowed the fishing for a few days until conditions stabilize. After trying the Miracle Mile and Doc Reeds plus a couple of hours with boat in gear on some extended trolling runs, I only saw two walleye caught and neither were in our boat. Many a wily old river veteran will tell you that is the time…

Cold nights and some north winds have triggered walleye to move into the Red River in numbers from Lake Winnipeg. Friend Pete Hiebert and I headed out to Selkirk Park Thanksgiving Monday to check things out. After boating down to the Miracle Mile and dropping anchor in 12 feet of water, we started catching fish all right but unfortunately they were all saugers. Meantime three anglers in a small 12 foot boat 500 feet away were landing walleye after walleye. While frustrating for us, it was nice to see the smiles on their faces and confirm the fact that there…

What is the bite like on the Red river this fall? Since there’s nothing like firsthand experience two friends and I headed out Thursday to find out.Fishing between Selkirk and Lockport, we fished hard for eight hours. We ended up catching seven nice walleye, none bigger than two kilograms though. Jim with first green of the fallFour of them were caught trolling crankbaits along the main river channel in three metres of water and the others came on a jig tipped with a salted shiner minnow. Other anglers were catching walleye this way from an anchored position. We did do some…