Northwestern Ontario report for the week ending July 4/21

Water temps around the Eagle Lake region are starting to climb to the dangerous 80 degree mark, the continued hot, dry weather is not helping the situation.

Despite less than ideal conditions across the area, the musky have been hitting the bag pretty steady.

I spent the previous weekend on Eagle Lake and we bagged the biggest sub 50” I have ever encountered. With less than a minute to go before dark, my brother in law, Richard Madussi hooked into a 49 ½” tank on a Dancin’ Raider wtd top water. After a short tussle and fighting bugs we got a sweet sunset pic.

This weekend on Eagle Lake we were using bucktails, top water and jerk baits. We had some near misses chasing a 50”+ fish multiple times over the weekend. We managed to catch some fish on jerk baits, such as the classic Bobbie Bait and newcomer Bangarang Custom Soul Searcher. 

Most of the fish we seen on Eagle were shoreline related, with some starting to move out to summer areas. 

Over the past week I have seen water temps in the range of 73-78 degrees across Eagle, but reports of 80 have come in.

Last week we spent some time on the Indian Lake Chain, where water temps were cooler at 72-75 degrees. I landed a nice one on the Soul Searcher twitch bait over a midsummer rock pile. After we raised two fish on the same spot, we rolled around the reef and slowed our presentation and the bigger fish couldn’t resist the subtle twitch of the Bangarang Custom bait. We raised multiple fish in sloppy weeds and rock/weed mix shoreline.

We went back a few days later and put a few more in the bag on a textbook ‘bluebird day’. They didn’t come easy but working areas over from different angles proved to be the ticket. Bucktails cast close to the structure and weeds were drawing fish out of cover. 

With a sustained heat wave forecast well into the middle of July, the water temps will be above the 80 degree mark this week. Whether anglers choose to stop chasing musky is not up to me, however my group of angling friends will stop chasing them on the major lakes. Northwestern Ontario has some smaller, off the beaten path lakes that have musky populations similar to  pike lakes. These lakes only have fish up to 40” and they are much more climatized to the warmer water. We are able to fish these lakes with bass gear and much smaller lures which limits any damage to the fish.

Good luck out there anglers, 

54 or Bust