Penn’s Outdoors

This is the time of the year when many people plan for a summer fishing trip.  I am going to post some of my fishing trip reports from over the years in the hope that it might be helpful as you consider where to go this summer.  I don’t think I am going to be able to take a trip this year.  So, I’ll be anxious to hear reports.  

What do you get when you combine good fishing, great food and unbeatable hospitality?  The answer is a fishing trip at Lost Lake Wilderness Lodge.  In July of 2006, my dad, my 11 year old son and I made the 14 hour journey from south central Pennsylvania to Lost Lake Wilderness Lodge located between Elk Lake and Gowganda in northeastern Ontario.  Long before we pulled into the driveway of Lost Lake Wilderness Lodge, I knew this was going to be a good fishing trip. How could I be so confident that this was going to be a good fishing trip?  Lodge owners, pay attention to what I am about to say.  It was the positive energy and friendliness that was transferred through the phone by Ed, the owner of Lost Lake Wilderness Lodge.  Ed always welcomed my calls, which had countless questions, with interest and enthusiasm.  When I plan a fishing trip, I typically make lots of calls.  If the person on the other end acts like I am bothering them, I immediately scratch the lodge off my list.  Maybe this is an unfair way to judge someone but when you are traveling over 700 miles, it is too late when you get there to find out that the owner is not sensitive to the needs of your fishing trip.

When we arrived, we were greeted with friendly warmth by Ed and his wife, Judy, despite the cold rain that was falling.  After getting unpacked, the rain continued and started to fall even harder.  My dad had already decided to forget the first night of fishing due to the steady rain.  I asked my son, Austin, what he wanted to do and without hesitation, he said “We came here to fish.  Let’s fish.”   While I would have preferred to sit out the rain, I couldn’t have been more proud of his determination, and there was no way that I wasn’t going to fulfill his request.

Despite the pouring rain coming down, Brian, Ed’s son, did not hesitate to give us our boat orientation.  The upgrade boats with electric start outboard motors on Lost Lake are as nice of boats as you will find on a fishing trip to the North Country.  They do spoil you a bit as the boats on Lost Lake Wilderness Lodge’s remote lakes are the typical functional boats found on most remote waters.

The first night would not be spent fighting fish but rather fighting the rain.  My son finally gave up after about an hour and a half.  Since I hate having a skunk in the boat, I decided to target walleye in the last ½ hour of light.  After a few minutes of being anchored over an 8’ deep hole with 2 to 3’ water all around me and jigging with a piece of night crawler,  I felt a subtle tap and soon a small walleye came into the boat.  After a few more casts, I decided to go get dry and warm.

While we only had one fish that first night, another group in camp did quite well including a catch and release of a 14lb pike, on topwater no less.   This would actually describe many of our days.  While we struggled on a few days, other groups at the Lodge did quite well.  Gary Hodge, several time Ontario Angler of the Year, was in camp and his group just nailed fish.  When a fisherman of Gary’s caliber fishes the same lodge year after year for an annual fishing trip, you don’t need to look any further for a testimonial about the fishing potential at Lost Lake Wilderness Lodge.

 
As I said we did struggle on a few days but we also did quite well on others.  Leroy Lake is a small lake just loaded with my favorite fish, smallmouth bass.  Most of the fish are small but 3 to 4lbers are possible.  This is a great lake for kids and provided some of our best fishing.

My favorite lake was Everett.  We did ok on this lake for northern pike.  But I believe smallmouth will be the future of this lake.  The structure on the lake is smallmouth heaven.  Smallmouth bass are new to the lake but I don’t think it will be long before people make this lake a smallmouth fishing trip destination.  The day after us, another group went and loaded up on bass and pike.

While portaging is the key to some of the best fishing, do not fear as the folks at Lost Lake Wilderness Lodge have gone out of their way to make portaging as convenient for you as possible.  No annoying heavy motors as motors are already on boats or staff take care of the carrying for you for the drive to lakes.  Carts are available to haul your stuff.

Top techniques for us were top water baits, small spinners (no need to go big), Case Magic Sticks and Jack’s Worm and Rapala X-raps. When using live bait, we had the most success with worms.  I did have a pike that I couldn’t budge for about 10 seconds on a minnow but was bitten off with no leader as I was targeting walleye.

This fishing trip was the first time that I had spent much time fishing Case Plastic’s Jack’s Worm.  This bait has about a 1/4 inch thick head at one end and then tapers to a point at the other end.  This bait can be fished a lot of different ways.  We caught most of our fish rigging it weightless with a circle hook through the nose.  Active bass hit a jerkbait type retrieve.  If bass weren’t active, they liked the bait to sit for a moment.  Rigging it the way we did would let the bait fall slowly and then rest on the bottom with the tail angled up quivering ever so slightly.  Even inactive bass appeared to have difficulty resisting the quivering tail.  This is a real good bait that I recommend you try on your next smallmouth bass fishing trip. It was a great simple bait for my dad and son to use.  Please forgive my dad’s sense of fashion with his hat in the next picture of a Jack’s Worm smallie.

Lost Lake offers a lot to do other than fishing including hiking, exploring deserted silver mines, howling for wolves, bird watching, swimming and blueberry picking.   We saw several bear at the dump which my son loved.  We mostly fished.

I recommend their food plan.   The food is great and you won’t go hungry.  The menu was also pretty flexible if we didn’t like something that they were having that night.  Housekeeping rates are also available. Nothing beats a shore lunch and Lost Lake Wilderness Lodge will provide a kit with  everything you need.

 

Accommodations were typical for a fishing trip camp.  The cabins at Lost Lake Wilderness Lodge are not fancy but are clean and comfortable.  The staff was outstanding.  All requests were attended to in a prompt and pleasant manner.  They went out of their way to make our fishing trip a good one.

The question that I am always asked to measure the quality of a trip is whether I would go back.  Would I?  Absolutely!   I was fishing with my 11 y/o son and my father who does not fish very much which probably cut down some on our catching numbers but we still caught plenty of fish.  If you can handle the bugs, June can be a great time for a fishing trip to Lost Lake Wilderness Lodge for multi-species fishing for smallmouth bass, northern pike, walleye and trout.  We were there in early July and did not have any black flies and manageable mosquitoes.

So if you are looking for a place with good fishing, great food and incredible hospitality, consider Lost Lake Wilderness Lodge for your next fishing trip.

Penn’s Outdoors has received no compensation of any kind from Lost Lake Wilderness Lodge or any of the products mentioned in this post