Best walleye fishing at Le Domaine Shannon

Finally made it back to Le Domaine Shannon for the first of 2 scheduled trips to Lac Wahoo this July. For this trip, I took my son Eli along. He'd been dreaming of coming back there since his last trip to Lac Wahoo with me in 2022. 

Having previously fished Lac Wahoo during 11 trips there since 2012, I figured that I've spent enough time to know what to expect on a 5 day July fishing trip there. Namely, lots of smaller pike, maybe a few eating sized ones, along with a shot at one or two big pike in the 35 to 40 inch range. Possibly a few walleye caught trolling on a cloudy or rainy day too.

I couldn't have been more wrong....

Day 1:

With heavy rain in the forecast for the entire day, we didn't bother driving through the night as we normally would. We arrived at the cabin around 1:30 PM after check in at the main camp. Unloaded the car, set up the gear, but held off launching in the rain. Instead, we chose to put on our rain suits and bugproof gear to do some shore fishing, hoping to possibly hook into some walleye or pike. Our short outing didn't work out as planned, but we did land a few fallfish. First time Eli's ever caught one.

By 4 pm, the rain let up a bit, so we got the boat setup with our sonar, rod holders, landing net, and new cradle for releasing bigger fish, which I was hoping to break in on this trip. As usual, my plan was to troll 2 rods, letting Eli fight any hooked fish, while I controlled the boat and landing gear if needed.

The troll started off as planned, using 2 Rapala Husky Jerks, #12 and #14 sizes. Eli landed a small pike within the first 5 to 10 minutes. Didn't bother with a picture. After another hour or so without any hits, we hooked into a bigger fish, and given the fact that it was still raining, we weren't too surprised that it was a walleye. However, it was much bigger than the average walleye for LacWahoo. A 22.5 inches, it was over the allowable slot size.

Shortly after, we landed another smaller walleye, and then, nothing else until we called it a day around 8 pm. The rain had finally stopped, and with the setting sun peaking though the clouds, we enjoyed a nice bonfire bbq dinner with a unique view of the lake.

Day 2:

We woke up to a cold, windy day, with heavy cloud cover. We got a later start after morning prayers and breakfast. I was wearing  2 sweaters, while Eli wore 3 to keep warm. After trolling unsuccessfully for a while, we decided to cast on of my hot spots for pike. Eli landed 3 pike within a few minutes, with our first keeper sized fish of the trip.

We decided to cast another area with the husky jerks, and caught a decent mix of walleye and smaller pike. 

After a few drifts and enough walleye for a big dinner, we motored back up the spot for another pass. I suggested Eli leaving his line in the water close to the boat, sort of how one would troll a "prop wash" line for muskies. Sure enough, just as I stopped the boat, Eli got hit by another long pike.

After the casting bite slowed down, we headed back for lunch. That afternoon, we tried trolling different lures. At some point, the spinner we trolled on one of the rods caused too much line twist, so Eli was handling that rod while trolling the bare line to remove correct it. We got up a bit shallow, so I lifted the other rod, which was trolling a red and white spoon. Sure enough, I got a nice hit while holding the rod, so I decided to fight the fish myself. It ended up being my biggest pike of the trip, in the 31-32 inch range.

I was happy enough, and got to try using our new release cradle for the first time as an added bonus.

The day ended with us catching 10 pike and 5 walleye.

Day 3:

We finally woke up to sunny skies and a flat mirror like lake with no wind. Perfect condition to head out and cast some topwater lures for the morning bite for pike. Or so we thought...

No matter what we tried to cast or troll, the pike weren't cooperating with our plans. Heading back to where we caught some walleye the previous day, Eli landed another keeper sized fish.

After lunch, we decided to do some more shore fishing before heading out on the boat again. Eli managed another keeper sized walleye.

After some more very slow trolling action, We planned on more casting. None of the spots we normally fish were producing, and eventually, I went into a small bay, where I've never managed to hook anything. Sure enough, Eli hooked into another keeper sized walleye.

Working the shoreline out to the main section of the lake from that bay, Eli and I started catching walleye after walleye, a mix of keepers and undersized fish. We ended the day with a total of 2 pike, and a whopping 16 walleyes. Way better than we've ever managed on Lac Wahoo. We enjoyed another nice sunset on the back end of the lake before calling it a day.

Day 4:

Another gorgeous morning, we got started bright and early. Despite the seemingly perfect conditions, we spent the first half of the day with not a fish in sight no matter what we tried. Very odd for what we are used to when fishing there. We knew that the fish were bound to start feeding at some point, and after a late lunch, we headed out for the afternoon session just as the clouds started rolling and and the wind picking up. We started off trolling, and sure enough, we got with within a few minutes. Eli landed his biggest pike of the trip, another cradle worthy fish.

We kept trolling, and eventually came up to an area with a shallow hump. as we both lifted the rods to avoid snagging bottom, I git hit by a nice walleye.

Having had some decent walleye casting around that hump during previous trips, we made a few casting passes, and landed a few more.

We eventually got hungry enough to leave the good bite, and Eli setup lunch while I cleaned the catch.

After lunch we headed back to the spot. I landed another walleye, before heavy rain chased us off the lake. Went back again after the rain, managed one more walleye before we again due to lightning.

We ended the day with 4 pike and 6 walleye. 

Day 5:

Our final day of fishing for this trip started off with sunny skies and no wind. Again, another slow start until the wind picked up. We timed it perfectly, ending up at our walleye hot spot. Sure enough, Eli managed another over slot size walleye at 23 inches.

Caught a few small pjke while trolling when the casting bite slowed down, then got chased off the lake again by heavy thunderstorms. Thankfully, they only last about an hour or so, and when the skies cleared, we got onto some more great walleye fishing casting the husky jerks.

Eli led the way, catching the majority of them, and all were caught at spot that I've never seen walleye at in all my years fishing there.

This fish had been attacked by something much bigger, most likely a large pike.

With about 1 hour left to the trip, we tried casting a weedbed where Eli had caught a smaller pike earlier in the day. Eli hooked into another big walleye right at the boat, and ended up landing the biggest walleye of the trip.

At 25 inches, and probably pushing the 6 lbs mark due to it's girth, it was by far the largest one of the trip. Another nice cradle release.

Perfect end to a perfect trip, if we hadn't kept catching more walleye until past sunset. 4 pike and 9 walleye landed on our final day.

All in all, I couldn't have dreamt of a bigger surprise. On a lake where we normally catch about 20 pike for every walleye, we manage to landed a total of 34 walleyes to only 21 pike, with most of them in the allowable keeper slot size, with 3 bigger ones too. The only missing fish to this trip was one of the big pike that keep us dreaming of going back there every summer, but we were more than happy with our new found walleye success at Le Domaine Shannon, on a lake that isn't one of their "walleye lakes".

We ate walleye dinners for 4 consecutive nights, and brought home a bag limit of them, in addition to a few pike we kept as well.

While Eli was sad to leave, I'm scheduled to return there in a week's time with my friend Jimmy. Hoping to have some more good fishing to report when I get back.

Mijocama pike fishing summer 2025

Been a while since I've posted content to this blog, as I've been busy with other priorities. Fishing's been OK, nothing out of the ordinary throughout spring. I've been looking forward to this year's family trip to Mijocama for a while, figuring the pike fishing likely improved even more since last year. Turned out that my hunch was right, and we enjoyed better than ever pike fishing for that lake.

Day 1:

Zev and I headed up early enough, and Avi followed in his car. We got to Mijocama early, and by the time we found a couple suitable boats and hit the water, it was around noon. With rapidly climbing temperature during an incoming heat wave after a few days of rain, the bite was on fire.

Zev started off trolling jerkbaits on my boat, while Avi went casting solo on the second boat, being that we had more of my family joining later that day. Zev landed couple pike, and missed a bass on the first pass of the troll.

At the end of the pass, we started casting. Bite was just as good, if not better.

Within a couple hours, we had landed 10 pike, keeping our 6 fish bag limit for some family shore lunches over the next couple days. Knowing that the rest of the group had likely arrived, we left a hot bite to go pick them up.

They were both shocked and thrilled to see the results of our first efforts.

Heading back out, Avi joined Zev and myself, while the rest of the family took the other boat. Being that we only had one landing net, I gave it to them, relying on my experience to hand land any pike if need be.

First casting pass throwing jerk baits, yielded a double header for Zev and Avi. Avi's pike turned out to be a lot bigger, I was barely able to bet my hands around it to hoist it on board. This pike is bigger than most we catch at Mijocama, and by far the biggest of the trip.

Eli and Audrey managed to catch some on their boat, and we ended up switching passengers for the last outing of the day. Unfortunately, the bite died down, but Lindsey managed her first Mijocama pike.

Day 2:

Eli and Audrey were up to join me for the morning bite, as was Zev. The troll with jerkbaits started off nicely, with Audrey landing the first bass of the trip. Quite rare to catch them trolling.

Eli and Zev followed up with some pike caught while casting the end of the pass. 

After heading in to shore for mid morning prayers, I spent the next couple hours filleting, deboning, and cooking the previous day's catch for lunch.

Avi had to leave early, and Levi and Lindsey were set to leave the next morning, so I took them out again. Trolling for pike paid of for Levi, with another nice catch.

Sweltering heat with a humidex over 40C made for tough sleeping, and we were up bright and early the next morning.

Day 3: 

With only Eli, Audrey and Zev left with me for the rest of the fishing trip, we stuck to one boat. They took turns on the trolling rods, and we stopped to cast every once in a while to change things up. Both techniques worked at time, some better than others.

A couple pike from day 3:

Towards evening, I decided to spend some time targeting largemouth bass. They are much rarer than they were back in the early days, almost non existent now. I have a hunch that most of the lake's population was killed off by the largemouth bass virus (LMB) a few years ago, but the surviving part of the population seems to be staring a slow comeback.

Sure enough, I managed to hook a bass casting a PopR, but it came off after a couple jumps.

Day 4:

Cold front moved in during the early morning hours, and we took advantage to catch up on some much needed sleep once the cabin temperature was bearable. I started off taking out one of my friend's kids for a short pass trolling, as he had never caught a fish up to that point. Within 10 minutes, he had landed 2 pike. 

After dropping him off, I took my kids out again, and the hot bite continued for another 1/2 hour, with all 3 of them landing another pike each. Eli's was the biggest of the day.

That evening, I managed my first Mijocama bass in a couple years, nice topwater hit on the PopR.

As well as a nice sunset pic.

Between all our caps and my t-shirts, you'd think we were sponsored by BassPro...

Day 5:

Our last day fishing at Mijocama during this trip, fishing was slower than the previous days. Still we managed some pike, mainly while casting, maybe 1 or 2 while trolling.

I managed to landed another topwater bass, this time over deeper water, while casting a walking mullet for pike.

Big adventure for the day, was my son messing up a cast, and getting a treble hook embedded into my hand. Luckily, I know how to remove them, and had Audrey film the procedure. See the video at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KOFBzLtFpBc 

All's well that ends well, and we managed to land a whopping 60 pike during our 5 day stay, despite 2 of those being only 1/2 days of fishing. By far the best pike fishing we ever had at Mijocama.

As for bass, the magical 100+ fish trips seem to be gone for the foreseeable future, We managed to land 3 of 5 decent bass, but I'm hoping they'll make a comeback over the next few years.

Have a couple upcoming trips to Lac Wahoo at le Domaine Shannon coming up in July, hoping to have some more pike fishing tales to share.

Ice fishing winter 2025

 As winter dwindles to it's end, I figured I'd recap my ice fishing adventures starting from January 2025. Before the start of the 2025 ice fishing season, I set my goal to fish at least 2 new spots, as my old spots tend to get predictable, and dare I say, boring at times.

After doing some research both online and by car, I set my target spots as Lac Aylmer in the Chaudiere Appalaches zone, as well as another spot closer to home on the St Lawrence River, with easy access and waterfront parking, which would let me run flag lines while watching from a heated car, in case of bad weather.

Ice fishing season started early enough in December, I started by hitting a few of my known, early ice safe spots. Exploring new spots on thin ice, is a bad idea to say the least, so they would have to wait until January. December ice fishing report can be found at:

 https://www.montreal-fishing.com/2024/12/december-2024-ice-fishing-report.html 

January 5 2025:

My first outing in January ended up being a last minute guided outing. A childhood friend of my brother was in town visiting with his kids, and booked me to take him out near town. The new spot I planned to hit for pike wasn't safe yet, so I picked another area where I knew we wouldn't need to worry about thin ice. Weather was quite cold, but they were able make it through the day. Flag lines didn't provide any action, but they did manage to jig up a small pike.

January 14 2025:

A couple weeks later, the ice at my first new spot on the St Lawrence River was finally safe enough to access, after a deep freeze. I was happy to find 8 to 10 inches of solid ice to fish on. I brought my son Zev along for the outing, hoping to get some studying and homework done with him, while watching our flag lines from the heated car. Weather was cold and extremely windy, and with a decent current, jigging with flashers was sort of tougher than usual.

I got the lines set up, baited with a mix of thawed mackerel, and smelt. Within a couple hours, 2 flags went off at the same time. The closer one was no longer spinning, the fish had dropped the bait about 20 feet away. The next line was still spinning when we got to it. I showed Zev how to set the handline, and fight the pike hand over hand. I finally helped him guide it's head up the ice hole, and he landed his biggest pike to date, 32.5 inches weighing over 7 lbs.

I don't like keeping pike that big, especially not from the St Lawrence River, so we released it in good health. That was all for the day, but at least my new spot paid off with easy access to the ice,  and Zev's new PB.

January 15 2025:

Having achieved one of the 2 goals I had set the previous day, I figured I'd get it done with sooner rather than later. I made the long day trip to Lac Aylmer, hoping to possibly get into some perch, and possibly walleye, or elusive whitefish, which are known to be in that system. I left the flag lines at home, opting instead to jig various depths until I connected with some fish.

Trekking on the lake was slow, as it had some decent snow cover. Over 5.5 hours, I fished 20 holes with various lures, at depths from 10 to 40 feet deep. Unfortunately, not one fish in sight on the flasher, I ended up getting skunked. As I always say when hitting new spots, if I'm not making a new spot, at least I'm eliminating one...

January 28 2025:

Headed back to my new spot on the St Lawrence River with Zev again, plan was the same as before. Fish flag lines for pike, while catching up on his schoolwork in heated car, as the wind chill outside was -25C. This time, the first flag baited with double smelt, went off just as I was done setting my lines. Having practiced a couple weeks before, Zev did a better job at setting, fighting, and landing this pike, though it was smaller than the previous one.

We ended up keeping that one for the table, and 3 of us enjoyed it for dinner. My new spot had paid off with another fish again, and having the convenience of fishing from the car with Zev, is a huge bonus.

January 30 2025:

This was a short last minute outing that I hadn't planned. An online acquaintance I had been corresponding with for a number of years, invited me out to try a new spot with him. With walleye being the target species, I joined him for a few hours in the evening, at another spot on the St Lawrence river. The spot ended up having more current than I imagined, and in order to see my lure on the flasher down at 20 feet of depth or so, I had to drill a separate downstream flasher hole a few feet away. I did manage to get a few nice follows, but no hookups for either of us. Still, having hit a 3rd new spot, I had already beat my previous goal of 2.

February 2025:

My plan for targeting largemouth bass on another new lake during the first week of February was put on hold, as I found cheap tickets to Miami to visit my daughter and her family. As much as I enjoy ice fishing, getting the chance to spend a week with my grandchildren and fishing open water for exotic species in February, was a no brainer. Fishing wise, I did better than ever on the canal I fished for 6 days, landing some nice jacks, a big snook, as well as peacock bass and largemouth bass. Blog post with trip pictures is at: https://www.montreal-fishing.com/2025/02/miami-canal-shore-fishing.html

I got back from Miami just in time for back to back blizzards, which dumped record snow onto all the regions I fish. All that accumulated snow kept me off the ice until the second week in March, when rain and warmer weather melted most of the cover, eventually refreezing it solid with the next cold front.

March 10 2025:

Not having been on ice in over 5 weeks, I was itching to get out again. I chose to hit another new lake, this time it was Lac Boivin, right in the center of Granby. I've seen pictures of some big largemouth bass being caught there in the summer, so I was hoping for a shot at landing one on ice. Before hitting the lake, I checked the Navionics nautical chart, to get an idea of where to start on this very shallow lake. The chart showed most of the lake having a depth of 6 to 8 feet, with one small hole going down to a maximum of 12 feet. 

When I got on the lake, I was consistently drilling into 3 to 5 feet, with the top 16 inches being solid ice. Seems like the lake was drawn down, as I believe the water level there is controlled by the Yamaska River. I ended up fishing 40 ice holes, and it took quite a while to find the hole which max out at 9 feet. So my assessment of the water level being 3 feet low, was accurate.

Not much to show for except for a perch that I caught very shallow, with a bit over 1 foot of water under the ice.

After ice fishing 6 hours on Lac Boivin with 1 perch to show for, I decided to leave early, and hit another new lake nearby. I made my way to Roxton Lake in time for the evening bite. Noticed a few other people fishing there without much success, but I managed to land a few perch and pumpkinseed sunfish in about 2 hours of ice fishing there.

Definitely won't be ice fishing on Lac Boivin again, though I may be tempted to try float tubing there at some point. Likely won't be hitting Roxton Lake either. Again, knocking another 2 lakes off my list, put me at 5 new spots this ice fishing season. which suits me just fine.

March 12 2025:

Another last minute, half day outing, had me taking my son Eli as well as Zev back to my new pike spot. After setting our lines, it took a few hours for the first flag to go off. Eli was a bit rusty at handlining pike on ice, and fumbled by losing a small pike right at the hole. Oh well...

March 18 2025:

By this point, I wasn't to sure of the ice quality around Montreal, due to some very warm weather and rain. I decided to head North, to one of 2 lakes. I've fished one late in March in the past, with some very good results. The second one was less likely to produce, but the tradeoff would be amazing if I were able to locate and hook some of the trophy size smallmouth bass that I've caught there in the summer. Following along with my exploratory theme for the ice season, I chose the second option.

I got up to the lake early enough to put in 8+ hours of solid fishing. Unfortunately, the very thick ice had a layer of water in most of the spots I tried, making drilling tougher than normal. 

I filmed a comparison video, see: https://youtu.be/log4i-LNaNo 

I was not able to locate any smallmouth bass, despite fishing close to 35 holes in what I figured may be two of the prime areas. I did get lucky, and connected with a tasty brook trout, likely held over from yearly stocking in January.

Got a few pics on the way out.

Setting evening sun:

And some local wildlife on the outskirts of the closest town:

At least I got this lake out of my system as far as ice fishing for bass is concerned, though I will very likely head back there once bass season re-opens in June.

March 27 2025:

Finally, my last outing before the season closes on April 1st. Having done more than enough exploratory ice fishing since the start of 2025, I decided to head back to one of my goto spots for bass. In the past, I've had some very slow, as well as very productive ice fishing outings on this lake, late in the ice season at the start of spring.

Conditions were just about perfect, bright sunny skies, about 16 inches of solid ice with a couple inches or hard packed snow on the surface. Weather just under freezing in the morning, warming above freezing by noon, and not much wind.

My plan was to crisscross the lake and fish various depths until I determined some sort of pattern. Fishing mainly depths of 15 to 30 feet, it wasn't until the 18th hole that I drilled that I connected with my first bass of the day on the rattlenvibe lipless crankbait.

I then fished another 30 holes without much to show for until my next fish. Hole #46 produced my first smallmouth of the season, caught on a kastmaster spoon over 32 feet of water.

4 holes later, another small largemouth, followed by 2 more largemouth on hole #65. Both the rattlenvibe and kastmaster sppon produced again, while not much happening with the jigging rap. The bass were suspended a good 5-7 feet off bottom, in depths ranging from 19 to 23 feet. By this point, I was attempting to maintain that depth until the end of the day, while working my way back to where I had parked.

I planned to fish about 80 holes before making it off the lake by sunset, which meant fishing no later than 7 pm. Sure enough, on my first drop down the last hole, with about 10 minutes left to my ice season, I hooked up to a bigger bass. During the battle, it ran back towards bottom several time, peeling my drag nicely for the first time of the day. As such, I knew it was a better fish. I was lucky to land it, just as it spit my hook at the hole. 

Measuring 18 inches, my biggest bass of the day by far. Managed another bass and the first 2 perch of the day out of the same hole before leaving a few minutes later.

Fairy tale endings do happen every now and then, perfect way to end another productive ice fishing season!