Trip Report - North Caribou Lake with Pickle Lake Outposts

[phishfearme 1]

I've not posted for a while on this board but though I'd provide a report on one of the best walleye lakes in Ontario.  here's what I wrote on walleye central:

 

We just returned from an incredible 9 day “week” at Pete Johnson’s North Caribou Lake outpost. The group consisted of Walleyecentral charter member LarryS, his sister Pat and Wil and my boat partner Gary. This huge lake (80,000 acres) has to be considered as one of the best walleye lakes in Ontario – or Canada – or the world for that matter. It is remarkably fertile with minnows crowding every inch of shore line and is quite clear – you could watch fish hit the jig in 7-8 ft of water. For some reason the tannic staining in most NW Ontario lakes is only minimally present here

WALLEYE – the biggest positive of walleye fishing here is the ease and frequency with which you can catch larger walleye. The sheer number of 19-21 inch fish was off the charts. It is easy for almost anyone to catch 50 walleye per day (even within sight of the cabin) with 100 per day achievable if you fish long enough – and I would estimate that 60% of the fish caught were in that 19-21 inch range. All you had to do was find 8-9 ft of water near deeper water and the fish were there and accommodating.

The really large or trophy walleye (27 inch and up) eluded us – at least in this part of the lake - as our maximum was 24 inches with a few 23 inchers. Pete assures us that trophies are caught every year – but not based on our experience.

PIKE – although this lake has a reputation for trophy pike (more than 40 inches) we were unable to find any of the big girls and we spend a good bit of time focusing on pike. We did manage to get some nice ones including a 39incher, 2 x 38, 37, 2 x 36, 2 x 35 and 3 x 34 and some others over 30 - lots of fun but no real trophies. A group of 8 guys that were in the cabin the week before us focused a great deal on pike and could only manage one 36 incher.

BOATS AND MOTORS – by far the BEST we’ve ever had in the bush. 17ft Alaskans with floor boards, captains seats and 25 hp Evenrudes with electric starts that started first time everytime. The only issue we had was that the bilge pumps did not work and manual bailing was a pain. You can see a video of these in the like below.

CABINS – quite rustic and not at all fancy but very roomy and functional. There’s a cabin for cooking/eating/drinking and one for sleeping. You can see these in more detail at:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwk9...ature=youtu.be

Overall, this was one of our best trips – and if we could’ve stumbled upon a few trophies it would’ve indeed been the best. The cost was reasonable – Pete charges $1520 Canadian for 7 days ($1200 US) and provides an immediate HST rebate by charging only half the HST. There is another outfitter on the opposite side of the lake who is much more expensive.

We rebooked for next year in order to retest the lake for trophies.

Phish

[Bobber Down 921]

Great report. Thanks for posting