From The Road – Northwestern Ontario Fishing 

 

Northwestern Ontario really shined for us during a recent filming on two separate trips to the Kenora area.  Gosh how I love those clean, rocky Precambrian lakes! But for today’s feature I’d like to talk about the first of our two June 2016 adventures in Ontario.

Hawk Lake Lodge

Early in the month, I made my first trip to Hawk Lake, which you’ll find on a map about 40 miles east of Kenora.  It’s about a 2,600- acre lake with a maximum depth of 420 feet.  With depth like that my friends, Hawk has the forage base and rare potential to kick out big fish in a variety of northern species. I’m talking about an Ontario lake that boasts a 19 lb. 4 oz. walleye and too many over ten to even mention.  Hawk Lake also holds the smallmouth bass on a fly rod world record– 9 lbs. 3 oz.!

Additionally, Hawk Lake is 100 % catch and release and with no public access, the only anglers allowed to fish there are guests of Hawk Lake Lodge (hawklakelodge.com).  We found it an amazing facility that offers visitors first rate everything that any traveling angler could ever hope for.  

Walleye Fishing in Northwestern Ontario Hawk Lake

Now I’ll only sum up the walleye fishing by saying it’s simply excellent! On Jigs and rigs with minnows or leeches, I focused on shallow reefs topping out anywhere between 8-20 feet. Honestly we lost count of the walleyes caught in the 3-6 pound range and by trip’s end we landed quite a few going 8-10! By our best guess, the biggie of the trip went 11 pounds!  So yes…we did definitely find world-class trophy walleye fishing at Hawk Lake Lodge.

It was also a blast taking some time to go after Hawk Lake Smallmouth bass.  Under post cold front conditions, in shallow gin-clear bays, I set out with a sight fishing approach looking for spawning fish.  Man, did we ever find good numbers of bass-the biggest going a bit over four pounds.  For technique, all we did was pitched Reaction Innovation’s Sweet Beaver soft plastics on 1/8 or ¼ oz. Custom Jigs & Spin Precision H2o jigs.   

If only I’d had more time to search out this amazing Ontario body of water.  Nonetheless, all those first impressions definitely taught me enough to know that I WILL be spending much, much more time getting to know Hawk Lake in the future.  And who knows, maybe as I do I’ll run into a few of you doing exactly the same.

 

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One thought on “From The Road – Northwestern Ontario Fishing

  1. Bill Goodwon says:

    Fished Hawk Lake several times with customers when I was working. It was owned by Garry and Sandy Delton. Now that I am retired I cant afford the high cost. The fishing was great, particularly on the other lakes.

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