Dore Lake, Sask Report

[Drewski Canuck]

Took a trip with my bud Greg and new friend Kent to Dore Lake. First time for Greg and I.

It is BIGGG. about 22 miles north to south, about 18 miles east to west, with a lot of bays, islands, rock islands, and structure everywhere!!

Lake could be a killer with so few boats out on such a big area. Winds can kick this thing up in a hurry, and it can be a long way back.

Fuel can be an issue as there are only 3 lodges that rent cabins, and sell fuel. We were close to not getting fuel as the tanks were low. Bring some jerry cans as insurance.

The lake is about 60 - 70 FOW only. It is clean even with the summer heat. Structure can pop up 2 miles from shore, from 47 FOW to 7!!! Lots of humps to explore.

Lake has a lot of Tulibee and cisco, which makes it tough in august as they suspend everywhere in open water taking the fish with them.

Key colour is blue and white / blue and silver. Deep dibver plugs were so so, and we were running 3 ounce bottom bouncers often. Donated a lot of hooks to many huge rock beds.

Best for Kent was 6.5 kg pike, Greg got a 6 kg, lots of 5 kg's but none that would push the 20 pd mark I was looking for. Walleye were scarce but this is common where bait suspends in deep water. Walleye also suspend under them, making for tough fishing.

Lake gave up a 38 pd pike last year, so there are big fish. about 100 km of gravel so get some gravel guards and good mud flaps.

Drewski

[neilsledder]

My uncle went there this year he said it was nice , but there was to much smoke to go out to far from the cabin. He did manage to catch a 29lbs pike. My dad has a cabin rented for next year I hope I can sneak in!

[aulrich]

Thanks for the report

That is a pretty usual first impression of Dore and after nearly 20 years of vacationing out there the reefs are still intimidating, mind you I added a GPS fish finder so the pucker factor has dropped significantly (of that 20 years I have only had my own boat about 5 years)

The wind is a major frustration I have literally been blown off the lake for most of a week of vacation . One extra bad year The lake was calm enough to fish only 1 mourning.

Since I was stuck in my in-laws boat most of those years I was drifting and casting spoons for pike, But with my boat I do a little more trolling and we pull out the bottom bouncers at least for a while. But we usually after loosing 6 or so rigs to pike we switch over to pike rigs. And ironically the keeper pike taste better than a legal 55cm walleye.

I don't know if there are tulibee but there are whitefish but what ever they are there is lots of deep/open water baitfish. And I would imagine the big girls target those. next year there is a under water plateau that tops out at 19' I want to bottom bounce some big plugs down there , I figure it is a great place for a big pike to ambush the whitefish swimming by .

I noticed a lot of perch fry this year in other years I noticed more whitefish fry. There is no shortage of bait fish in that lake all the fish are fat an happy.

Blue silver is probably the most consistent color, but this last winter I started painting my own lures, The big winner this year were the "fire tiger" variants (main colors florescent yellow , orange and pink) and a real oddball metallic gold, florescent purple back, florescent orange belly. The naturals were generally less productive though I spent most of one day out with a 7" perch painted plug on.

On the way in you passed a Shirley lake if you ever get out there May/June or September/October it's a stocked trout pond that grows hogs. we always go there May and October long weekend.