In June I am heading up to Canada to go fishing. It's a fly-in cabin in western Ontario and there are boats. There are Pike, Walleye, Muskie, and trout. I've fly fished for trout in rivers, never lake fished for them. So I'm hoping someone here has done some fishing up North before and can help me out. What's the best way to fish for each?
I'm guessing pike and Muskie I can fish with crank baits kinda like bass. Walleye would be spoons and slabs more like fishing for sand bass. I'm just guessing on both.
Best way to fish them would help. Maybe depths for each. Lures and patterns I should take.

Thanks for any help.

I take spinning rods with 2 spools for each reel, one with 6-8 pound line, one with 17 pound line. I use the smaller line for walleye, small mouth and the larger line for Muskie, Pike. Steel leaders help with the pike due to their teeth. Some people like braided line to help from getting "piked" where when you bring in a smaller fish a pike comes by and eats the smaller fish and cuts your line. Lures for walleye are usually small jigs with hair or plastic bodies. Small mouth: use wacky rigs and tubes, small in line spinners like rooster tails or Mepps. Pike use large in line lures like 5 of diamonds or large Mepps, chatter baits, Rogues, shallow lipped long baits like Rapalas, topwaters also. Papala makes a spoon with a weed guard that is a little thicker than a thin metal spoon and it catches a lot of pike, especially with a plastic 3 inch trailer put on it. The lake you are fishing may be clear and you can see the bottom and it may look like there are no fish between you and the shore, but the small mouth are great at concealment and they are there, so cast anyway. I usually out fish everybody when using whacky rigged 4-5 inch worms. Have a great time.

I'm from up north and use to go to Canada a lot your best bet is to find shows like babe winkleman and all kinder and record them they are a last a fishing canada since they are close to there or search you tube on videos of it. Also take warm clothes nights can be cold at times and a good camera. Its a beautiful area up there

Sorry for spelling on my phone but it al linder

Bug Spray

I have spent some time in canada. You will likely have little trouble catching fish. If you throw a rapala shad rap you will catch all species. For walleye you will likely use a jig with mister twister type grub or gulp minnow vertically jigged on the bottom. Topwater is by far the most fun for smallmouth and pike. Every inch of shoreline looks good and most of it holds fish. Pop - r, buzzbait, you cant go wrong.

Have fun!

All sounds like great info, thanks. I don't think there are small mouth where we are going. We fly up to Lake Seseganaga about 160 miles to the North of the border. As the crow flies, the lake is about 30 miles from end to end. That's well over 100 miles of shore line to fish and the lake is 110' deep at the deepest point.

industrial strength deet !

I have made two trips up to Canada, but one was close to 25 yrs ago, but the last was about 5 yrs ago. First trip was to Lake Pakwash, second most recent one was to Red Lake, northwest of Pakwash. It was tough for walleyes the last trip that we went, but had a blast catching a ton of northern. Nothing huge, but a lot in the 6-8 lb range. We caught all/most of our northern on either jerk baits or flukes. Occasionally we used spinner baits or buzz baits in shallow waters with tall skinny grass. The wake behind a buzz bait in shallow water will get your heart going quickly. Walleyes were caught on a nightcrawler rig with a blade spinner. You can probably google those if you wish to give them a try. And yes, bug spray - the may flies were thick. Also sweatshirt or hoody might not be a bad idea. We saw high 40's low 50's a few mornings but it would get into the upper 70's by days end. And yes, have a blast!!!! I can't wait to go back!!!

Been up quite often over 50 years to see family as recently as last summer. We go a little further south from Lake Seseganaga. Y'all will be northeast of Silver Dollar and 599 (North Road). Closest lake to your fly-in that I have fished is Sturgeon. Grandma had a fish camp on the English River which is about 30 miles south of Seseganaga.

Any typical bass lure for the northerns. Painted jig head with a sucker (minnow) or when things are just right, unbaited painted jig, for walleyes. Spoons for lake trout. Shallow sandy areas for northerns, rocky mid-lake humps for walleye and deep for the trout. These fish are not pressured in the least.

***Get the Sportsman Fishing license. You get to keep more of your catch. The other option is the Conservation which reduces your limit. You might want to check to see if your lake is a conservation lake and may have reduced limits regardless of license.

***Your cell service will suck and is advisable to just turn it off when crossing the border to avoid the international roaming/data $$$.


Last year, we took Ma's ashes up there to spread around her hometown of Ignace. I only got to walleye fish for about 2 hours with a cousin of mine(guide). We only used painted 1/16oz jig heads on 4lb test, no leader, no trailer or sucker and caught our limit. And they were delicious.


It will be quiet.
It will be beautiful.
It will be a blast.

If I was traveling light, I would make sure I had jig heads in 1/8, 1/4, 3/8, and 1/2 and an assortment of grub tails. 3 - 4 inches is good for walleye. You can put a minnow on the jig head if they are finnicky. Probably catch more if you tip them, but I would try artificial first. Live bait is pretty expensive and not necessary if their on. If the bite is tough, tip your jigs with minnows, a piece of crawler, or a leech. If you don't have access to live bait, you may be able to catch your own crawlers.

If they don't have depth finders, get a puck style transducer and one of those small rechargeable cabela's batteries.

Never done lake trout. To target the pike and muskies, make sure you have some steel leaders and some daredevil spoons. If you have bass spinner baits those work, but they could get bent up. In line spinners work great too.

Don't lip those toothy critters!

I've fished the Woodland Caribou Provincial Park (huge area) five times.

Do not underestimate bass fishing style for walleye using a rattle trap, preferably, silver with blue back. On sunny days be sure to use more silver and on cloudy days, gold (including rattle traps).

For pike, for some odd reason, jointed plugs were the ticket.

I don't know if there are bears in your area, but I've had two incidences on separate trips, so read up on bears for what and what not to do.

Bring a digital camera.

The lakes I have fished had plenty of bottom rock structure. To save losing rattle traps, I replaced the trebles with double hooks from Barlow's (not affiliated) by removing front/back trebles, adding another split ring to allow the double hook to run true. This allows the lure to glide over obstacles. I do this with spinner baits without the split ring. If you do get snagged, simply back up the boat beyond the snag and this will almost always unsnag the lure.

One of my documented trips can be viewed at Canadian Fly-In.

Have a safe and great fishing experience.

Bring plenty of bug spray Too! A lot of no see ems.

warm clothes and rain gear

best thing for walleye was jigs tipped with leaches fish rocky bottoms rock piles and large structure vertical jig for pike musky muskelunge inline spinners alway worked best in late spring all summer when it warmed up this but this time of year it is cold fishing drop offers with rattle traps were pretty productive dont be afraid to fish deep for them 20-30 ft and dont for get the dont call the the fish of a 1000 cast for nothing. and steal leader is a pretty much must I have and musky cut braided line like it was nothing I lived in up state NY and fished the Grat lakes a lot Lake Erie was was about 15-20 mins from my house and lake Ontario was a lithe more then an hour away. For trout Flat fish trolled just fast enough to give it action gold or silver