July 12th, 2004: Jim Florczak and his guide, Marcel landed a huge 48 inch Pike last night!! The guys at Aswap also had a good week by landing 2 huge Pike at 45 and 46 inches. The weather has changed to summer. It's been very hot lately and there has not been much wind. The weeds are starting to come, but the fish have not completely moved into the weed beds yet. If this weather continues, [...]
July 6th, 2004: Finally some nice weather!! Although some of the guides and guests claimed to have seen some snowflakes on July 3rd, it's been very nice weather since Sunday and today is no exception. The Lake Trout are even starting to go a bit deeper as the surface temperature has risen to 65 degrees is most places and up to 70 degrees in the dark shallow bays. The trophies continue to be found, but it [...]
May 30, 2004: We have a full camp and all three outposts are open, but the ice is still not all gone. We've broken the record for latest ice out in our 16 year history on Bolton Lake. I believe the old record was set in 1996 when we were finally able to reach all areas of the lake on May 27th. We're still only fishing Mink, #1, Woods Bay, Winter Road Bay, and the Old [...]
May 23rd, 2004: The weather and the fishing has been exceptional lately, but the lake is still frozen. We've been hauling groups by snowmobile across the lake to open water at hole #1. From there we have at least 4 miles of open water all the way into Mink Creek where the fishing has been great. In a day and a half of fishing the Schenkel group has caught 5 trophies, mostly Pike. The Walleye are [...]
May 20th, 2004: Yesterday was pretty good, between the 9 anglers they managed 4 trophy Pike, a trophy Walleye and 20 or so other Pike of 36 inches. Unfortunately they did not take any digital pictures for me to upload, so we'll have to wait until they get home and get them developed. It has turned cold again! The water pump and water lines all froze last night, but the hardy anglers from Missouri are back [...]
May18th, 2004: The fishing is improving for my hardy group of anglers who have a two week fishing trip and arrived here on Monday because it's nicer here than in Winnipeg! We tried to access the back bay and we gained access by towing a boat to hole number one. Most of our June guests know #1 as a great Pike and Walleye spot, this is what it looks like today: We were able to travel [...]
May 16th, 2004: We were suppose to be welcoming our first guests this morning, but instead we got snow. The lake is still good and frozen, but there's still hope for good weather and a quick break up. Everybody thinks that when it starts to go, it's going to go in a hurry. Here's a picture taken near the end of the day....it would have been too discouraging to show one of the snow flying this [...]
May 11th, 2004: Things are looking a bit grim for opening the camp early this year. We have guests arriving on Sunday and they may be ice fishing! It's snowing like crazy today and we have very little open ice at the lodge. If things continue like this it will be difficult to open on time. I believe we are only a week away from having enough open water once we get some nice weather. I [...]
May 3, 2004: I was at Bolton and Aswap Lake yesterday bringing in more supplies and checking on ice conditions. May 15th is when I expect to have enough open water to take off with a float plane and get into the outpost camps to start setting up. There were lakes only 70 miles south of Bolton Lake that were completely free of ice, but the ice at Bolton and Aswap was only open in the [...]
April 13, 2004: It's starting to look a lot like spring here, but the temperatures are still a bit low. We sent in Harley our mechanic to Bolton Lake last week and he's getting the runway and other things ready for the season. It's good to have a guy at the lodge at this time of year so we can get updates on ice conditions and weather. It's too early to tell when the ice will [...]