trip report - kearns lake with thousand lakes outfitters

[phishfearme 1]

July 1 – Canada Day 2014 – we arrived at the Mattice lake base in Armstrong after 10 days at Kearns Lake through Thousand Lakes Outposts. The lilacs are just starting to bloom (great fragrance), the black flies are at their peak (yuck) and the water levels are receding from the highest levels people have seen in decades. Sounds like a spring time trip and given the very late ice out and cold spring, it essentially was.

Six of us – including LarryS and his sister Pat – spent 10 wonderful days at the Kearns Lake outpost. This is our second trip there and you can see the first trip report (2011) at:
http://www.walleyecentral.com/forums...ht=kearns+lake

I won’t repeat the Taj Mahal cabin conditions and contents (you can get the details from the previous report) except to note that the indoor bathroom has been totally remodeled (in cedar panels with new shower stall), there’s a remote generator start in the cabin, the satellite phone works essentially all the time now and there’s brand new 14ft Lunds with brand new 15 hp 4-stroke motors (the cabin is now no more than 10 minutes away from anywhere on the lake). All are very nice upgrades.

Walleye fishing: last trip we got to expect to pull in 24inch plus whoppers every few hours but for this trip, the big girls were hard to find. We did get 2 x 26inchers and 3 x 24 inchers with quite a few 22/23 inchers but they were mixed in with the swarm of standard walleyes we got. Walleye are indeed essentially everywhere in the lake but were concentrated in the inlet and outlet areas – probably due to the late ice-out and high water flowage. 40-50 walleye a day with about a 17 inch average is typical.

Pike fishing: truly incredible with the number of trophy size fish – 38inches and above – much more than we expected. We all got at least one 41incher – except LarryS who “only” got himself a 39incher – his sister pulled in a 41inch whopper - and I was fortunate enough to haul in a 44incher beating my old personal best by 2 inches. About 16 pike above 38 inches for us – to me this is excellent trophy pike fishing – especially for such a small lake. This was good enough but the number of pike in the 30-33inch range was huge – and these are lots of fun to catch.

One, more than interesting occurrence: two of our guys tied two walleye off at the dock for me to fillet when I came in at lunch. I’ll bet everyone on this board has come back to find a walleye tied off to the dock in the grasp of a pike – but we had a 42incher totally swallow one walleye AND the stringer! (at least the stringer hook that the walleye was on). The pike swallowed the walleye head first then in its struggle to get away, the walleye doubled over in the pikes belly making the belly incredibly distended. See photo. we cut the stringer as close down as possible and the pike swam off to hopefully enjoy her unique lunch.

All in all, a totally enjoyable trip and it was nice to have a young lady in camp. We probably took more showers this trip than in all of the past 10 trips combined!

Questions? Feel free to ask.
phish

[Guest FreshwaterFisherman]

Sounds like a good trip! Sure sounds like you had a ton of fun with the pike. Ive done a few fly ins and if people havent, they need to. Its not just the fish, its the whole experience. I have stayed at Kaydeon Lake, near Ogoki lake, out of Nakina and I can't imagine a lake that produces more fish. We were literally catching fish after fish on a peice of banana peel. We even had fish coming to the surface mid afternoon to swipe at the shells from sunflower seeds. Not to mention we found a beach that was combosed entirely of BLACK sand. Black as night. Very cool. Couldnt walk on it if your life depended on it. WAY too hot. Also found lots of old cans from probably 100+ years ago. Including a sealed 6 pack that must have been 50+ years old, it was in a wooden box that was nearly rotted out. Some cool antique stuff and a HUGE axe head, way bigger then anything I've ever seen. We also got the pilot to fly us out a bunch of beer mid trip cause we ran out, and he was more than happy to accomodate us. I watched 6 snakes eat frogs, and a snake eat another snake. I cant even count the amount of times that we caught walleye on walleye, or pike on walleye. Even had an eagle pick up a pike on the line and we had to cut the line before we lost the rod. Fly in lakes are an experience in and of their own. Expensive yes, but if ya got the money, TOTALLY worth it.

[Kaptain Kirk 34]

Hello Phishfearme Sounds Like you Guys Had a Fantastic Time there, Did you happen to see any beavers or Otters while you were they, this is my trap line and i haven't had a chance to get into there this year yet and do some scouting, Thanks KK

[PRO V 26]

Thanks for sharing phish, next time more pictures ...................Dwayne runs a good show.

Mike

[phishfearme 1]

Hello Phishfearme Sounds Like you Guys Had a Fantastic Time there, Did you happen to see any beavers or Otters while you were they, this is my trap line and i haven't had a chance to get into there this year yet and do some scouting, Thanks KK

quite a few beaver but didn't see any otter. the lake outlet had two beaver that were constantly slapping their tails. water level is VERY high - there's pretty much no shore line and I'll bet some of the beaver wish they had flood insurance.

phish

[phishfearme 1]

Thanks for sharing phish, next time more pictures ...................Dwayne runs a good show.

Mike

Dwayne runs the BEST of shows. the kearns cabin is more like a house and he has plans to remodel the 4 bedrooms.

here's phew more photos:

photos 1 & 2 - Dwayne and Terry come out for dinner - they brought ice cream for desert - WOW!

photo 3 - an incredible calm morning

photo 4 - Gary with a 41incher

photo 5 - classy martinis in classy glasses in a classy cabin

photo 6 - LarryS and his sister enjoy an ice cold gin and tonic in the lounge chairs

photo 7 - Wil and Tom with a whopper

photo 8 - a rock bass??? WTF?

photo 9 - my 44 incher - besting my old personal best by 2 inches

hope you all enjoy these.

phish

[PRO V 26]

Those are some solid fish.........there are lakes in the area that bass have migrated themselves into and are growing in population.

Mike

[Kaptain Kirk 34]

Thanks For The Info. Very Nice Pictures.

Cheers & Tight Lines.

[levi64 72]

Thanks for the info very nice of you to post it.. Good to hear the detailed report. I think reports like this keep the outfitters informed as well and offer better service. Very nice fish.