Message from Wayne and Lydia at NCL

We were also there last week. In years past, 24-28" walleyes were very common in 20-25' of water. This year.......we lost patience after a dozen or so 12-13" were caught. The bigger fish all seem to be suspended and feeding quite nicely on baitfish just like shmcbroom mentioned. Trolling didn't produce anything but frustration for us.

Early ice out didn't seem to be a real good thing for the fish "catching" activity. My friend has a Cabin on the lake and it has been pretty slow all summer!

The big weed bed was thicker, but still not real productive. Tunnel Bay was packed with baitfish and suspended fish below them. I would suggest dynamite could be your best bet for dredging those fish up!

They should be some real hogs next year though!

mikeuwl---send my an e-mail. My e-mail address is: minker@butler-bremer.com and we'll talk fishing. I don't mind telling people where to fish on Canyon or what I have had luck using.

Russ

We fished Canyon Lake last week and stayed with our wonderful hosts, Wayne and Lydia. We always have a great time! The Smoked Trout Chowder was sensational! The whole camp meal was great for that matter!
Fishing wasn't the same as last year...but we always caught between 15 to 23 walleye every night. I would recommend slip bobbers in 11' to 12' foot of water. We did better with leeches, but minnows worked also. They really start biting in the evening between 8:30pm to 9:45pm. Daytime fishing was tough. We had many musky follows and only caught one, but the follows were very exciting. Most of our fish were caught up Outlet Bay. Trolling Lindy Rigs can also be very productive in the evening. The key is the 11' to 12' foot depth for walleyes. We rarely caught anything any deeper. As for big fish, we caught one 27" 7lb walleye our first afternoon around 3:00pm. Most of our other walleye were 14" to 20" and caught in the evening. This was my 3rd time at Canyon and my father's 4th time, so we know the lake fairly well. Good luck to all...it's a great lake, but you have to work at it some time.

[QUOTE=Russ;.Don't overlook the beaver house for both bass and walleyes.
QUOTE]

Russ,
You mention the Beaver house. Are you speaking about a specific beaver house or just beaver houses in general. I've fished Canyon the past 3 years and trying to learn as much about the lake as possible. If you are talking about a specific one, would you share the location. All help appreciated.
pfessor

I fish every beaver house I can you just never know what you'll catch by them, walleye, bass or musky. I have some favorites and they are all over the lake, Outlet Bay, Canyon Bay, pass the Narrows and also some on the main lake. Some produce better than others, depends on time of day and depth of water out in front of them.

We arrived on Sat. with water temps close to 80F, muskies were really active and netted a 34 and 35.5 and several 50+ follows Sat. ..............and then the weather kicked in with wind shifts for the first 5 days and the water temp cratered down about 8-10F with muskie fishing going along with it. We have found that muskie fishing is phenomenal when water temps are > 75F on this lake. Walleyes are finding something else to eat or are not biting. We spent too much time on them trying to get enough for 3 fish fries and a conservation limit of 12-13" fish during the week. This was our first time back in 3 yrs and walleye fishing is in serious decline and was a great disappointment, we went to this lake for 5 yrs straight from 2003 to 2008 and every night, regardless of weather, you would get sick of catching 30 or more 20-27" fish, my nephew caught 6 26" fish in two hours one night. We would have 3 on at once and would just pitch them in the boat with the net, a total gas! 3 people would go through 2# of leeches in 5 days. There is something going on in the lake and we couldn't figure it out. We had our best luck gunning beaver houses and fallen trees. We didn't catch one fish over 15"! Normally, we have a difficult time getting enough eater size fish (<20") during the week and will keep none larger in the interest of keeping this lake the great fishery it is ( or was). I did notice Mayflies for the first time on the dock, not in great numbers, some never the less.

We had the great pleasure to cross paths with Russ and Kathy, whom we had gotten to know over the years. If Russ isn't catching walleyes, somethings wrong! Great people!

I'm sure some folks did better and were more adaptable but we really didn't see or hear of anyone crowing about how great the walleye fishing was. Bass (not in great numbers) would only take a vertical jig with leech usually off the beaver houses and trees but showed no interest in artificials. I'm sure the weather shifts played a role in our luck. I hope we hear some more positive news going forward as this is an awesome lake. Looking to see what Russ posts as he will be up there until mid Aug.

One of the lodge owners on the lake stated that two years ago the water was very low and the gulls had a field day eating the rusty crabs. We also noted that there was a marked decline in rusty numbers this year, my kids would be up half the night in years past when they were younger catching buckets of them for a boil. My theory, based on some research on rusty crab life cycle and experience with some northern WI Lakes, is that the crash in the rusty population has allowed the native bait fish populations to explode due to lack of predation by the rustys. I am no liminologist nor do I have a degree in freshwater ecology, just an engineer. I suspect that the walleyes, now, do not have to work hard to find food and are feeding on suspended baitfish at will all day long. It will be interesting to see, over time, if there is direct correlation to rusty crab population and the quality of walleye fishing in the lake. I just hope we don't have to wait too long! I sure hope all those 20+" fish we caught and released are still there and reproducing. There were many nights out there when we had to have chicken for supper as everything was over 20".

Mike,

We are heading up to Canyon this Saturday and this will be my 19th year fishing that lake with the last 10 fishing nothing but musky. If the water was in the 80's last week of July, I have a feeling it should be in the 74-77 range when we arrive, which is prime time..You had a couple nice catches and some 50's follow. Any particular spots you saw the 50's...

Was it the tunnel? Was it the island before the tunnel? The 3rd Island rock reef? All of these are pretty significant spots where we always see & catch them.

Were you pounding shallows or fishing vertical structure & rock reefs w/ access to deep water?

coming up Sept. 10th for second trip this year. Any Walleye info, would be greatly appreciated! Bringing my 81 year old dad. His first trip in 30 years! Musky and smallie info would be great also.
Thanks.

My wife and I were up at Canyon for approx. 26 days and the fishing was a lot better this year than last. We caught quite a few walleyes, biggest was 21" and many nice bass, biggest was 18". Our best fishing wasn't until the first week of Aug. but then again the first week we didn't fish a lot, just kicked back and relaxed. We caught our walleyes in anywhere from 11' of water to 21' and all on leeches or night crawlers and a lot of the time using a slip bobber. We caught very few fish around the beaver houses and other years they are good for both walleyes and bass. I did notice that when I cleaned some walleyes this year they were full of crayfish and I haven't seen that before and I don't know why with so many minnows in the lake. The best morning I had on walleyes I was in 21' of water and I caught 34 with out moving, I was anchored and I had a ball. That's 34 walleyes that I got in the boat not counting the ones I lost and I missed many. I also noticed that a lot of the old spots weren't paying off this year and I also caught fish were I have never fished before so if one spot doesnt' produce, keep tryin different ones, different depths until you find them.

I was hoping Siegel Gallagher which runs Reef Point in Racine was going to take over Northpoint. Its tough to envision positives coming from anything in bed with the city of Chicago

Sounds like fun indeed

Im not sure we can come up with more than two maps since we dont have more than three "mappers" and one of them is inactive at the moment.
Ive got no problem with driving more maps during the scrim though.

That "No speccing"-rule is going to be hard to monitor.
I think it should be ok as long ask you ask first.

I spoke to Hecker about it and we agreed that it would be a good idea to start the scrim on a Friday and end it on Sunday the week after. That way its not too long and you still get two weekends of driving.
Some of us has a job you know...

To add to Mark, yes it should be a block. Assuming from your boat number you got new, the block is supplied loose and needs fitting.

Paul