Everyone dreams of catching fish of huge proportions. Unfortunately, trophy-sized fish don't come along all that often. While they may be few and far between in some locals, that isn't the case in northwest Ontario. Anglers trying their luck fishing out of Pine Cliff Lodge at nearby Sandybeach Lake can experience phenomenal fishing for huge northern pike, especially now.

"The best two weeks to catch trophy-sized northern pike is generally the first two weeks in September," said Richard Foley, who along with his wife, Kaylene, own Pine Cliff Lodge near Dryden, Ontario, Canada. "We've had some really good fishing the last couple weeks, too."
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Kansas angler Jack Kelly proudly displays a huge northern pike caught while fishing out of the Pine Cliff Lodge at Sandybeach Lake in northwest Ontario. The fish pulled the ape to nearly 41 inches long, qualifying him for a provincial Master Angler Award.

CONTACT PINE CLIFF LODGE

Interested in fishing Sandybeach Lake in Ontario? Contact Richard and Kaylene Foley at Pine Cliff Lodge. They can be reached at (800) 391-PINE, pineclifflodge@sprintmail.com or www.pineclifflodge.com.

Sandybeach Lake is a 10,000 acre Canadian lake with only a couple points of entry. This results in extremely low fishing pressure and guests of Pine Cliff Lodge generally have the lake to themselves. This amounts to no more than a dozen or so boats sharing a reservoir slightly smaller than one the size of Perry Reservoir.

"We have the solitude and remoteness of a fly-in lake but we're accessible by paved road," Richard said.

Sandybeach Lake is home to great fishing for smallmouth and lake trout during various months of the season. However, northern pike may very well be king as far as anglers searching for fish of gargantuan proportions.

"We catch a lot of fish throughout the summer but the size isn't as big as it is during this time of year," Richard said. "Those big pike move into the shallow weed beds to feed and they pretty much run all the smaller fish out into deeper water so if you hook a fish now it's likely going to be a good one."

This is exactly what a couple buddies, Bruce Snelling and Jack Kelly, and I experienced recently on a trip to Pine Cliff Lodge to bowhunt black bears and do some fishing as well.

Jack was in charge of finding the fish while Bruce and I were busy bear hunting. We all fished together each morning for a couple hours before heading in to eat lunch and get ready for our afternoon hunt. Jack would head back out and fish and like anything new, it took a bit of time to get on a pattern.

"We had a map of the lake we got from Richard with the best spots to fish and from there it was a matter of trying several of them to see where the fish were at," Jack said of his search. "Once I found some good areas we just kind of expanded from there and fished other weed beds nearby and we ended up doing really well."

Ironically enough, Jack found the best fishing at the south end of Sandybeach Lake, a 20 minute boat ride from Pine Cliff Lodge, in an area called Jackfish Bay fed by Jackfish Creek. One of the first evenings fishing solo Jack caught and landed two northern pike that pushed the tape to slightly more than 38 inches each.

Smaller fish in the mid-30-inch class were caught and released as well (all fish over 27½ inches had to be released to preserve the trophy fishing opportunities).

Jack's bait of choice wasn't anything fancy, but a No. 5 Mepps in brilliant blue and white colors. Resembling KU's blue, the lure was quickly nicknamed "Mangino" and Bruce and I each had to have one.

Fortunately, Pine Cliff Lodge has an extensive selection of lures on hand and we each bought several. Jack even got to the point where he retired the first one as huge pike with razor-sharp teeth are a little rough on a lure and flat tear it up.

"But I brought it back out of retirement later and it picked up right where it left off despite being beat all to heck and a bit crooked," Jack said with a laugh.

The last morning of our week-long stay likely proved the most productive. I'd labeled some weed beds with my handheld Garmin GPS the night prior and we eased in there at 6:45 a.m. The wind was blowing out of the north and fishing was generally better with a stiff breeze.

"I think it's easier for those big fish to see a lure when the surface of the water is broken up and not just flat," Richard said. "So it's best to fish some of the windier areas if you can."

With that in mind, we started a drift and began casting in water 12-feet deep with weed beds that grew to within 5 or 6 feet of the surface. Within the first dozen casts, we heard Jack's telltale sign he had a fish.

"Big pike," was all he'd say which turned out to be quite an understatement.

After battling the monster for several minutes the big fish rose to the surface about 10 feet from the 18-foot Lund Alaskan. It shot up into the air and Jack breathed a HUGE sigh of relief.

The hook was still firmly planted in the fish's mouth when it splashed down, unlike the night prior when he lost an even bigger fish that spit the lure doing the same thing.

I netted the fish and we all admired its length and girth. The tape told the tale and his fish reached nearly 41 inches. We snapped several photos before quickly returning the behemoth to the water and watched as he eased off into the depths.

The next 90 minutes proved to be the best. Bruce landed a 38-incher and another nearly as big. I caught my best fish of the week, a fat 39-incher, during that same time frame. Although none compared to Pine Cliff Lodge's biggest fish caught a couple years ago by another Kansas angler, a huge 53-inch monster that set a world line class record, it was truly a memorable trip.

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