Wild Guide Magazine Wild Guide Winter 2018 Digital | Page 66

tall tales
CALLING LAKES MONSTER
Our family has a cottage out on the Qu ’ Appelle lakes – my wife ’ s family has been there for some 70 years . Growing up , our family had a cottage out there too , and I have been fishing these lakes since around 1990 . Over the last few years I have enjoyed my time on the water , fishing primarily by myself from 5am to 10am and then joined by my now 8 year old daughter and 6 year old son from around 10am until noon . We typically spend a month or more at the lake in the summer , supplemented by almost every weekend intermixed with work during the week . I fish roughly 300-400 hours every summer on Echo Lake and Pasqua Lake mostly , due to our cottage location , but also spending time on Mission Lake and Katepwa Lake . In 2011 , the
year of the floods here , I landed my biggest fish at that time in mid-June on a jig and leech in 10 FOW – a 12.75lb beauty , and since then have had the fortune of catching a handful of nice fish in the 8 to 10lb range . I don ’ t seem to catch many fish when the kids are with me as every hook-up is passed on , alternating between my two kids . I am proud to say though that my kids are competent even at their age at baiting , casting , netting , handling and releasing their fish all on their own . My kids know nothing but catch-and-release .
I have been catching fish all summer this year having the best response on jigs and live bait and deep diving cranks in shallow water ( 8-15 feet ). Usually the fish have moved deeper by this time in the summer , but I managed to keep tracking them down in the shallow water even once the water had warmed up into the lower 70 ’ s . I hadn ’ t had much luck catching bigger fish this summer bottom bouncing , so I stayed away from it for the most part . Until the morning of August 12th that is .
I hooked up to this fish in 15 or so feet of water just after 6am pulling a Mack ’ s Smile blade rig behind a 1.5oz bottom bouncer with a 36 ” lead at 1.2mph . Water temps again were right around 70 degrees at the surface .
I ’ m amazed at the size of this fish . I ’ ve only seen pictures of other fish in this size class . I think more surprisingly though is the fact that it came from the Calling Lakes system , which is not known for fish of this size . I made a few and , as I understand it , this is likely the largest walleye to ever come from this lake system . How cool is that !? I ’ m still on cloud 9 , riding out that feeling as long as I can .
65 Wild Guide . Winter 2018