By Layne Maier
Last Mountain Lake seems to escape notice from anglers despite the fact it is one of the top walleye and pike lakes in North American. While hard core anglers from Regina and area know about the trophies this prairie lake holds it has escaped major international attention for the most part. This lake is 93 kilometres in length and was formed by glaciation 11,000 years ago and is the largest naturally occurring body of water in the southern half of Saskatchewan. It is just 40 kilometres north of Regina adjacent to the Qu’Appelle Valley. The lake was named for a Plains Cree legend about the Great Spirit shoveling dirt from the valley the lake now occupies and forming Last Mountain Hills east of Duval.
Having been born and raised in Regina, Saskatchewan and having been at Last Mountain Lake since the week I was released from the hospital, it was no surprise to anyone that I would grow up to be an avid angler. Things started simple enough with summer perch off the dock with my sisters, shore fishing for pike with my friends, pursuing walleye for table fare off the boat with my parents. The long cold winters would be spent inside our 8×12’ ice shack built by the men I looked up to. These were simple times and many long lasting memories were made, nothing thrilled me more than to be able to provide a feed of fresh fish for my family.
Over the years I began to hone my skills and met many great friends that shared my same passion and together we spent countless hours chasing our favourite fish during all 4 seasons. However, in my group there is a clear cut winner when it comes to our favourite angling activity; ice fishing for walleye. As soon as I was old enough to drive I purchased my first 4 wheel drive, a Jiffy power auger, a pair of ice rods and we would be off every weekend on a new adventure. Acquiring my ice fishing skills didn’t come easy. We spent many hours freezing beside the truck, drilling hundreds of holes to troll for the next bite and watching rod tips before any of us even knew what a flasher was. Needless to say, whenever we were lucky enough to catch a couple fish they would always hit the ice and ultimately end up being dinner.
Eventually my friends and I got better at fishing. We put in the hours, and we we’re often rewarded for our efforts. As ice fishing and fishing in general grew in popularity, our sacred spots started to see more traffic and we started to notice a decline in the fish quality and the fishing overall. Watching so many people pull fish of all sizes out of the lake and keep them made me wonder how much longer the lakes would be able to sustain if things didn’t change. It really started to sink in that they simply could not continue at this rate and that I would first need to change myself. I will never forget the toughest fishing lesson I ever learnt, how to put fish back in the lake.
It defied everything I was ever taught, “What is the point of fishing if you don’t keep the fish?” was a question I had to answer on a regular basis to family, friends and peers. I was 21 years young and on the quest for my first double digit walleye and I knew that if I didn’t start releasing the big, healthy breeders than I would be far less likely to ever get my dream fish. It wasn’t that I did not enjoy eating fish. There is nothing I enjoy more than a fresh caught winter walleye or perch, but I had to start being more selective of which fish I kept. I decided I would start releasing all my walleye that were over 20 inches unless they were mortally wounded from taking a hook too deep. I also realized that I would no longer be able to fish deep water like I once had, as the mortality rate was just too high once you got out past 30 feet of depth. With this in mind I now had a whole new outlook on fishing, how could I expect the lake to constantly just keep giving without me giving anything back myself?
I spent the next couple seasons aggressively pursuing walleye on Last Mountain Lake with my friends and our hard work and effort finally started to pay off with good numbers of respectable sized fish. But still the monsters seemed to elude us. It got frustrating at times. We were usually the first ones to the lake and always the last ones to leave, and a combination of good fishing and hard-headedness forced us to carry on the search for big winter walleye. We caught and released countless walleye in the 4-9 pound range and I really had a chance to perfect my catch and release skills. On top of just releasing big fish and staying out of deep water it became obvious that the fish had other things working against them after being caught. The cold temperatures above ice coupled with improper handling proved to be major fish-killers as well. The eyes and fins of a fish can freeze within 30 seconds of being out of the water, their skin can freeze the moment it touches the ice and being less than gentle with the pliers could do some serious damage to the throat of a fish. These are things people often don’t account for that can be deadly for a fish that may be able to swim away after being released but unfortunately has little chance of survival. We refined our whole approach and decided it was essential to be ready for when we finally landed a big one. From then on we always had a portable shack heated up to keep fish warm in case we needed to take pictures or had to take extra time to remove a hook. Our pliers, scale, camera and tape measure were always kept on hand so the fish could be released quickly with as little stress as possible.
Soon after it all started to come together, we were on big fish. Even better was that we were getting them back into the lake so they could be caught again. All our catch and release trials and tribulations began paying off and we were being rewarded with the big fish we had been seeking. As silly as it sounds I felt like it was catch and release karma. I spent years learning to respect the lake and the fish before I ever got my chance to land a big walleye; and when it finally happened I was fully prepared. The last couple seasons I have been privileged enough to land some amazing fish on Last Mountain but it wasn’t without a lot of hard work and complete respect for our fishery. It may sound cliché but I truly do believe the old saying “you reap what you sow”, if you want to catch big fish you must first be willing to put others back. The lake continues to reward us and I’m extremely excited to see what it has in store for us during the next season.