Fishing at its Finest: Oliver Lake, Saskatchewan
 

Anglers, especially fishaholics like myself, always lust for new and better fishing. We constantly push further and farther to find it. And I’ve discovered that looking for great fishing is a lot easier than finding it.

But it can happen, and it just did.

Last week, I endured a 15-hour drive (last hour on gravel) and a bumpy flight stuffed into a small floatplane to reach a truly remote fishing camp in northern Saskatchewan called the Oliver Lake Wilderness Lodge. My well-planned adventures don’t always turn out to be so well-planned, but this time, the reward more than matched the effort.

Immediately after the Cessna 185 took off from the Osprey Wings waterport in Missinipe, Saskatchewan, my fishing buddy and I were treated to a landscape splashed with hundreds of lakes strewn across what’s called the Precambrian Shield (or Canadian Shield) of northern Saskatchewan, a vast expanse of some of the oldest rock around, dating back 3 billion years or more and covered with hardy birch and spruce trees, six-inches of lichens, and thousands of lakes that, in many cases, have never had a fly or lure cast into them. It’s almost worth the trip; there’s nothing like it south of the border.

In fact, Saskatchewan has around 50,000 “fishable lakes,” according to Saskatchewan Environment. Does that sound like my kind of place, or what? 

Forty minutes later, the Cessna pilot gently put those pontoons down on a protected bay in front of the lodge, which is located on a big island in the middle of massive Oliver Lake. The plane motored right up to the end of the dock about twenty feet in front of our cabin. Owner Jean-Luc Dube and his partner Mike Pundyk met us on the dock, and before we could get our fishing stuff unpacked, Sheri Bullman, chief cook for the lodge (and Mike’s partner), had breakfast served and then, of course, quickly off to the boat, a sturdy 16.5-foot Alumarine with a 25-horse, four-stroke Yamaha. Mike had signed on as our guide for the seven-day fishing marathon.

People used to fishing small lakes and rivers in the Lower 48 might have a hard time relating to the size of everything in northern Saskatchewan. Oliver Lake is 20 miles long and 5 miles wide. It takes a boat an hour to get to one end to the other even at full speed--and several other lakes in the area are even bigger. We fished two other lakes while we were there, and the lodge has the rights to fish three others, six in total. So, you’re never wanting for new water to fish.

The fish are bigger, too, especially the northern pike. We hadn’t even digested breakfast before we were into them.

Every time I go to Canada or Alaska to fish for pike I scratch my head about the scorn some people in both Canada and the USA have for the water wolf. Not only is the pike big, abundant, aggressive and fairly easy to catch, but amazingly tasty. Yet in many parts of Canada and Alaska “jacks,” as called by locals, are used for dog food. In western Montana, where I live, fisheries managers do everything they can to destroy pike populations to protect native species (more on that later).

In late August and early September in Oliver Lake, the big pike prowl around in the weed beds that grow up during the summer. In lakes in warmer environs, this habit widely distributes the fish, but up here on the Canadian Shield, the lakes don’t grow that many weeds, but when you find one of these weed beds, you automatically find pike--not that different that trout or salmon concentrating in pools below riffles or long deep runs. Basically, the same story; you know where to find the fish.

But in a huge lake like Oliver, you don’t know where the weed beds are. That’s where Mike saved us; he seemed to have a mental map of every weed bed in the lake burned into his brain. On our own, we would’ve spent half the day finding weed beds, instead of spending the whole day catching fish.

I like all kinds of fishing, but none more than fly fishing for northerns. At Oliver Lake, the pike not only like the usual suspects, the magnum bucktails, big spinnerbaits, oversized spoons and six-inch crankbaits, flung at them with heavy baitcasting and spinning rods, but they hit the flies, too, both streamers and poppers.

I caught more fish on streamers, but a few on poppers. For those who haven’t tried it, a big pike hitting a popper is as good as it gets. I guarantee that any trout angler who likes a nice rainbow rising to a dry fly will like a pike attacking a popper twice as much. A rainbow can take a dry fly and hardly make a ripple or even wait until the fly sinks under the surface so you miss the bite altogether. Well, with pike, I assure you won’t miss the rise. Pike hit poppers with the same vigor great white sharks attack elephant seals.

Oliver Lake is known for trophy pike, and that means a pike 40 inches or longer. In addition to hundreds of smaller (but not small) pike, we caught four trophies, two each, on our trip, which makes it a huge success by any definition.

Back at the lodge, Jean-Luc keeps a list of trophies caught each year, so we are now, as he puts it, “on the board.”

And best of all, those big fish listed on the board are still out there, swimming around getting even bigger. Oliver Lake is strictly catch-and-release. This probably would be lodge policy in any case, but in Saskatchewan, it’s the law. Saskatchewan Environment has three catch-and-release designations (CR-1, CR-2, and CR-3), all requiring most fish to be released and mandating the use of barbless hooks. Oliver Lake is currently CR-2, which means you can keep half the limit (three instead of six, but no fish over 30 inches). Next year, that might change because Jean-Luc is applying for CR-3, the most restrictive (allows anglers to keep only one small fish per day) and is the best way to protect the fishery.

(Imagine catch-and-release only designations for pike fishing in Montana? That’s what we need, of course, but don’t hold your breath. Instead, we have no limit on pike. Fortunately, though, at least some pike anglers who return fish, especially big fish, in attempt to keep the fishery going.)

A couple of mornings we gave the pike a rest and went after lake trout with jigs. When Mike found the right spot, which was most of the time, we had hits almost every time we lowered the jig. No big lakers, only fish in the 3-6 pound range, because our timing was off.

In mid-September, lake trout move out of the deeps and into the shallows to spawn. We hit the beginning of that movement, so the fish were in transition and harder to find. Nonetheless, we caught lots of lakers, but no big mamas. It takes a 36-incher to get “on the board.” That happens a lot at Oliver Lake, but we didn’t get close, which leaves us something for next year.

The one exception to the stern catch-and-release ethics is shore lunch. We kept one “eater,” each day, pike or lake trout, for lunch.

At noon, Mike pulled over to a scenic point or bay, started a small fire, and cooked fish so fresh it was still twitching when we ate it. Shore lunch is a special treat in itself, almost worth the trip, so stay tuned for a follow up article on it.

On the subject, of food, another pleasant surprise was the food. Sheri put out a great breakfast every morning, and by my standards, a gourmet meal every evening. It was a real bonus for me to eat better at a wilderness fishing camp than I do at home.

In addition to the fishing and eating (yes, there’s more to life), I enjoyed the extreme remoteness of the lodge, which is the only manmade structure on the entire lake and for many miles in all directions. I worried about getting withdrawal symptoms from leaving my technology-heavy world, but it only took a few hours to get it. A guy like me needs a week off from the Internet and the grouches at the coffee shop, and that’s what you get at Oliver Lake--no email, no cell phones, no TV or radio, no checking sports scores or stock quotes, no news, period. From our cabin on the lakeshore, we woke up to loon music every morning and went to bed under the aura of the northern lights every night with not much in between except fantastic fishing.

Sound like fun? Can’t image that it doesn’t. If you want to know more, check the website or call               306-763-4623     
http://www.newwest.net/topic/article/oliver_lake_saskatchewan_fishing_at_its_finest/C41/L41/


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