February 16, 2021 – Winter Has Finally Arrived!
Hi All,
Well it sure has been a strange winter! We came out of the fall and into the early winter with well above average temperatures and well below average snowfall, which made for some pretty slushy lakes as the little snow we did get was before we had any real solid ice. Since then however, we have had about two weeks of pretty extreme cold with most morning lows close to -40 F. The sudden cold snap has made doing just about anything outside a lot less fun, so we have been spending a little less time fishing than we were through January. The one upside to the cold is that it did tighten up all of the aforementioned slush on the lakes making travel much easier, and the forecast through the weekend has us warming up to much more favorable temperatures again. We plan on making up for some lost fishing time over the next couple weeks.
When we were getting out fishing regularly, we were having quite a bit of success on walleye and lake trout, catching the odd incidental whitefish or burbot to go with the more popular game fish. We usually have more than enough trout and walleye to eat but I like to keep a few whitefish to throw on the smoker come spring, and have a few friends that like when I drop off a burbot for them, so we keep a few of those as well. We have been fortunate enough to land a couple very large walleye this winter (3 over 28″ now) and were able to live release all of them. Otherwise I managed to catch one pretty nice whitefish at around 4 lbs, and we are yet to pull out any big lakers. Here are a few pictures of some of our catches and one picture of a couple stocked brook trout I was able to catch one morning:
It seems Covid isn’t going anywhere in a hurry. Here in Ontario we are just coming out of another lockdown today that has been going on since boxing day. It seems to have slowed down the cases over the end of the holiday season though, so hopefully it was effective and accomplished what it was meant to. We are glad to see it being lifted though, and it is nice to see some more stores and places open again. As far as the border and our upcoming season is concerned, we still don’t have any new information. As of right now all we know is that the border is closed until February 21, with the potential to have that date extended upon review. So far since the original close in March, the border issues have only been addressed on a monthly basis without any long term outlook or plans made public. This of course makes it very difficult for all businesses, especially outfitters, to plan their season and to contact their guests accordingly. I am hoping that the border will be open for our 2021 season of course, but right now it is hard to believe that it will. We will be monitoring the situation closely and will be reaching out to guests and posting on here whenever we learn anything useful. In the meantime we really, really, appreciate all of our guests support and loyalty choosing to keep deposits and reservations with us for when this is all over! It makes it a lot easier to sleep at night knowing that when this is done we still have a strong customer base to rely on to get us rolling again!
I hope 2021 is going well for everyone and that you are all healthy and well!
-Ryan