Mustang's Annual Canadian Fishing Trip Report - 19

[Mustang]

I suspect that the lateness of this report somewhat reflects my enthusiasm about reporting on this particular trip.

Bill Hagedorn, my primary fishing partner and I departed Northern Kentucky on May 8th and stayed overnight at the Soo, and then an extra day due to incredibly rotten weather on the 9th. We arrived at the Blue Heron Resort in Spanish on the 10th and began fishing later that day.

 

For the second straight year snow was still on the south shore and the water temperature was 43 degrees when we arrived, but unlike last year when spring prevailed and warm temperatures and sunshine were the order of the day, this year is remained cold, grey, windy, and with high water thrown in for good measure, this trip was challenging at best.

Our normal procedure is to launch our boat out of a camp on the North Channel about seven miles from camp, and fish out there for the first week, and then move to the docks at the Blue Heron Resort, up the Spanish River, where we centralize our fishing operation for the remainder of the trip, mixing in river fishing with trips out to the bay.

This year, because of high water prevalent in the Great Lakes and the North Channel, the Spanish River remained high and with a strong current, not allowing them to put the docks in at camp, relegating us to fishing all three weeks in the North Channel, virtually eliminating any walleye opportunities and fishing close to camp, where we normally encounter a musky or two.

 

With all of this being said, the fishing was good, albeit comprised mostly of smallmouth bass which are prevalent, but out-of-season, and Northern Pike in the 24-28" range.

With overnight temperatures below freezing, and the fact that we were forced to commute to and from our boat each day, rather than fish two sessions which we prefer, we put in one long day that started about 10am in the morning and normally ran until about 5pm that evening when we called it a day. During our three week stay I wore long underwear most days, layered up and never got to fish a day in "white pants", which I enjoy.

 

Roger Beiting flew up to Saulte Ste Marie, Michigan, rented a car and joined us for our second week, and despite the conditions, had a good week of fishing. Roger didn't bring his passport, got into Canada on his drivers license, had his passport mailed to him, which we discovered had expired, but still had no trouble getting back across the border into the US.

 

When we departed on May 31st the water temps had only reached 53 degrees, and the trees were just beginning to bud out. We completely missed out on the pencil grass, nor the fish moving out into deeper water around the islands. The docks didn't go in at camp until two weeks following our departure.

 

Since we are getting older and prefer to fish in some degree of comfort, we have moved our reservations back a week for next year, which will probably assure an early spring.

 

The formal trip report, and past years reportscan be found at:

SchabellSpanishRvrFishingTrip19