Sunday, September 1, 2013

Trophies of the Past - Fishing Seibert Lake

The sun was just cresting over the horizon as dawn promised a beautiful day. I was in the back seat of my uncles Chevy listening to the stories of old exchanged between my uncle and his father in law. We were headed off ice fishing and spotting dear in the never ending glistening snowy fields of northern Alberta. Now this may have been over 20 years ago, but I still remember the stories they told about fishing Seibert Lake. That famed Trophy Lake where you weren’t allowed to use bait and the monstrosities of fish would just cruise on by.

Over the years I’ve fished Pinehurst and Spencer, but never stopped to see if the fish were biting at Seibert Lake. That is until this summer.

We were visiting family in Canada and were fortunate enough to have a neighbor lend his fishing boat to us for a few days. I had been researching all the lakes north of Edmonton and decided that the one I’d most like to explore was Seibert. I’d never been there and the chance to keep a walleye for dinner had me excited to go.

Now considering I have a 6 month pregnant wife, a daughter who’s a few months from two, a 15 year old brother and the parents along I wasn’t expecting to leave at the crack of dawn. So we got a late start and headed out to Seibert Lake. If you’ve never been there the last 20 km of road is a sandy forest road. We pulled a 16 foot aluminum Lund behind my Dad’s Escalade and needless to say it was a little muddier than when we started.

The sun was shining, the wind was blowing and the fish awaited us. We launched and headed up to the north side of the lake where I hoped to find some structure. We trolled a drop off with deep diving crankbaits in 20 to 30 feet of water. The fish finder was marking some very nice arches. The only problem was that all these arches (sonar fish) were right on the bottom and were refusing to take our offerings of Rapala and Reef Runner. There didn’t appear to be any suspended fish either which are usually more likely to hit trolled crankbaits.

This predicament required a change in attack, so we sped around to the other side of the lake and found some weed beds. My Dad was the first to hook up. It seemed to be a pike on the line and dragged him right down into the thick of the weeds. We had to position the boat against the wind in order to try and pull the fish out. When we finally got the line free there was only a fishless crankbait covered in weeds at the end of the line.

Nearby a gentle point on this very featureless lake beckoned me to give it a try. I decided there must be some walleye hanging around, so we stopped and anchored off the point in 20 feet of water. We selected lures and started casting. I went with a personal favorite to use on bait ban lakes, the chrome and glow Cicada blade bait.

I started my fan casting pattern to cover the water by tossing it as far out as I could. Let the lure free fall to the bottom with a semi taught line. Using this technique you can tell when your bait hits bottom or a fish takes it on the drop. When the lure contacts bottom pull the rod tip 1-4 feet and let it flutter back to the bottom under light tension. This method may imitate a feeding or wounded baitfish.

It wasn’t long before one of those pops off the bottom led to a subtle tap. Without hesitation I loaded up the
rod and sunk those barbless hooks into a nice fish. After a short battle a fat walleye was in the boat. It measured over the 50cm size limit and went into the ice chest for dinner. After the success my dad and brother switched over to the Cicada and started catching walleye as well.

Soon the afternoon sky darkened as large rain clouds headed our way. We thought they might miss us, but then the down pour came rapidly. We pulled the anchor and headed straight for shore to hide under some trees until it passed. We weren’t even under the trees for 5 minutes when the rain subsided. You have to love Alberta afternoon showers! The sun came out and the lake was glass calm.

We decided to have a little shore lunch since we were already on solid ground. After finding some dry wood we started our fire, dried off and ate some yummy hot dogs before heading back out on the water.

The rest of the evening was spectacular and we continued to cast blade baits for a walleye here and there. It wasn’t fast and furious action, but we did manage to release a bunch and take home a couple for dinner. Good fishing considering we were exploring a new lake in August. What a great way to spend the day with family.

Another great adventure, creating my own story fishing the Trophy Lake of Old.

2 comments:

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