For the last two weeks Timmins,Ontario residents living in their summer homes and cottages were evacuated due to dry weather and forest fires. Residents were also asked to stay out of the bush. The forest fires were so intense that the City called an State of Emergency for the last two weeks. After four days of rain the ban was lifted in certain areas. While it could not have came any sooner for this angler. Being locked out of the bush after a long winter and only having one day out at the opening day of Walleye season up here before the ban was instated, I could hardly wait to get out. My friend and fishing partner Craig called on Sunday to see if I wanted to hit the water on Wednesday or Thursday to pull some crankbaits. Of course was my reply. We decided to fish a lake in the area that the ban was lifted in called Kamiskotia Lake which is located about fifteen km., northwest of Timmins off highway 101. The lake has an average depth of ten feet with some depths in the twenty five foot range with one of best Walleye population in the area. With the weeds not fully grown to the surface, we thought we would give it a try. After a couple calls on Monday and Tuesday to decide on whether Wednesday or Thursday would be better we were on our way to the lake by 1:30 Tuesday afternoon. With rain showers being forecast on and off for the day, along with no wind, we knew it would be a tough bite but we did not care. We were on the water. When we finally launched the surface temperature was 59.8 but warmed up to 61.9 around four when the sun popted out from behind the clouds. During the day we played with the amount of line we let out and boat speed. Trolling in depths of ten feet to twenty three feet of water, we did mange to each scracth our limits out with only one over slot. During the day we each caught one small Pike which was a strange as the lake has a healthy population of Pike and Perch in it also. We were using nine foot rods and reels spooled with 10/4 FireLine. We played allot with colors and sizes of crankbaits during the day since the skies were changing every half hour. The best crankbaits for the day were Berkley Flicker Shads and #5 Shad Raps. We knew that we could have caught more Walleyes using other techniques however there is nothing like a challenge and anytime I can fool a Walleye in hitting my crankbait in tough conditions while nothing gets my blood pumping more than that. If you never tried pulling crankbait before, do yourself a favor the next time you are out and spend some time pulling some for a while. It won't be long before you start to catching fish and building some confident in them. Some of my biggest Walleye came from trolling crankbaits.
