Big Whiteshell lake pretty ‘crappie’ for fishing

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 14/10/2017 (2985 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It had been a number of years since I had launched a boat in Big Whiteshell Lake. This past week I decided it was time for a return visit after hearing reports of some decent crappie fishing. I find these fish fascinating and over the years I have spent a fair amount of time trying to catch them, especially in the fall when they tend to congregate in large schools.

At this time of year crappies like to move onto deep flats in search of food. Some move from shallower water and others that tend to suspend in the summer. This is usually a good starting point in most natural lakes in this part of the world. Big Whiteshell is not an overly deep lake it’s 10 metres in spots but most of it is much shallower. While a fairly large lake for the Whiteshell Provincial Park, it is pretty average in size compared to a Lake of the Woods. So the theory was it shouldn’t take long to find the fish, at least that’s what I thought as I headed out on the water with friend Pete Hiebert. I had downloaded a contour map off of the Manitoba Sustainable Resources website. Lake Information for Anglers allows you to access information such as bathymetric data, fish stock assessment data, largest fish caught by angling, and fish stocking records can be viewed at gov.mb.ca/waterstewardship/fisheries/fish_stocking_gMap_MVC_V2/index.html.

Recent and historical stocking efforts since 1917 can be searched by fish species, year, water body or region. I just clicked on Big Whiteshell and I could download a rough underwater contour map of the lake which would provide some starting points. It also had a breakdown from 2012 of the percentage of fish by species. With black crappie at 0.2 per cent of the population I should have been warned that things might be tough. Walleye make up the second highest percentage of the fish population at near 35 per cent while perch are the most dominant at 40 per cent. While we only caught one perch it was very large, which might suggest a fishery worth tapping. We ended up with a quite a few walleye, including seeing one large specimen that spit my crankbait four metres from the boat. We caught just three walleye under the slot size, the rest were in the protected 45 to 75 centimetre range.

We also caught a ton of small pike, which actually made the day quite enjoyable overall as we had constant action once we found the fish on a windy shoreline. With boat control tough in the large waves we decided to troll # 7 Flicker Shads in three to five metres of water. The majority of fish were on the weed edges on a hard bottom. Crayfish seemed to be the food of choice from these locations.

Whiteshell Provincial Park is a popular place so it was important that Sustainable Resources take a very active role in fisheries management.

In 2000, the Area A Slot Limit for Walleye was implemented. Area A defined by ‘the area south of Gammon-Bloodvein Rivers to the south and west shores of the Winnipeg River, including Lac du Bonnet, and the southern boundary of Whiteshell Provincial Park, and from Lake Winnipeg to the Ontario border (excluding the Winnipeg River from Pine Falls Dam to Lake Winnipeg)’.

Retired eastern region biologist Ken Kansas says the slot limit initially set as all walleye between 38 cm and 70 cm must be released. He says this reflected the different growth rates for walleye located in lakes predominately in the less productive Canadian Shield country.

The lower end of the slot was raised from 38 cm to 40 cm in 2002, raised again in 2004 from 40 cm to 42 cm and once more in 2007 from 42 cm to 45 cm. Kansas thinks the intent was to start at the biologically preferred size and eventually raise the lower limit to allow more additional harvest for anglers as well as keeping the slot the same as other lakes in Southern Manitoba (LOTP, Whitefish and Wellman Lakes for example) possibly to avoid regulation confusion. He says some lakes like Big Whiteshell have pretty good self-reproducing populations so not as much stocking has to be done. The last walleye stocking in the records on this lake was in 2012.

For those who are interested in finding new crappie spots within the same zone, Kansas has done a lot of electro shocking on the Winnipeg River in the Lac du Bonnet region. He says that black crappie are native to certain watersheds in Manitoba, namely the Red River/Lake Winnipeg connection, plus the Winnipeg River which drains from Lake of the Woods, a well know black crappie powerhouse.

Kansas knows that black crappie are capable of downstream movement as is evident with the Caddy Lake chain of lakes including South and North Cross, all the way down to Lac du Bonnet via the Whiteshell and Winnipeg Rivers. He personally thinks Lac du Bonnet will become one of the premier locations for black crappie enthusiasts for decades to come as they are slowly but surely gaining a foothold in the aquatic ecosystem. I sure hope he is right for they are fun fish to catch and fantastic eating.

Anglers Notes: All indications that fishing for walleye in the Red River and Traverse Bay has been slower than usual. It might take some cold weather to really get the bite going. Last fall anglers had many days were the walleye fishing was outstanding in Traverse. Hopefully things will pick up in the next week.

Fishing has been good at East Blue Lake and Laurie Lake for rainbow and splake. West Goose Lake in Roblin has been producing some really big rainbow trout, a real sleeper of a lake. Now is a great time to chase all trout species in Manitoba.

dlamont@mymts.net