It’s hard to believe how fast the season is flying by! When camp is full, it keeps you hopping and “poof” it’s the 1st of July. It has really been a good year, with a lot of our great repeat guests and enough new faces mixed in to make it even more exciting. The weather continues to be unseasonably cool with most of June high temps staying in the 60’s and 70’s with a fair bit of rain coming in smaller manageable doses which has kept our water temps in the 60-65 degree range after hitting almost 74 earlier in the month. Cooler water has kept fishing very good.
Week 5 of the season continued along with some very good fishing for all species with many walleye, northern, smallmouth and perch all being caught. Bill Weaver’s crew had one great day of perch fishing where they caught over 125 jumbo perch (almost all of them 10-13″). Ron Goodin’s veteran crew from Naperville left saying it was one of their best weeks ever and that says a lot as these guys have been coming a long time. Even the two new guys in the crew caught some fish and rumor has it they are invited back next year. BeerNuts as we affectionately call Jerry Biernat, even caught a couple of big crappie during the week as we continue to see crappie establish themselves more in Wabaskang Lake.
Of course a week 5 report would not be complete without mention of the Peffley’s Country Club golf outing. Although the ring leader (Vinnie) wasn’t here, we still had a ball and lot’s of laughs as we always do. Congrats to Warren Tester for almost hitting the “flag” in the closest to the pin competition and to his son Brett, who won the long drive contest with a drive that for all accounts may still be in the air a week later. CRUSHED IT!
Overall a very good week of fishing with walleye being found near weedbeds in 12-13 fow, and also on some deeper structure 14-18 feet. Pike were everywhere with plenty of eaters and a good mix of fish over 30″ mixed in. Smallmouth remain very active, but limited pressure this week on them. Week 6 was a different story.
Most everyone in camp in Week 6 enjoyed an excellent week of fishing. We had a 21 1/2″, 20″, and 18″ walleye caught from under the docks during the week (by accident right Scott), and the smallmouth under the dock were an automatic if you just dropped a worm into the water.
Mel Price brought his family back to camp after a long 13 year absence and it didn’t take long for them to be onto some really nice walleyes, catching a lot of fish >20″. Despite the absence of his brother Bob, Paul Esselman as always found plenty of walleye to catch on Esselman’s Hump. Sam’s crew of six had good success catching a little bit of everything including cabin mate Don Hendricks with some big smallmouth and a 38″ northern. Bob and Mary, despite Mary battling some motion sickness during the week, had a great stay and some good evenings on the water. No cool slow-mo smallmouth videos this year from them, but that’s okay haha!
Joe and Tom, fishing buddies since they were 12, and now in their 60’s were here for their second consecutive year and like last year found lot’s of productive water catching plenty of walleyes and quite a few big ones too. John and Norm had a crew of 6, including Norm’s son Adam who hadn’t been able to make it to camp for 5 years. They found fishing to be a little tougher than in some year’s past, but managed to boat 685 fish for the week all species included. They had some very nice looking perch catches during the later part of the week.
As a referral from John, Scott Schonschack had a group of 11 here. Also from the St. Joseph, MIchigan area and veterans of fishing Canada for many years, they did a good job adjusting to some new waters and were an absolute pleasure to have in camp. Very nice guys, to the man, and we enjoyed hearing many stories they shared during the week with us.
Some warmer temps are in the forecast for the later part of the week and two of the girls who have been in camp for summer visits are about to head back to Indiana. Guess I should quit typing now and take them fishing! Until next time, take care and if your coming up later this summer, see you soon!