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The Most Fun I had Fishing

Started by NortonJoe, October 29, 2021, 08:50:25 AM

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NortonJoe

So its time to get a new thread started (on this rainy day in Ohio)...What's the most fun you ever had in the Kipawa area?  I'll start...

It had to be at least twenty or twenty-five years ago.  We were at Lake Watson and the fishing, for some reason was LOUSY.  The weather was extremely hot and we were catching a few here and there but nothing like we were accustomed to.  On the last day of the trip, my two fishing buddies and I decided we were going to pull the boat up a set of rapids (the water was too low to drive through) to the lake above us, Lac Aux Foins (Grassy Lake).  So we packed some food and beers, got the night crawlers ready, got everything loaded up and headed out.  We got to the foot of the rapids and it looked daunting.  We all jumped out to allow the boat to float higher in the water and pulled the boat up the rapids (not without a bit of cursing, splashing and actually fun).  Once above the rapids we jumped back in the boat, cracked a beer and started fishing...nothing... We tried trolling, still fishing, lures, live bait and jigs, spinners... We kept moving up the lake and eventually made it to the mouth of the Kipawa River where it dumps into Grassy Lake.  The river dumps into the lake to the south of the main part of the lake.

"Hey lets try here at the mouth of the river" my one buddy suggested so we started.  Again we tried jigging, trolling but nothing...until...I decided to grab a pure white Hot n' Tot and drag it around.  It was one of the old ones that was truly white with orange and black eyes, not the pearly ones they have now. Never used one before but what the heck nothing else was working. I tossed the lure out behind the boat and "Wham! fish on." Pulled in a decent sized walleye, on the stringer and the lure goes back out...you guessed it "wham another fish".  You should have seen my buddies scrambling for any white lure they had! All of us trolling white lures and all of them working except that the white Hot n' Tot outperformed the others.  We had a heck of a time drinking beer and pulling fish in the rest of the afternoon until we had to leave to go down the rapids with some daylight left.

Not long after that, Storm Lures stopped making the pure white Hot n' Tots and went to their new line.  So what does any self respecting fisherman do? Yea, you buy other colors and spray paint them white add orange and black eyes and voila!  Anyway, I still have one of the original all white Hot n' Tots (in the original box) just in case.

Let's hear those stories ladies and gentlemen!
Many men go fishing all of their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after.
~Henry David Thoreau

GregL

Awesome story!!

My best time on Kipawa was our first full week.. Fish were really on.. Made us feel like super starts LOL! Best part was a big shore lunch I made the 6 of us.. was so good!

CaptainCrappie

Our first trip to Kipawa was back in 1997 about the second week in June. Son Brian was home on leave from the US Air Force which made the planned trip even more anticipated. Friend Commander Bluegill and myself planned for over a year for the trip after meeting crazy legendary 3 Seasons Camp owner Gerry at the 1996 Cleveland Sportsman Show. I even visited a 90 year old camp veteran Irv Kinch, who was listed as a camp reviewer in the new 3 Season brochure. He lived about 14 miles from me so it was just a short drive getting to meet the elderly gentleman who was a living history book of the Kipawa area.  He knew Gerry's dad and had fished Kipawa for over 40 years.  He had shoe boxes full of pictures which he proudly gave a story or two after each one. What really impressed me were the two mounted walleyes he had on the wall, both over 12 lbs! His personal best was 14 lbs. something! I was captivated by his stories and that visit lasted about 4 hours!  I could see he loved the company he had and I hated to leave.  I continued to visit him until he passed away 6 years later. After telling me how he expected us to treat the camp, he said he trusted us and would tell Gerry that Bob's group (me) passes his evaluation for camp etiquette.  He gave me a few hand tied worm harnesses to try. I thanked him and thought to myself, "won't need em."

I was 50 years old then and had been fishing for about 45 of them so I thought I knew it all, or at least I wasn't a rookie.  Lake Erie produced many 10 fish limits of walleyes over the years. How different could Kipawa be?  We'll have to beat em out of the boat. We're going to kill em!  How are we going to deal with a 6 fish possession limit?  We'll just have to eat our brains out with walleye!  OK!  I can handle that.

The excitement of that first drive was just wonderful, until we made a wrong turn in North Bay. That was probably 150 miles of mistake. We stopped at a small gas station somewhere in the boonies, not to get gas but directions. We also bought some snacks and soft drinks. and was told in no uncertain terms to "move the truck from the pumps!"  It was "blocking the pumps!"  What an A Hole! He probably hasn't sold gas for 2 years!  We left and as we opened our canned drinks.... there was no fizz! Those cans expired about 2 years ago!  At least they were cold.

After unloading, loading, and unloading, and loading our stuff into the cabin, we quickly readied our boats and tried to relax a bit.  Gerry always gave first timers a tour of that portion of the lake. That was nice. His boat, being such a much bigger boat, places, and directions, came fast.  Those flags located on key structures on the lake, where to be a God send.

Ok off we went.  We decided to head toward "The Blue Barrel." Crossing Hay Bay in the daylight, piece of cake. OK then, we're finally here!  I quickly set up Brian's rod and my rod with that guaranteed Lake Erie walleye killer (sales in the millions) the infamous "Erie Dearie."  Oh yeah!  After about 4 hours, I was skunked!  Brian caught about a 10 incher. Uh, hmmmm.  We better head back, it was getting dark. We'll get em in the morning. After a 20 minute ride...Wait, where in the heck are we?  Brian, we're lost!.  Nothing looked familiar. I say a flashing light on a point and headed for it..... Uh, wrong flashing light. "Don't worry dad, Gerry said that he would come out and look for us if we didn't show back up at the dock".... because it was "his boat!" Yeah but where in the heck are we?  Let's turn off the motor and listen for another boat.  There's one, lets try to catch up.  After 20 minutes we were lucky to catch up.  Hey guys we're lost, where in the heck is 3 Seasons?  3 Seasons?  3 Seasons? it's about two miles that way...... we were 180 deg. off course!  Hey Brian, lets not tell Larry (Commander Blue Gill) and Mike that we were lost...  That would be embarrassing. Deal.  As we pulled up to the dock, Larry and Mike seamed to be settled in.  Catch any? No, same here. When did you get back?  A funny look between them was evident to me.  Maybe we've been back for about 15 minutes.  Then an "are you going to tell them" is uttered from Mike?...  Mike sheepishly says... We got lost.  You gotta be kidding me!  How did that happen? Feel kinda humble do you, maybe a bit stupid?  "Uh, so did we."  "Idiots!"

Sunday morning, came and went, Sunday evening did the same, ditto for Monday morning.  Frustration set in.  Gerry would just shake his head and I could tell he was getting a kick out of it. " just "throw all your stuff away and use a hook and a worm!"  Our cabin was struggling.  Being cabin 3 the fish house was about 40 ft from us and I could monitor who and what they were catching.  A teacher from Cleveland shared our boat on the way out to the camp and I noticed he was always cleaning fish.  Desperate, I approached him and asked, "what the heck are you catching them on?"  Well he said, "kinda keep this to yourself.  Do you know what a hot-n-tot is?  Yes I do!  "I use em all the time."  "Troll with that."  Thank you very much!

Monday evening...  Trolled with hot-n-tots for 4 hours and still nothing!  God is punishing me!  I'm a failure! I guess I don't know my ass from a hole in the ground! Tuesday morning no hot-n-tot bite. Tuesday evening.  "Brian, lets try these worm harnesses just for the heck of it."  Bingo! Hot Freekin Dog!  Yippee!  Holy Cow! We were catching them!  What a blast!  We caught em on the worm harness no matter where we went.... as long as the harness had a silver blade.   Wednesday morning we were still catching them. Wednesday evening, we fished up at "Rock Man" and who do we see anchored? The Teacher!  Not "trolling with hot-n-tots" like he said he was doing.  He did not move from that anchored spot.

Thursday morning at the fish house, the teacher shows up.... "I hear from Gerry that you guys are catching them, the bite has slowed down for me.  Yepper!  Care to share what you guys are using?" "Oh man, we're killing them. Thanks for putting us on the hot-tot." Got him!  There are more ways to skin a cat.

On the way to the Lake Bat , the catch and release "trophy pike lake", I wore nothing on my feet but flip flops, big mistake. One flip flop broke about mid way, no way to fix. I walked that so called path with one bare foot! I also could not keep my shorts up, no belt. Gerry got a kick out of that and I am
now known as being "a true American idiot" to anyone who has heard that story.  I wear that crown with honor and pledge to uphold that title, especially the stupid part.

Other funny things happened on that first trip.  It will be forever etched in my heart and brain. It was like yesterday. Other trips have similar funny things that happened but that first trip to the Kip...

C.C.

You don't get these days back.  Live each day as if it were your last and one day you will be right.

smitty55

Great story Captain. Quick question for you. What ended up being your overall go to Walleye bait?
Obviously it would depend on the style of fishing. For instance by far most of my fishing up there was trolling for Lakers but most of my Walleye have been caught using a jig and minnow or worm and a lot of them caught later in the day and well after dark. Mind you, one mid afternoon after arriving at Alwaki the boys went up to the lodge to get their QC license so I hopped in the boat to take a few casts with a newly spooled reel and on like less than ten casts with a perch pattern Shadrap I landed a 25" beauty. Now that's how to start a trip with a fish like that just a few hundred yards off the dock. Newbie buddy in the other cabin beat me with one close to 26" a couple days later, also caught during the day trolling. Fortunately for us all in both cabins though, I caught one over 26" the next night on a jig and his celebration was thankfully short lived so he finally shut up lol.
Quick story. There was usually 8 of us in two cabins over the years. We did our share of partying for sure but also fished seriously enough. We were regulars at the tavern next door and the regular guys there from StatsCan would often here us talking about how good our trips were each summer. Well one summer a bunch of them decided to take their summer vacation with us and we booked another cabin for them. Except for Serge, who had been up there with us before, fishing wasn't much of a priority on the trip for the five of them, at least two of them never fished at all, which they were fine with. Serge drank plenty enough and Rick was his equal for sure. They rented a boat for the week with Serge at the helm. So Serge has two new clamp-on downriggers he wants to try and use with gang trolls when he's never even used one before. Not a good idea when you have a 6 pack in you already and it's a windy afternoon. Lets just say in a couple of hours they got the trolls tangled bad twice and the two rigger cables crossed somehow. Well that was it for the day, and Rick realized he could run a bar tab with Mary, it was like the tavern with a fantastic view :) We normally all ran tabs for the week including the bar and made sure to give them our business for bait ice, gas  beer runs ,tackle, groceries. Even when we had our own boats we still paid for Karl to come in for a transport run for our supplies and the odd passenger, he had the heaviest capacity of any lodge boat back then and it was really loaded one time I remember, sitting low for sure, lot's of beer. So to finish the story, it's the end of the week and we're having out last pint at the lodge bar on the house while we pay our bills with cash always for me, or cheque for some I guess. Rick's turn comes up and his bill is well over $300, all at the bar. He had fun.
Cheers

NortonJoe

Great stories guys! Lets hear some more...
Many men go fishing all of their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after.
~Henry David Thoreau

CaptainCrappie

Smitty, for about the last 10-12 years or so, we've caught more walleye...  smallmouths too, using slip bobbers and leeches, sometimes jiggin with a leech or crawler works really well too.  Those first years after finally getting them trolling with a worm harness, we trolled for hours most days.  We spent a lot of time trolling the "Blue Barrel."  Good early season area.  Now, I really enjoy anchoring and slip bobbering.  In the evening, there's nothing more enjoyable to me than listening to the lake calm down and watching those beautiful sunsets appear. Fishing with a circle hook, when that bobber starts sinking, it is hard not to keep your cool, ya just have to let em hook themselves. If it is calm enough and light enough to see that bobber disappear beneath the water's surface, then the fun starts....  I am imagining a whopper getting that leech positioned just right before he takes off with that thing.  Sometimes it's off to the races, and no wait time.  I've watched that bobber for up to 20 minutes, listening to whoever is with me yelling at me, to "set that darn hook!"  I've spent a lot of time thinking about the past, people Ive known, loved ones, or places I've been, all the while trying to pay attention to that bobber.  Sometimes that bobber just vanishes. I must have been dreaming, batted my eyes, or maybe it is right next to the boat. Realizing there is more sand in the bottom of that hour glass, I cherish those moments just remembering. Slip bobbering allows time for that.

C.C.
You don't get these days back.  Live each day as if it were your last and one day you will be right.

Mike J

I would have to say I have two.  I have been to Kipawa several times, and had many very productive times on the water, but my favorite so far was my last trip a few years ago when my son was 9.  We hit a pretty rough week as far as the fishing was concerned. Several fronts were coming through, and the fish just shut down.
  After a couple really bad evenings, we went to a spot I had fished several years before. soon after being there, my sons slip bobber begins to dance and he's hooked up. He's using a new ultra light rod he picked out just for the trip (red) and 6lb test with a 1/16th oz jig and leech. It became apparent pretty quick that this was a solid fish. Several times he got it close, and just before you could get a look at it, it would go again. He eventually brought it up and I netted it.  It measured out right at 30 inches!!  His first walleye ever and it's 30 inches! No other fish that evening.
   Then the fishing was slow again for a day. The next day, we went out for the evening with low expectations, and kaboom!! it turned on!! It was one of those nights.  I couldn't bait hooks, and tie jigs fast enough. I think I only caught about 5 or six fish, and he caught over 20. When I would be tying a jig for him, or hooking a leech on his, he would commandeer my rod and hook up. It was like that for a solid hour and a half!  He also caught 2 smallmouths that were pushing 4-5 lbs.  I had more fun working for him to catch fish and watching than I had catching them myself.
     We also got to meet Oarin and talk for a bit while he let my son eliminate some flies with the bug assault.  I can't wait until I can get back up there with my now 12 year old.

Mike
 


Balsams

Captain C, thanks for the read. You are a great story teller. I’ve enjoyed your stories of you and The Commander over the years. I think being in a boat with you 2 would have been epic. Thanks for the read.

Balsams

Mike, great story. Love it.
My favourite was first trip to Kikwissi. We were flown in by Gilbert’s Kipawa Air. Unpacked and rigged up. For some reason it was a really great year for beer…never tasted so good! Got out on a new lake with structure everywhere. First pass into the bay behind S2, you couldn’t troll 50 yards with a fish. Tunes, drinks, good company…it was awesome.

plowjock

I've only been up to Lake Kipawa twice and each trip I had quite a bit of excitement.
First trip in, end of June this past summer, third cast of my many casts, feel a hit, set the hook and Hang On.
I had caught a pretty darn nice Pike which gave me the fight of a lifetime.
Sure it only weighed about 7 lbs. but I bet we had a good 5 minutes entertainment with numerous runs.
All this was on 6lb Nanofil with a 6lb. Floro leader of about 12 ft.
After the pike we teamed up to catch a nice mess of Smallmouth bass.
On my second trip in, first week in August, went out one day, just driving and fine tuning my side imaging and down imaging.
Located many interesting reads on what the bottom of lake looked like in 15-30 Fow.
Went back to a few waypoints I marked and one morning before 7:00am put 7 walleye in the boat in 10 minutes.
Needless to say there was a nice feed of a couple decent eyes.
Later that day in our travels , my fishing buddy and I were checking new area out and found an old submerged dock in 20 Fow clear as a bell.
Just goes to prove, spend some time setting up your electronics really pays off.
Both my units are HB 9's one with mega DI and the other mega SI. Hope to have mega 360 for upcoming season if HB ever gets around to making them. Many on order but many more ships stuck out on the highseas with necessary parts.

Jow

Quote from: plowjock on November 19, 2021, 06:55:37 AM
I've only been up to Lake Kipawa twice and each trip I had quite a bit of excitement.
First trip in, end of June this past summer, third cast of my many casts, feel a hit, set the hook and Hang On.
I had caught a pretty darn nice Pike which gave me the fight of a lifetime.
Sure it only weighed about 7 lbs. but I bet we had a good 5 minutes entertainment with numerous runs.
All this was on 6lb Nanofil with a 6lb. Floro leader of about 12 ft.
After the pike we teamed up to catch a nice mess of Smallmouth bass.
On my second trip in, first week in August, went out one day, just driving and fine tuning my side imaging and down imaging.
Located many interesting reads on what the bottom of lake looked like in 15-30 Fow.
Went back to a few waypoints I marked and one morning before 7:00am put 7 walleye in the boat in 10 minutes.
Needless to say there was a nice feed of a couple decent eyes.
Later that day in our travels , my fishing buddy and I were checking new area out and found an old submerged dock in 20 Fow clear as a bell.
Just goes to prove, spend some time setting up your electronics really pays off.
Both my units are HB 9's one with mega DI and the other mega SI. Hope to have mega 360 for upcoming season if HB ever gets around to making them. Many on order but many more ships stuck out on the highseas with necessary parts.
Great story!!

I giggle like a kid jigging walleye with my mega DI. Watching them close in on my presentation then tap tap set

plowjock

Jow, just like playing video games.
Reminds me about getting these units tuned in, like playing with rabbit ears on the early TV's to get better reception.
Once you get them set up, it's only minor adjustments to really see the quarry.
Seems every body of water just a little different, real subtle change to sensitivity.
Game on!

T-Bone

Sheesh NJ...where to start...

I'll start with the first time I went to Kipawa and roll through experiences through the low winter banter on the Board...stoke the fire every now and then. Don't have time to start today, but coming soon to a forum near you..."June 2000:Wide-Eyed on Corbeau Island".
Embrace every moment...you only get it once