TBL Report 6/23-6/30

[10ring]

We just returned from a week at Taggart Bay Lodge.  This was our first trip to Lake Kipawa.  I want to thank everyone who offered tips, advice, and expertise to help us get up to speed quickly.  It Worked!  While I cannot give an accurate count of fish for the week, I can definitely tell all of you that we are sick of eating fish for awhile... what a great problem to have!  The weather at the beginning of the week was rather chilly in the morning and it warmed up to the mid 70's by midday.  The end of the week was definitely warming up with the lows around 60 and highs around 90 degrees.  No rain all week.  The weather was great. 

First day we landed a 28 1/2" walleye within fifteen minutes of fishing!  Admittedly we didn't know what we were doing, we just wanted to get out and fish once we arrived regardless of time of day or weather.  The fishing was excellent with many big walleye caught and released on the week- 28 1/2", 30 1/2", 30 1/2", 27", and many more that were over the slot but were between 24"-27".  We were all very impressed with the quality of fish we caught.  We had very few throwbacks that were under the slot limit.  The majority of the fish we caught were in the middle to top of the keeper slot.

First night found all of us jigging with limited success.  Honestly, I spent more time tying on jigs for myself and my son then I did fishing.  Next day found us rigging up slip bobbers and all I can say is holy @#%$#$^#$ did that make a difference!  No snags, no issues, lots of control and major success.  Instantly we stopped missing fish (and rocks) while also making the trip a lot less stressful for the kids and myself.  The walleyes were much shallower than they should've been for the time of the year.  Apparently the late winter has pushed back their summer patterns.  We were consistently finding them in 10' of water coming in to the bays in the evenings.  The witching hour was about 8:00-8:30p.m.  until dark thirty every night.  The morning bite was just that... early.  We were out at around 4:30a.m. and it slowed down once the sun was higher in the sky.  I'd say by about 8:00 it was time to head in for breakfast because the fishing slowed down a good bit every day.   

Once we started using slip bobbers it became very clear that the set up and style of fishing while slow at times, is pretty technical.  We quickly found that we could keep the bait right in front of their face for a longer period of time which helped us to catch fish for sure.  We did catch some jigging, but not as many as we did using slip bobbers.  We also did catch a boat load of monster smallmouth.  They are opportunistic feeders, so I cannot say we targeted them all of the time, but we did enjoy catching them.  When we did target them, we had a great time with much success fishing rocky points and shoals in shallow water.  We all caught our personal best smallmouths last week.  The majority of the smallmouth were between 17 1/2"-20".   They fat and healthy!

Our go to bait was leeches for the walleyes.  Thank you to whoever suggested ordering them ahead of time at ProNature in Temiscaming.  We rigged the slip bobbers with a 1/8 oz. chartreuse or hot pink jig head tipped with a leech.  1/8 oz. seemed to work perfectly for getting the bobber to work properly.  When jigging we also used the same jig heads in the same colors tipped with a leech. 


There wer no suprprises on our trip.  The cabin, boat, and equipment were exactly as advertised.  TBL does a nice job of making sure your stay is comfortable despite being in a remote location.  The people were very nice and that also helped make it a great week of fishing.


Again, I want to say thank you to all of you for helping with your tips, tactics, and general information about fishing Lake Kipawa.  You were all on point and I greatly appreciate your willingness to pass that along.  We had a great trip.  One that my family will not forget!

[JLG]

Nice report and thanks for sharing - glad you enjoyed your maiden voyage to Kip.

[Oarin]

Wow, great week! I'm glad the slip bobbers worked for you. We use them too. Jon and I leave for our trip on the 14th. Can't wait!!

[JigginFool]

Nice report, thanks for sharing. 

[T-Bone]

Glad you had meaningful success for being new to Kipawa. I will assess being versatile probably saved your week...I could stand to learn something from that as it seems slipping was the call versus jigging last week. Glad whatever info I provided could be put to use and applied with success. Catching some monsters like that (30+ and others over 25) is not the norm...at least for our group. We tend to get into numbers versus size. I guess that's because our group of ADD Type A guys like the constant action which calls for the "odd" big fish but tons of others. Seems the average size is increasing too...wonderful news.

Thanks for the report.

[GregL]

Great report!!! Sounds like you guys got into some hogs! Good to hear!

[Hodgey1]

Glad everything worked out so well and sounds like your fishing was great. I was a newbie last year and the people of this forum made my trip a success also. There still are good people left on the planet, no matter what the news wants you to think.

[BH]

Awesome report and glad you enjoyed Kipawa and TBL.  My son and I will be heading there on the 7/21 for our 9th trip!  Can't wait till the day arrives and we can go for the grand slam (walleye, pike, bass & trout).

[SgtCrabby]

Thank you for a great report!

And it sounds like you had a great catching experience too.

[BigChief]

@10ring were you the boat of 5 we saw in Queens? We were the ones in the blue pontoon. Glad to hear you did so well your first time there. The advice you got ahead of time definitely makes a difference.
We have almost exclusively switched to slip bobbers. It definitely helps when the kids are fishing. I used to spend all my time re-rigging for my son's. Now it is sit back and relax with the exception of an occasional snag from the depth not being right.

What depth did you have your slip at? We were usually in 10-12 feet of water with slips at 7-9 feet.

[10ring]

We did fish in Queens a good bit, but the boat of five wasn't us.  They were good friends of mine that also booked for the week through TBL.  They wore it out back there, but they did pretty well.  We were in two boats of three.  Passed you outside of Deep Bay a few mornings.  We had our slip bobbers set at the exact same depth you were at.  We also were fishing in the same depth of water.  Agreed on the advice ahead of time.  It allowed us to spend time fishing instead of figuring out what to do and where to go.  The slip bobbers weren't just great for the kids, we all started using them with much success.  Like I said previously, the numbers of big walleyes we caught were impressive in my opinion.  It was a great week.