Ive been reminded by our guest, EVAN GREINER, that I haven’t been putting enough reports on the website and he’s sitting in Ohio, bored.
Fishing all through June has been excellent. Dan Doherty and Gary Ficken did great as always. They’ve been coming to Atikwa for years and always fished northern and lakers until the walleye recovery started. They caught some big walleye in the 24+ and northern in the upper 30s. Dan had his granddaughter along for the first time and it was so nice to meet her. Roger Futrell’s group did good but didn’t get as many lakers as usual. They’ve been catching tons of lake trout on there trips for the last 10 years but now spends half their time walleye fishing for some reason. When you fish once a year you may want to go with what you’re best at. Still they had a great time and brought some nice new people up. Roger comes from Georgia, is 83? and was the first person who took me to Canada fishing when I was 17. I’ve went at least once, mostly 2 or 3 times every year since then until we bought Atikwa lake lodge 13 years ago. He has taught me a lot and I owe his son,Jeff, a debt for still bringing him after all these years. My highlight of the year so far is guiding John Krukar to 2 40″ northern at the same time. I’ve never done that before. Ross Meyer came up with his friend Randy and caught more walleye in the portage lakes than I’ve ever seen. 200 + with some getting up to 29″. Randy caught a 29″ walleye and a 39″ northern on the same day. They are hardcore fisherman though, went out no matter what the weather and Ross is one of the best fisherman I’ve ever seen. In contrast 2 guys went in and fished exactly the same places Ross did and caught very little. One thing about people coming up I’ve noticed over the years is everyone thinks their great fisherman and rarely listen to how they should fish our bodies of water. Every body of water is different, certain lakes need certain presentations, especially for walleye. If you caught a bunch of ‘eyes on Lake Erie with 1oz jigs and plastic baits and braided line I can assure you you’re wasting your time on a crystal clear lake in Canada. You need 6-8 pound MONOFILAMENT or similar line, bottom bouncers with small spinner rigs with crawlers or leeches or know how to work an 1/8oz jig and live bait and work it SLOWLY. But you know, next week someone will come off the plane with surf casting rods all excited to catch walleye, and as long as you have a good time do whatever you want. One thing this year with the weird cool weather the lake trout fishing has been a little slower. A little slower is still usually great laker fishing on Atikwa, but I’ve noticed their a little more susceptible to fronts. Weather fronts are hard on all fish but trout seem to be a little more.
Now Evan are ya happy? does this make boring Ohio a little better? If I lived in Ohio I’d come to Canada 10 times a year. But you’re right, I need to go on this more often, I’m not much for going on the internet. I hope I made your day!🙂And can’t wait for ya to get up here. Say hi to Dean.
Todd
