Author: Don Lamont

Walleye caught on a mid lake humpIs it really the dog days of summer when it comes to angling success? It can be but much depends on the body of water that you target at this time of year. For those fishing shallow lakes with a lot of weed cover, it can be frustrating finding any biting fish during the day. At night time, however, these lakes tend to become alive with active fish using the weed edges as ambush points. Windy, overcast days can also trigger shallow fish into feeding. Then there is current, the great equalizer! Current flow…

Rain followed friend Pete Hiebert and I as we headed up Highway # 6 to Thompson, Manitoba this past week. That was a good thing after a dry spring had made the north tinder dry. A fire near York Landing was to force evacuation of the community on our trip, thus canceling our visit there as part of the Provincial Rod and Reel program. Fortunately on Wednesday, after hooking up with Dale Jonasson from Manitoba Hydro we were able to visit the communities of Gillam and Fox Lake. After our visits Dale took us to two nearby rivers which emptied…

It happened three years ago in the parking lot of a local Winnipeg tackle store. I was walking out with my purchase when I was stopped in the parking lot. This does happen on fair occasion but I remember this conversation like it happened yesterday. The fellows name was Joe Kostecki and he hailed from Thunder Bay, Ontario. He recognized me from my days of doing The Complete Angler television show and wanted to show me some lures he and his son were making. Soon he was loading me up with custom tied jig flies from the back of his…

An extremely late spring certainly has made fish in southern Manitoba and Northwestern Ontario crazy! Crazy hungry that is! If you can get out fishing right now on our lakes and rivers, do so. On a trip this past week back to Lake of the Woods water temperatures had risen to the high 50’s, a real key to making these fish move into shallow water in an attempt to fatten up. We started out fishing in a huge bay that had extended sections of shallow water.HOW TO FIND THE FISH I have done many Complete Angler shows in remote section of…

Talk about a tough start to the fishing season here in southern Manitoba. A number of lakes in southern Manitoba were still frozen when the season opened. Some of the big lakes still are! I was scheduled to go on my first adventure the last two days of the long weekend. Heavy rain and strong winds forced that adventure to be cancelled but luckily I was able to get out with some friends this past week on Lake of the Woods. While water temperatures in the main lake averaged about five Celsius the back bays were a few degrees warmer.…

Gary with a beauty!High water hasn’t stopped the hardcore anglers from hitting the shores of the Red River. Here is a report from Gary Schewe.”It was good to be back fishing on the Red River.I’ve been working in Sask. for the past year so it was good to be back home again. The current was wild near the locks,but if you could get near the shoreline without a lot of debris in your way,you had a fighting chance of landing a fish. Using a single kahle number 5 hook,fresh sucker meat and a lot of sinker weight(up to 12ozs),the deed…

A jigging spoon fishSnowmobile in tow we were headed to Shoal Lake Ontario and our annual late ice adventure for the jumbo whitefish that swim in these pristine waters. A very late thaw, along with flooded ice roads, made the use of snowmobile by far the best mode of transportation. It was a beautiful Friday morning when we hit the lake. The major ice road was still in decent shape so we were able to drive out five kilometres on the lake to an area we could park the truck. Pete relaxing on the machineAfter unloading the snow machine and other…

EARLY SPRING SMALLMOUTH BASS Smallmouth bass can be a great choice to fish early season. In Northwestern Ontario when the ice comes off the lakes and rivers in that region, you are still able to catch these great game fish. In fact there is no closure on the season in Zone 5 though there is a size restriction at certain times of the year if you want to keep fish. I can remember fishing early season pike with Mike Asher on Shoal Lake Ontario, when we got into a nice school of smallmouth off a point in about 10 feet…

Perched on the back of Jim Price’s snowmobile, we headed out across the frozen surface of Lake Winnipeg for the last time this winter. It was Good Friday and half of Manitoba and North Dakota was on the lake with us. Seriously, as we unloaded the snowmobiles, a nonstop caravan of vehicles towing ATVs or snowmobiles was pouring onto the ice at Chalet Beach Road. By the time we headed out it was seven in the morning and despite the fog shrouding the lake, we could see that ice fisherman were scattered everywhere. We decided to start out near shore,…

It has been over two weeks since I last ice fished. I can’t say with the conditions in this part of the world I have been totally motivated. Cold and snow is something we have to deal with, making access to many of our lakes and rivers a very hard chore. My last trip was to East Shoal Lake in the Interlake. About three years ago anglers discovered large perch here and the word has slowly filtered out. Angling pressure has increased tremendously and one can only wonder how long those trophy perch will last.Now that is a perch!Speaking of…