Just after the first of the year I get a phone call from my cousin Jeff, he had an opening on their annual fly in fishing trip to Northern Manitoba and he invited me to attend. Hell ya!!!! I flew from O.C. on Friday morning 6/15 to Winnipeg and met up with Jeff at the 5 points Sheraton, which happens to be right across the street from the airport (very convenient). Our party also consisted of 3 of Jeff's father's college buddies Joe, Chuck, Andy, and Andy's son Mark who all drove up from Chicago. Our outfitter was
GANGLER’S North Seal River | The fishing adventure of a lifetime , they had a representative at the hotel all day and evening on Friday loading a trailer and van with everyone's gear and rod tubes. There were about 45 passengers in all that would be traveling north to various outposts operated by Ganglers. Our gear was placed on the plane and we were picked up at the hotel by motorcoach at 0500 Sat. morning and transported to our plane at the other side of the airport for our 2 1/2 hour flight.
We touched down on a compacted sand runway at the main lodge....... yes, that's right a SAND RUNWAY! Our gear was sorted by color tags and placed on pallets staged to be loaded to the float plane to be shipped with us to our final outpost destination. Everyone was greeted by the owner Wayne and his son Ken and directed to the main lodge where each party waited comfortably to called to the float planes as they buzzed back and forth to the outposts.
Finally our time came and off we went for a 1/2 flight and water landing to an island on Maria Lake (type in "Maria Lake, Canada" on google earth for location) 58.41.02 N & 100.43.01 W. After touch down we were greeted by our camp managers Ken & Danielle this married couple are two of the hardest working people you have ever met! Ken assisted us and our gear to our spotless clean 2 man cabins while Danielle prepared lunch. After a brief rundown on the do's and don'ts about the boats, what hazards to be aware of on the lake, and what lures worked last week Jeff and I were off and running to his favorite trout hole. He and the rest of the group had been to this lake several times and pretty much had it wired but we carried hand held GPS's and a map for safety sake. He stops at a narrowing portion of the lake and tells me to put on a jigging iron, we used mega bait irons in 20 ft of water and nailed 79 lake trout in 2 1/2 hours then headed back to camp prior to 7pm dinner time.
Every evening we would be greeted at the dock by Ken who would assist in unloading tackle boxes and excess clothing (in case it rained overnight) then he changes out both 5 gallon gas tanks and places a freshly charged 12v battery for the trolling motor. We would drop off our gear at the cabin and make it to the food cabin to be treated to a gourmet made from scratch dinner every evening.
Danielle prepared meals consisting of racks of ribs, ribeye steaks, smoked ham, whole turkey, chicken Marcella and more. Accompanied with home made potato salad, twice backed potatoes, mashed potatoes, homemade stuffing, cole slaw..... ect. Desert would then be something in the order of blue berry pie, apple pie, chocolate cake with vanilla pudding.... ect. There was enough food to eat as much (and in most cases) more than you wanted too! After dinner it was time for the nightly poker games and professional bullshit session (I suck at poker, but can hold my own at bullshitting).
Then off to our cabins for the evening. The cabins had a small table and chairs, 2 twin beds, a full bath with shower and water heater. Every day while out fishing Danielle would clean each cabin, make the beds, wash the bath & hand towels and have them neatly folded at the foot of your bed. The cabins are also equipped with blinds for the window which is greatly needed due to the constant daylight. Unbelievable at how it never gets dark up there during the summer months!!!!
Danielle is in the kitchen at 0600 preparing daily for the 0700 homemade breakfasts served up of pancakes, French toast, eggs, hash browns, country fried potatoes, smoked ham, sausage patties and links.......... ect. A large pot of coffee, apple & orange juices were always ready before we were. After breakfast we'd make a quick trip back to cabin, pick up our gear and return to the kitchen cabin where Danielle had prepared and packed our daily lunches into a waiting cooler. Lunches consisted of roast beef or ham or turkey sandwiches, homemade cookies, apples and oranges. Like I said before, this couple worked their butts off and made you feel like a king up there.
On Sunday, our first full day on the water (8 am to 6:50 pm) Jeff and I went to an inlet creek where 36" to 40" Northern Pike and 3 lb to 8 lb lake trout were the norm. We fished all day using a variety of lures, jigs, and swimbaits for a total count of 97 fish.
On Monday we went to a portage lake to catch walleye. To get there we traveled 6 miles by boat, hiked a 1 mile trail to a waiting boat, traveled 2.5 miles across another lake to a trail, hiked another .75 mile trail to another waiting boat, traveled 1 mile, hiked another 1/4 mile trail to our final boat and lake. The walleye were hungry and inhaling 3" mister twisters on 8 lb line with trout rods............ until I get bit by a 42" Northern Pike which rips 3/4 of my spool off until he comes to the boat. Jeff is truly a walleye master, outfishing my big time on the feisty ones. The pike fishing picked up later in the day and we both proceed to putting the wood to them on almost anything and everything we'd throw at them, but they really like the 4" & 5" swim baits. We ended up with 158 fish in a about 7hrs.
A 500lb black bear made his way down to the waters edge and entertained us by pulling down small birch trees numerous times and allowing them to spring back up, where as he would jump back and romp around in a playful way. Very cool stuff to witness in the wild!!! During our return we had an interesting finding at one of the trail heads. Ken had suspended 1 gallon white bleach bottles at each end of the trails to signal where to pull the boat up to, during our return one of the bottles had been mauled by a bear. The thing looked like it been hit by a 12 gauge at short range. That caused a pucker factor times 10 for our next hike, I think we ran out of songs to sing during our hike. I looked down at the GPS and saw that we were traveling at 4 mph through the woods..... nerves really make your feet move fast.
Tuesday was a bright sunshiny day, so we hit the shallow reefs and islands areas where the lake trout came to bask in the 2 ft of water warmed by the sun on the rock bottom. We drift fished similar to Bone fishing and nailed the 6 lb to 12 lb Lake Trout and Pike up to 40" on the swim baits. Total fish count for the day was 52.
Wednesday, June 20th, My birthday!!!! We were greeted to cold, gray windy weather with periodic sleet and hail, then it warmed up to 70 degrees later in the day. This was one of those days that you can't do anything wrong on the water. We started out at the old faithful trout hole throwing swim baits for trout up to 33" and 11 1/2 lbs. when I pulled a beautiful trophy 38" , 20+lb trout off the bottom. I would make a few casts then change lures, getting bit on the first cast on 5 out of 8 lure changes!!! One of those days when Jeff and I would search through the tackle bag and find those lures that has never worked.... well, they worked that day. We made our way towards an outgoing stream from our lake to another and picked away at Pike up to 42" long.
Upon arriving at the outlet stream Jeff amazed me by nailing cookie cutter 28" to 30" trout on 5 of his first 6 casts!!!!!! We dropped the anchor at the mouth of the stream and Jeff rigs his 6 lb outfit with a bobber and small spinner, casts it back into the current a pulls out a 19" Artic Grayling!!!! Beautiful fish!!!! A couple casts later and he's hooked up again only to be robbed by one of the many waiting Pike than clamped down on his Grayling, tangled up in the line and broke off headed down stream. Total fish count for the day was 70.
Thursday we set out on an exploratory trip in attempt to find a new trout hole. Andy had given me a new deep diving crank bait that did it's job when Jeff and I would make a pass we picked up single and double hook ups consecutively for over a dozen passes until we marked out GPS's and headed down the lake for some Pike fishing. The Pike hadn't been in the weeds and shallows all week until today, and boy did we have a blast!!!!!! Jeff pulled into a couple of bays until we found the gathering place for many, many monster pike that would at time bounce off of each other and porpoise out of the water in an attempt to inhale our weedless spoons. Jeff picked up the big Pike for the week at a whopping 43" followed by back to back casts of a 41" Pike!!! Total fish count was 104.
Friday, our last day......... heavy rain began at 2am, clouds were sitting at 35 to 40 off the lake, we didn't change our routine..... breakfast was followed by a large serving of time on the water. We ran the 10 miles into a driving rain to where we left off at the day before and the fish welcomed us with open mouths! Several Pike in the 38" to 42" size battled us all day long in the rain that felt 20 degrees warmer than the lake water, apparently triggering a very memorable bite. Total fish count for our last day was 97.
Saturday morning we said our goodbye's to Ken and Danielle and began out journey home with pictures, smiles, and memories of a fantastic week at Maria Lake.
Tackle Used:
8 lb rod & reel combo
15 lb rod & reel combo
6" long 25lb stainless steel leaders
1/2 & 3/4 oz lead heads
4" & 5" swim baits (Big Hammer worked best) any color configuration with a light colored belly and dark back.
3 1/2" Tail Dancer Rapalla's
Johnson silver minnows with pork rind trailer
Gold Mepps Muskie killers
Numerous more, but the above were what we did most of our catching on.
All fish were caught and released, only pulled out of the water for photography purposes.
Thank you very much to Jeff, Joe, Chuck, Andy & Mark for an awesome week!!!
Also thanks goes out to Kevan at Noah's tackle for setting me up with all my needed rods, reels, swimbaits and other tackle.
Canada Fly In Report - Northern Pike and Lake Trout 
