Canada in a flash 7/8 – 7/11

[Sand Burr]

Canada in a flash 7/8 – 7/11

I should have called this better late than never… Due to a recent job switch I had a week off that I dedicated to a couple mini-vacations. My first vacation brought me to Sturgis. This was just something I wanted to check off the bucketlist. My second vacation was to tent camp in Canada with my 13 year old son Quinn. Our first order of business was to reserve a tent spot at Finlayson Lake Resort. I have stayed here a couple of times in there cabins with family and friends so it was an easy choice. They have a great facility with updated bathrooms and showers. They also have an online reservation system that works perfectly. Give them a visit www.finlaysonfishingresort.com . The other nice thing is that they are located in Atikokan which is approximately 1.5 to 2 hours from Fort Frances crossing near International Falls. We left on a Wednesday morning and we were able to get up there and have camp set up with plenty of time for and evening meal and fire. The first morning brought some high winds and a rain so we opted for some tent games until things cooled down. We weren’t able to hit the lake until mid afternoon and we made the most of it. As you will be able to see the smallmouth were stepping up to the plate! My son had the hot hand with them and came in with a 18”, 181/2”, 19 and a 20”. Yep he smoked me! It seemed to me that my job was to catch the 16” and under. Of course our plan was walleyes. It took us a bit but we located our share of eaters the first night in 8-14 FOW and caught them on lindy rigs baited with night crawlers. Hammered copper and Chartreuse blades did the trick. These were smaller fish in the 13-15 inch range but provided a nice camp meal. The next day we started the morning out in the same spot but couldn’t buy a fish. We started to explore more of the lake and islands and while it was very peaceful it was less than fulfilling. As we rolled around to our evening fish we move to a windblown point close to were we caught the eyes from the night before. I marked fish in 25-30ft of water. We weighted up and slowed down our presentation to get the bait down there and as they would say “it was on like Donkey Kong”! We spent the next 3-4 hours catching 17-20 inch golden Canadian walleyes. Keeping only our take home amount we called it a trip. The next morning we headed for home. Quick but effective trip.

A couple of good points was that I had no trouble at the border coming in or out. I was a little worried about me and a 13 year old crossing so I had a letter notarized from my wife that said she knew I was taking him to Canada. I crossed with a passport and a birth certificate for him.

I tested some new to me lures while I was up there from PK lures www.pklures.com . Since I was in 25 plus feet of water I used what they call a Flutterfish. I tipped it with a half of a crawler and was able to slow troll it easily down into my range. At one point while my bass loving son was fighting another I just bounced it over the side and it was killer! I can’t wait to use these ice fishing this year!

Enjoy the pics!

[Hoffer]

awesome report!

Sounds like a great trip for you and your son!

Well done.