The Oppel's Blog: Whitelaw Trip

Recently I had the opportunity to return to Whitelaw lake in Ontario Canada. That is about 70 miles NE of Red Lake, Ontario. The group this time was made up of Jon Holets, Jonathan Holets, Dale Mell, Todd Mell, Pat Cleary, and myself. We do this trip through loonhaunt outfitters.

We drove up to Duluth on Monday 6/29. Tuesday morning we drove up to Red Lake, picked up bait, ate dinner, and crashed at the hotel. Wednesday morning we flew into Whitelaw on an Otter owned by Greenway Air.

We fished, ate, and slept for 4 days. The weather was great. There was a forest fire near by so we got to see lots of helicopters which was interesting. The menu was mostly fish but we did bring in some duck, caribou, and venison. We had fish in panko bread crumbs, Louisiana batter, Shorelunch, and red onion grilled. We had fish in vegetable oil and bacon grease. We had fish with breakfasts, as snacks, as dinners. Basically we had lots of fish!

No large northerns to speak of but the pig of the trip was a walleye caught by Jonathan Holets. This was a monster at 31 1/2 inches with an estimated weight of 15lbs. I've never seen a walleye even close to that one. When I first saw it I thought it must be a sucker or a carp! The outfitter said this was a 1 in 10 year fish. My highlight was reeling in a walleye and having a large northern grab my walleye and snap my line off right next to the boat. All told we estimate that we caught 500-600 walleyes.

We flew out on Sunday afternoon and drove all the way home getting in pretty late. It was a great trip and as always it seemed like a good time was had by all.

Group photo - Dale Jon, Todd, Jonathan, Pat, and me