Hot weather, hotter fishing at Sasaginnigak

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 10/06/2017 (3378 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

As the hot weather continues, so does the tremendous fishing in this part of the world.

Since my last column two weeks ago, I have been on the water almost non-stop. My first trip was a fly-in adventure to Sasaginnigak Lodge in east-central Manitoba. My last visit to this popular angling destination was back in 1993, so I was not sure what to expect as we drove to the St. Andrews Airport for our flight in.

As we arrived at the spanking new Northway Aviation terminal, I couldn’t believe the amount of activity, people waiting for a number of different flights to all parts of northern Manitoba.

Soon we were loaded up into a wheeled float plane for our short 40-minute flight northeast. After landing, we were quickly ushered to our beautiful Super Six cabin right on the lake. We had our own dock just out the front door, with brand new 16-foot boats with flat floors and state-of-the-art Humminbird Helix 5 fishfinders.

I must admit to being a little shocked at all the changes to the place. This also included a brand new main-lodge building, which also has Wi-Fi access to catch up on emails and other news.

Sasaginnigak Lodge is a light housekeeping operation, which works out perfectly for those who want to come and go as they please, with no timetable the whole time you are there. We loved the convenience and also the fishing, as we caught fish until our arms got sore. Visit them online at saslodge.com.

From there it was three days entertaining two of my friends from Saskatchewan who had come to experience the world-class catfishing that this province offers.

We did pick the hottest day of the year to go though and, by mid-afternoon, the temperature was 34 C. It didn’t slow down the fishing, as we caught a number of Master-Angler-size fish, including one true monster. All these channel catfish were caught near Lockport in fairly fast water, using cut sucker. Now is one of the best times of the year to catch a trophy channel catfish.

We also got some time to explore a bit of the open water Lake Winnipeg walleye fishery for a couple of afternoons near Gimli.

In the past, I had little luck getting into any number of walleye, but that changed this time around. We ended up catching a number of beautiful greenback walleye. We found these fish on sand bottom in anywhere from five to 12 metres of water.

It wasn’t complicated fishing, just find them on the depthfinder and drop a jig tipped with a swimbait or salted shiner, and you were in business.

Early this week, I got to head out for a day on the Winnipeg River with top bass pro Jeff (Gussy) Gustafson.

He was in between tournaments on the Fishing League World circuit (FLW) and wanted to get a little practice in on some river smallmouth before he left for the last tournament on this year’s circuit. It is being held on the Potomac River outside of Washington D.C.

Gussy needs a good finish to qualify for the Forrest Wood Cup for the second year in a row. He is currently in 41st place.

We launched Gussy’s new aluminum bass boat on the Winnipeg River in Keewatin and headed north towards Minaki.

His mission on this day was to fish some totally new water, targeting smallmouth bass. We found the bass along with walleye and pike on shallow rock, sand shorelines and caught them on small natural colour swimbaits. We used a variety from a number of different companies, including Northland, Jackal and one I hadn’t seen before, Keitech. All were fished off of small 1/8-ounce black or straight grey jigheads.

All in all, we had a great day on the water, with one of the best bass anglers in North America.

Thanks Jeff and good luck in making the Forrest Wood Cup!

dlamont@mymts.net