By: Mark Romanack
Bryan Darland of Jay’s Sporting Goods is a frequent guest on Fishing 411 TV. Not only is Bryan an outstanding angler, he always has a smile on his face and a better way of catching fish to share. On this trip, Bryan discovered that the Yakima Bait Maxi Jig designed for steelhead fishing is also an outstanding walleye jig fished clean. The author opted for a bottom bouncer and spinner set up on day one of fishing Klotz Lake in western Ontario. The perfect means for covering water while learning a lake, the Yakima Bait Finesse Walleye Harness was deadly effective when combined with a two ounce Eagle Claw bottom bouncer. On day one, walleye slurped down 12 dozen nightcrawlers!
Recently the Fishing 411 video cameras headed north into western Ontario for a few days of fishing and filming. It was 2019 the last time our crew had the privilege of planning an Ontario fishing adventure. Travel restrictions, vaccination requirements and other red tape, put an end to our annual trips north, like so many other Americans.
Thankfully, the red tape is starting to be cut and border crossings are becoming painless once again. No longer do Americans interested in traveling to fishing adventures in Ontario need to take a 72 hour Molecular Covid Test. Fully vaccinated Americans can travel to Ontario by simply filing their vaccination records and travel itinerary with ArrivCan, an on-line service that is making border crossings swift and efficient.
At the border the agent will need to see your passport or enhanced drivers license. They ask a few basic questions and confirm that your ArrivCan documentation is complete. On our recent trip, the crossing was painless and took less than five minutes. In fact, my recent crossing was the fastest I’ve experienced in over 30 years of traveling to fish in Ontario.
FLINT WILDERNESS RESORT
Our destination was a place called Flint Wilderness Resort, located just off Highway 11 near Long Lac, Ontario on Klotz Lake. We fished on Klotz Lake and also the adjacent Flint Lake for five days targeting walleye.
Flint Wilderness Resort features newly remodeled cabins (housekeeping plans) and a lodge complete with two boat docks (with power), a bait and tackle shop and fish cleaning station. We opted to take our own 18 foot Smoker Craft boat, but the cottages come with a 16 foot boat, motor and fuel. The camp boats are in good shape and the outboards are new Mercury and Tohatsu 9.9 and 15 HP models.
Klotz Lake is a long and narrow body of water, that features pencil reeds growing along most of the shoreline and fast breaks that taper down into 10 to 20 foot shelfs. Finding and catching fish proved to be no issue using several different presentations.
Flint Wilderness Resort is on Klotz Lake and located right on Highway 11 near Long Lac, Ontario. The camp is beautiful, well maintained and provides anglers access to dozens of remote pike, walleye, perch and lake trout fisheries in the region.
DAY ONE KLOTZ LAKE
We opted to start with a bottom bouncer and spinner rig to cover water since we had never fished the lake before. Our first morning in camp we boated over 50 walleye ranging from 15-18 inches in size. We used a two ounce Eagle Claw bottom bouncer and the Yakima Bait Finesse Walleye Harnesses with No. 2 Colorado blades. It took a little over one day to film our TV episode focusing on the finer points involved in fishing bottom bouncers and spinners for inland lake walleye.
DAY TWO KLOTZ LAKE
On day two we started experimenting with jigs, casting 1/8 and 1/4 ounce Eagle Eye jigs from Eagle Claw tipped with 3 inch Berkley Ripple Shad paddle tail grubs. No surprise, the jigs took fish literally every place we found weeds close to deep water. Later on day two we added the 1/8 ounce Yakima Maxi Jig to the mix and found they worked as well as a jig and paddle-tail.
DAY THREE FLINT LAKE
On our third day we made the trek into Flint Lake which is connected to Klotz Lake by a small river. Water levels in the river were so low, we had to walk the boats through a couple of shallow spots. Unfortunately, the wind blew 25 MPH sustained all day on our Flint Lake adventure. Despite challenging boat control conditions we managed to boat more than two dozen walleye ranging in size from 18-25 inches! Flint Lake is shallow, rocky and the average size walleye is bigger than what we experienced in Klotz Lake.
Flint Wilderness Resort maintains an outpost camp on Flint Lake for anglers who want to spent their whole time fishing Flint. Back-trolling jigs with paddle-tails produced the majority of the fish, but we were able to find a few protected places behind islands where we could cast and also catch walleye on paddle-tails and also hair jigs.
DAY FOUR KLOTZ LAKE
On day four we spent most of the day returning to places we had found fish earlier in the week. Casting jigs with paddle-tail grubs and also hair jigs we boated walleye almost at will. Using the Lowrance Active Target (forward seeing sonar) mounted to the Ghost electric motor, we slipped along with the electric looking for fish. When we spotted fish, we simply used the Anchor Mode on the electric motor to hold the boat in position while we casted to waiting fish. It was literally “see fish, catch fish” all day long!
Slip floats set up with Maxi Jigs and tipped with leeches proved to be lights out for Klotz Lake walleye. With the help of Active Target (forward seeing sonar) it was “see fish, catch fish” on Klotz Lake.
DAY FIVE KLOTZ LAKE
On our final day, we switched gears again and rigged up with slip floats and leeches. Again, using Active Target to pinpoint schools of fish, we casted slip floats using a 1/32 ounce Maxi Jig and leech at the terminal end.
The slip floats worked as well as jigs and when we ran out of leeches we were even able to catch fish on the float rigs with the Maxi Jig clean!
Klotz Lake is featured on the C-Map Contour+ mapping software found on our Lowrance HDS Live sonar/chart plotter units. Thanks to this mapping software we were able to pick apart Klotz Lake quickly, getting on fish almost immediately and staying on fish all week long.
SUMMING IT UP
In addition to Klotz Lake and Flint Lake, Flint Wilderness Resort has access to dozens of other remote lakes in the area. McKay Lake is also mapped, located nearby and can be accessed via a dirt forest road. Based on this first trip to Flint Wilderness Resort, our crew is already planning a return trip for 2023 to continue exploring this fishery.
IF YOU GO
For those interested in learning more about Flint Wilderness Resort, visit the site www.flintwildernessresort.com. The camp is open from mid May through September. Owners Tim and Dave will help you set up a rewarding and affordable Ontario fishing adventure.