New Trips – Why Canada?

We now offer 2  fishing trips to Canadian Lodges.  Why?  It’s simple. Tremendous (and overlooked) fishing.  Many fly fishers travel to distant waters in the Bahamas, Chile, Argentina, New Zealand and other remote locations.  But far fewer go to nearby Canada.  This is because many places in the Carribean and South America are continuously hyped and promoted in the fly fishing industry, so a large bread trail to them has been established.  But this also means that crowding and fishing pressure is quite heavy in many of these locations, and the better fishing was years ago.

On the other hand, Canada has tens of thousands of pristine lakes, many rivers and large amounts of lightly fished waters.    And for great species like smallmouth bass, northern pike and lake trout, Canada’s waters are unrivalled.  I’ve been fishing Canadian waters for 50 years and I’m still amazed at the quality of its fishing.  Equally amazing to me is how few fly anglers realize this and miss out on this tremendous resource, just over our border.

Sure a passport is required, but the language is the same, laws are similar, food is great, no need to change your money and frankly many Canadians are friendlier than many Americans.   It’s a great country to spend time in, even if the fishing was a bust, which it rarely is.

There’s another reason Canada is off the radar of most American fly rodders, they don’t realize how phenoninal pike on the fly can be.  This is changing and huge Far North lakes like Wollaston are seeing more and more world traveling fly guys coming up to battle pike.  But most fellas who only follow what most of the American fly industry tells them aren’t aware of the pike’s potential. Especially huge ones like Wollaston Lake offers.  So if you’re a person willing to color outside the lines a little bit, you should seriously consider crossing the border to our neighbor to the north.

A reason why even fly fishers who love smallmouth overlook Canada is because they believe lake fishing for smallies is a deep, difficult and tedious affair.  They like rivers, since the fish are shallow and relatively easy targets with a fly rod.  The lake trips we offer are just like that, too.  In the early season North Country lake smallmouth are shallow and sight fishing is often a possibility.  Additionally, there is no tricky currents to contend with, craft handling is easier, waters are very uncrowded and average size of the smallmouth is very large.

And if this isn’t enough to pump the blood, when you focus on the lakes we fish in Ontario you find something even more attractive.  An amazing number of excellent gamefish species, all confined to a very small geographical area.  Not just smallmouth, but excellent numbers of big largemouth bass, many pike, muskies, shallow water lake trout and walleyes.  Almost no other place can you find all of these species in such a small area.  It doesn’t just offer anglers a great choice in what species they want to pursue each day, but it also means if one or two species aren’t biting some others almost certainly are.

Isn’t it time for you to take a Canadian trip this year?

1) Giant Pike in Northern Saskatchewan, Canada: Four-Day Trip

2) Multi-Species Lakes in Ontario, Canada: Five-Day Trip

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Giant Pike Trip in Northern Saskatchewan
and the Multi-Species Trip in Ontario

Both of these Canadian trips offers a fly-in experience to comfortable well run lodges.  The size, number and power of the giant pike at Minor Bay Lodge in Wollaston Lake Saskatchewan has to be seen to be believed.   Tim Holschlag had caught several thousand pike before coming to Minor Bay, but he was still amazed by the tremendous girth and power of the huge fish in Wollaston Lake.  (You can get a sense of the fishing by viewing the included video.)

The trip to Slippery Winds Lodge just over the US border in Ontario offers the unique opportunity to target a different species every day of the trip or just focus on one or two favorites.  Smallmouth are the stars for many guests, but the North Country largemouth fishing is equally awesome and five pound lake trout in the shallows are also tremendous on a fly rod.  And high jumping muskies over 40 inches are definite possibilities, too.  Few angling destinations especially one so close to home offers such a diversity of gamefish and in such a beautiful pristine setting.

On-the-Water Assistance:
Superb Instruction

In addition to enjoying the great fishing in a beautiful setting on either of these Canadian trips, you’ll have a perfect opportunity to learn all about angling’s latest frontier, lake fly fishing.

Informative seminars in the evening covering various aspects of lake fly will be offered for those interested.  Best techniques, seasonal locations, rigging, and fly pattern advice will be covered. Casting instruction is also available, along with an excellent selection of time-tested flies.

If you’re newer to lake fly fishing, these trips are an ideal introduction to this unique angling experience. If you’re a veteran lake angler, this is the perfect place to share this enjoyable fishing with like-minded folks.