Let’s start with the numbers this time: There were 44 guided days this week – an average of 6 boats on the water each day. For the week we caught and released 13 walleyes over 27 inches, including 3 – 28’s, and two over 29 inches. The daily guide sheets averaged 31 walleyes over 18 inches per day, and the highest daily total was 81 walleyes over 18 inches in one day.
We had a cold front, and a wind shift late this week, and the walleye finally acted like it was fall – for just the last two days of our season there were consistent numbers and size in depths less than 30’. Before that it stayed unseasonably warm with southerly winds, and we spent most of our time working deep water. Lots of time spent with live bait, some success with plastics but only used with finesse presentations. As usual, some of us couldn’t resist the temptation and tried a handful of experiments with plastics and big jigs at speed- but no success.
Our anglers this week chose walleye over northern. There were just a few half days dedicated to hunting for big pike, and results were very hit or miss. The big ones mostly came during or after the cold front late in the week, and they answered to soft plastics run deeper on rock – not a single big pike was caught on a spoon or in the weeds this week. For the week our boast caught and released 6 Northern over 37 inches, including 2 – 38’s, and two over 40 inches.
We are long time guides and fishing addicts here – so during the last week of the season we always spend some time at our nightly round table meetings looking back on the year and thinking about trends or stand-out events. One evening, I was talking about how this year the walleye spent all summer on rock. How unusual that was, that this year was “an outlier”. And one of our senior guides stopped me short and pointed out that we say that about every year! And he was right. …. And we are right – every year is an outlier.
Each year seems to have some trend or pattern that surprises us, despite all the years we’ve spent on Lac seul. But every year the outlier is different. Last year, the number of top end walleye were a surprise. In 2022 the high-water spring pike fishing really stood out. This year the theme was summer rock.
The walleyes this summer went to rock and stayed there all summer long. Here in the central section of Lac Seul most summers there are weeks, or longer, when the walleyes concentrate heavily on sand structures and are hard to find on rock. Don’t get me wrong, those sand structures are incredible to fish. They are big, they have well defined drop offs, underwater points, and corners. This makes them very conducive to running big plastics at speed – a really exciting way to catch big walleye! Absolutely great walleye structure. They are the key to our success with summer walleyes most years, and we know them well. But the walleyes were on rock this summer and there are just so many more rock structures here in this central part of Lac Seul!
We have lots of rock structures that are favourites and produce for us every summer. We visit them regularly when the walleyes shift to rock but end up shifting back to sand when the walleye do. This year the walleyes remained heavily concentrated on rock structures in numbers and size for most of the summer. That gave us more time and flexibility to investigate lots of less well known or even brand new spots and remain confident we could generate success. As a long time guide, nothing is more exciting or interesting than fishing brand new water, identifying key spots, and finding big fish! And this year provided lots of opportunities to do that. That’s the kind of thing that keeps this game interesting and challenging and keeps us coming back year after year!
Hope to see you all at ‘The Wheel’ and do that again next season!
Brett McCallum
