Winter Walleye on Lake Winnipeg
A 10-pound walleye is the perfect start to an ice fishing day
I was out on Lake Winnipeg this past week researching an ice fishing feature I am working on for the Winter 2010 edition of Outdoor Canada Magazine. I was also filming two walleye segments for the 2010 In-Fisherman Ice Guide television season. I had the good fortune to fish with friends Mike Schamber and Tom Van Leeuwen from Winnipeg and a new friend, Roger Sterns, who is the Vice President of the Walleye Anglers Association of Manitoba (WAAM) fishing club. No one knows where, when or how to catch walleye on the big lake better than Roger. And what a super nice guy!
We were caught in a snowstorm out on the lake on Thursday but with reliable Lowrance GPS units in our 4×4 trucks there was no worry about getting back to shore safely. Even in the dark.
Mike and Roger fishing in white out conditions
Speaking of the weather, we needed extensions on our ice augers to get through the almost 5-feet of ice that has built up this winter. Even then we barely hit water. And get this, we probably drilled 100 or more holes in several different locations each of the days that we fished. Talk about running and gunning on the ice!
Mike's auger is almost as tall as he is
We drove our 1/2 ton 4×4s everywhere on the lake and got stuck two or three times every day and had to pull each other out of snow drifts with tow ropes.
Then, Thursday night coming off the lake in the darkness, we were following our GPS trail in our trucks and discovered that a huge ice ridge about a mile or so offshore that we had crossed the day before, had moved on us and had opened up 50 feet or so of wide open steaming water.
We wended our way along the side of the ridge in our trucks looking for a place to cross and get back to shore. We finally found a spot to get over the ridge, but it was hairy to say the least, with a sheer drop down of at least 3 to 4 feet from one side of the ice ridge to the bottom. But we made it over unscathed and none the worst for wear.
As always it was an adventure!
The first fish of Day 1 was an 11-pound walleye that Mike caught even before we had the television camera set up to record. We caught a couple of others in the 10-pound plus class and lots of 23 - 27 inch fish ranging between 4 and 7 pounds. In fact, I’d say the average walleye was between 21- and 24-inches.
Mike's 11-pound walleye was big fish of the trip
We caught the fish on spoons (Lindy Rattling Flyer Spoon, Northland Buckshot Rattle Spoon, HT Hawger Spoon and William’s Ice Spoon) baited with salted emerald shiners, Rapala Jigging Shads, Puppet Minnows and Storm Walleye Jigging Minnows. We also caught some fish on Northland Whistler jigs, Lindy X-Change Jigs and HT Hawger 2000 Laser jigs.
I was using Rapala Ice rods fitted with 2000 series Shimano Stradic reels loaded with 8- and 10-pound test Fireline to which I’d attached a 2- to 3 foot long 8-pound test Maxima fluorocarbon leader.
Roger also showed me a trick I’d never before seen. He drilled two holes side by side and set a deadstick rod baited with an HT Hawger Laser 2000 jig and a salted minnow across a pail. In the neighbouring hole he ripped a large, noisy, LIVETARGET Golden Shiner lipless crankbait. This is the same kind of lure you’d use in open water for bass, pike and lake trout.
Roger with one of his pet LIVETarget Golden Shiner lures
Roger ripped the lure aggressively and I was amazed how many walleye he coaxed to chase the bait. About 20-percent of the time, the walleye clobbered the aggressive presentation. The other 80-percent of the time, the fish chased the rattling bait and then swung over and nailed the shiner under the deadstick rod. It was a deadly presentation and one I’ve never before seen practised for walleye.
All in all, it was a marvellous three days of catching and releasing trophy size walleye with good friends, on perhaps the finest winter walleye lake in the world.
March 9th, 2009 at 7:43 pm
cool trip! the pic of roger and mike with the heavy snow is awesome!!
March 9th, 2009 at 11:31 pm
Awsome article and incredible walleye! Lake Winnipeg has produced some real hogs this winter. You sure chose the right guys to head out with Gord, Roger knows the lake inside out and Tom and Mike are well kown for catching some hog walleys! Wicked!
March 11th, 2009 at 8:50 am
The secret is out.Those hawg walleyes hammer those live target baits…..it is a must for the hard water fisherman’s tackle box…..great article Gord. I am glad Roger was able to show you around the big lake, no one knows it better!…………”the voice of Manitoba angling”….Craig Stapon
March 12th, 2009 at 6:12 am
Gord Pyzer has been seeking out giant winter pickerel for well over 40 years. I had the priviledge of accompanying him on several of his hard water “adventures” at university and during the immediate years following graduation. On one occasion in 1973 I flew into North Bay to spend New Years eve with Gord and his wife but the transparent objective of my trip was clearly a trip with Gord on Lake Temagami during opening day for lake trout. It was brutally cold as we arrived at Lake Temagami in the pre-dawn hours at a prescribed location. In the darkness we could hear a very loud single piston machine and soon appeared an antique Skidoo with a burned out headlight and a single ski under the nose. I had never seen a rig quite like it before. The driver was a real character and the machine was pulling a trailer, or rather what I would describe as an unpainted open wooden platform with no seats and a crude wooden hand rail along one edge. Fortunately we were dressed for fishing in the open as the old machine roared down Lake Temagami in the pre-dawn hours with us hunched our gear hanging on for dear life. We were dropped off at a single hut close to a vertical granite cliff in the middle of nowhere. The location was spectacular - dead quiet with not a hint of wind with a red pre-dawn sun glowing beneath the horizon of pines - in my mind its one of those rare superbly perfect memories. That day we hooked but failed to land two huge trout, one of which caught us both dozing and ripped our tackle, including a thermos of tea, down under the ice before we regained our composure. We both felt lucky not to have been hooked ourselves in the mayhem. Then Gord landed a beautiful eight pound pickerel. We took it outside and its fins bristled in the cold. Gord took one of his classic pictures and to this day it hangs on my sunroom wall. Most people assume I caught that fish but if they ask I’m proud to tell them “that’s a Gord Pyzer Temagami pickerel”.
March 15th, 2009 at 3:22 pm
Fantastic that you now have a Blog for us to read up on your adventures. What an interesting article. Also love Bob Miller’s tale from years ago.
May 14th, 2009 at 5:18 am
Hello, my name is Shane Miles, about 12 years ago i worked as commercial ice fisherman on Lake Winnipeg, with the Olsen family from Gimli.
The strange part of this is i am an Australian.
I must admit the temp was a little colder than here but what an amazing experience and constantly review the photo’s.
It still amazes every person i try to explain.
Great to see your article.
Regards
November 30th, 2009 at 10:40 am
The “Hog Calling” technique your using Roger is very familiar to me as you know, except for many years I have been using the Salmo “Zipper” for this method. If they do not slam it right off, a quick bait and switch fallow up with a smaller Chubby in a #4 usually does the trick…THUD!
The Salmo Zippers have hung tons of sumo Greenbacks on the Red and on the Big Lake for us. There are several new key color patterns out this season that will certainly turn some sumo Greenbacks heads up the hole.
I’m very eager to get back to “Hog Call’n” once we see some safe ice.