May ’25 Report

Hot, Cold, Windy, Nice, Smokey, Nice….

That sums up the weather in May. The good news is we are ending with “nice” which bodes well for our next arrivals this June. Pre opening we had a stretch of mid eighties temperatures which morphed into cold and windy for opening day……even snow flurries were part of the mix. A robust east wind for most of the week was icing on the cake for those who enjoy self flagellation. As some of you might know several years ago we opted for a “slow opener”, which basically meant hosting one or two groups of the hardiest fishermen and women……those undaunted by nasty weather and possible frozen water lines. This year proved to us that this was a good decision. That being said the “Billy” group seemed to overcome hardships of a weather nature and once again had a successful trip. Let’s go back a few weeks and see how things went…….

Late ice out with cool water……pre-opener.

A released laker….in the 30 inch range. What a fighter…..10 feet of water. Me looking very professorial with the spectacles.

The trees doing their thing….in this case a birch.

The week of hot weather is over. Now it’s time to welcome our first guests to a nice east wind and cold weather!

Not a problem, just dress warm!

A trek in the woods to warm up! The “Billy” group did well on some quality fish, and towards the end of their stay the weather improved greatly………already on the books to do it again in 2026!

Our actual opening week had decent weather but with a few days of heavy smoke from forest fires (out west) to blot out the sun….

Ray & Craig seemed to find a pattern for walleye on the rocks in 10 – 20 feet of water. Their report for the week was 190 walleye boated with 12 over 24″, and up to 27.5″……mostly jig / minnow combo. A great week for them! It seemed though our normal pattern of trolling cranks in shallow, mud bottom bays left the rest of our groups struggling. Walleyes ran on the small side and seemed scattered. I have to attribute this to the weird weather and it’s affects on water temps and perhaps food availability. Things did improve though as the week went on…….and the portage lakes seemed to be quite active.

Just a reminder to everyone there is a fire ban on right now. Things are very dry so if you’re thinking of doing a shore lunch it has to be over a Coleman stove…..no fires. You can see here that Dustin has a small single burner stove……way to go!

The week ended with better walleye catches and a movement of fish into our more shallow water patterns. Here’s a few pictures of Susanne and I catching some walleye between 1 and 2 in the afternoon in five feet of water!

There you have it folks. Some tough days, some good days, some bad weather, more good weather……that’s fishing. Looking good for our folks arriving this Wednesday. In the meantime I will catch up on some projects, fry up some walleye tonight and look forward to the next group of fishermen.

Surly Gord, signing out.