Wabamun monster day [Archive] - Alberta Outdoorsmen Forum

DNORTHERNSNIPER

02-21-2010, 08:20 PM

Hi again,

Spent the day at Wabamun with my friend Bill.
We boated 42 Pike!!
And again there was only 3 of the 42 that were under 10 lbs!!!!!
The other 39 were over 10lbs.
All big ones we weigh as we release them.

Glad to say the fish are powerful and healthy.
And strong pullers.... boy crazy fights today.
It was a nice sunny day, you could see the fish sitting in the shallows and cast to them at times.
Fishing the canal outlet deeper channel worked the best.
I used the reg wab rig we use.
Just a 9" leader with a barbless treble hook at the bottom, a 7-9"smelt and a bobber at different lengths depending on our depth.
I took a pic of my rig today for all to see also.

Biggest fish my pal Bill hooked near the end of the day was 22 lbs!!!
His biggest pike ever, he's from Nevada and been here for a few years and thought I was crazy for dragging my boat over the ice to fish here but now he knows why I do it because it's AWESOME!! :D
There was 4 other boats out today and a bunch of fishermen and women on shore and all seemed to do well.
We kept hearing holy ****! So someone must of hooked up to a :evilgrin:

p.s thanks to Dave99 who was there for lending us some smelts when our 7 bags ran out! :)

DNORTHERNSNIPER

baitfisher83

02-21-2010, 08:25 PM

Fishing pike at ice-off is always awesome, I was I was closer to this lake looks like some crazy action!

WayneChristie

02-21-2010, 08:27 PM

keep posting pics like that I may have to drag my canoe all the way to Edmonton!!!!!! nice pics, send some of those fish down south will you!!!

trouter

02-21-2010, 08:31 PM

Well done out there boys! We were in the big red canoe and didnt get near that, in fact only one at 7lbs. wish i would have thrown the anchor in this morning. sorry if we dirfted to close at all today. A big thanks to buddy for pulling big red out to the water for us

drenalinjunkie

02-21-2010, 08:35 PM

nice sharks boys, looks like a blast on the open water! cant wait for some nice ice out trout.:huh:
junkie

gatorhunter

02-21-2010, 08:39 PM

Open water in February! We drilled through 3 feet of ice today on Lake Winnipeg!

JohninAB

02-21-2010, 08:41 PM

Awesome fish, congrats.

How is the ice doing around the boat launch in town?

marlin1

02-21-2010, 08:46 PM

Open water in February! We drilled through 3 feet of ice today on Lake Winnipeg!

theres a warm water discharge up there or something because most lakes are still frozen solid still in Alberta too , as far as I know anyway . Those are some nice pike guys

swishsmurf

02-21-2010, 09:59 PM

walleyeca

02-22-2010, 07:02 AM

Thats alot of guys near the opeining on shore that must have been a gong show? good catches guys!

Hi again,

Spent the day at Wabamun with my friend Bill.
We boated 42 Pike!!
And again there was only 3 of the 42 that were under 10 lbs!!!!!
The other 39 were over 10lbs.
All big ones we weigh as we release them.

Glad to say the fish are powerful and healthy.
And strong pullers.... boy crazy fights today.
It was a nice sunny day, you could see the fish sitting in the shallows and cast to them at times.
Fishing the canal outlet deeper channel worked the best.
I used the reg wab rig we use.
Just a 9" leader with a barbless treble hook at the bottom, a 7-9"smelt and a bobber at different lengths depending on our depth.
I took a pic of my rig today for all to see also.

Biggest fish my pal Bill hooked near the end of the day was 22 lbs!!!
His biggest pike ever, he's from Nevada and been here for a few years and thought I was crazy for dragging my boat over the ice to fish here but now he knows why I do it because it's AWESOME!! :D
There was 4 other boats out today and a bunch of fishermen and women on shore and all seemed to do well.
We kept hearing holy ****! So someone must of hooked up to a :evilgrin:

p.s thanks to Dave99 who was there for lending us some smelts when our 7 bags ran out! :)

DNORTHERNSNIPER

trouter

02-22-2010, 08:03 AM

hey i was wondering if anyone can tell me what the access is like for getting your boat into the water ? i see one picture of a guy with his canoe... looks like it may be a bit of a hike out, i got a flat bottomdrift boat that should slide along nicely i would love to get into the water on saturday...i would like to know if it could happen before making the drive from calgary any info would be great

walk was a breeze, (with canoe). Buddy gave us a tow in the moring with his quad, but a drug it out at he end of the tail, with our tails between our legs. Id say its a bout 500m, and took us about ten min to reach the pier. theres a well packed trail helping the boats slide nice.

mcampb

02-22-2010, 12:40 PM

Wow that's insane, open water fishing at this time of year!? What's up with the lake? Warm spring or something? Good work guys, good on ya!

RedFisher

02-22-2010, 01:24 PM

Wow that's insane, open water fishing at this time of year!? What's up with the lake? Warm spring or something? Good work guys, good on ya!

Theres a plant on the lake... well two power plants... and they use the lake as a cooling pond...

DuckBrat

02-22-2010, 06:43 PM

Theres a plant on the lake... well two power plants... and they use the lake as a cooling pond...

Correction only the Wabamun plant uses the lake as a cooling pond. The Sundance plant has built separate cooling ponds. The Wabamun Plant will close as of April so we will not see this phenomena on the lake again.

Nationwide

02-22-2010, 06:49 PM

Thanks for shareing sounds like a truely fun day of fishing .:wave:

hockey1099

02-22-2010, 08:08 PM

http://www.outdoorsmenforum.ca/picture.php?albumid=529&pictureid=1405

Caught my first Burbot at Wab this weekend. I also caught a jack that weighed twice as much as this burb. No pic of him as he decided to wrap him self in my line and my gf's and i spent all the picture time cutting line and removing the hook. Wanted him back in the water ASAP so after all that fuss i released him with out a pic. Im going back on saturday to land a few monsters. I saw nothing but huge fish. I lost hooks and leaders as these monsters destoryed my 10" smelts. missed more than 5 hook sets and had a blast watching these guys below the ice.

DNORTHERNSNIPER

02-22-2010, 10:31 PM

The ice was at the end of the boat launch pier.
You could drag a boat to the end climb down and go fish....

DNORTHERNSNIPER

02-22-2010, 11:04 PM

We had a awesome triple header of big pike 10lb+12lb+18lb all at the same time ...what chaos!!!!! in a 12 ft boat :D

I boated the 18 which was our biggest for that day.
He was the size of my leg.
We got quick pics and released them all.

Only fished from 10-2 and got 35 fish.
It was cold and windy and my rod guides kept freezing closed.
I had to keep dipping it in the warm water to melt it every few minutes.
Small thing to deal with I guess.
From where I launch we had to plow through 150 yards of thin ice to get to the open water.
Lots of fun :)

TAD40

02-23-2010, 09:04 AM

I spoke to someone who stated that the fish in this lake are not fit for human consumsion due to the massisve oil spill that occurred, is this the truth or not? Catch and release only then.

Morph1

02-23-2010, 09:13 AM

holly scrap !!! those are huge fish there,
man, by the coming summer a 20 LBS line will be a minimum gage for this lake,
I can't wait to drop a boat in this lake...
Great pics!!

Alberta Bigbore

02-24-2010, 12:09 PM

some nice pike ! Thx for sharing those photos

fish-man

02-24-2010, 04:43 PM

holly scrap !!! those are huge fish there,
man, by the coming summer a 20 LBS line will be a minimum gage for this lake,
I can't wait to drop a boat in this lake...
Great pics!!

In my experience the big girls are a lot harder to catch in summertime; dunno if they go deep or what. Hope to be proven wrong though.

fluxcore

02-24-2010, 04:51 PM

any walleye in there?

crazyfish

02-24-2010, 05:02 PM

i've fished this lakes for many years, the big girls do go deep in the early spring, they come to the warmer water in the winter to speed up the digestion rate. The summer is way harder to keep up an average like that ! This is the most fun time to flyfish for me now with a big streamer fly, crazy how hard they fight / hit the streamers !

spopadyn

02-24-2010, 05:18 PM

I don't know about that - when we fished this summer, we were finding the same results - lots of pike in the 5-10lb range and our biggest was about 18lbs. Pure magic - caught 40 fish in 5 hours. The fishing is the best I have ever seen ( I grew up around Seba) and judging by thoses pictures, the pike are growing huge. I agree with earlier posters, Wabamun will set a new record for largest northern in Alberta. Awesome fish.

dave99

02-24-2010, 08:34 PM

My pleasure DNORTHERNSNIPER! You and your buddy were pulling hawgs out all day!

BBJTKLE&FISHINGADVENTURES

02-24-2010, 10:54 PM

DNORTHERNSNIPER

In your first Set of Pictures The 3rd last picture that Pike Is a Slabber and and a Half .:love::love::love::love: Beautiful colors in them Pike thats forsure .

Lots of guys out there .

Is that Lone Ice shanty still there just east of the Boat launch straight out from the Train trestle ? Or did it go for a swim ?

Again Thanks for Sharing .

RedFisher

02-24-2010, 10:57 PM

BBJTKLE&FISHINGADVENTURES

02-24-2010, 10:59 PM

I was out a few days ago and it was gone ....dont think it went under ... but it was gone...

Man we were out there I guess about 12 days ago or whatever and She was about 100 yards from that open water .

DNORTHERNSNIPER

02-24-2010, 11:59 PM

I talked to a friend who has a cabin there and they towed the ice shack away during the week.
Getting close to the ice edge.
The ice edge is not too bad sometimes.
If I push my boat straight out from the pier sometimes you can stand at the edge and get into the boat like normally getting on off a dock, but it still makes a guy nervous.
We always try to be safe and no messing around.
Any new friends that I take out there to fish in the open water in the winter gets a training talk on how we do it the whole way from Edmonton to Wabamun. :D
Better safe than sorry..

mark-edmonton

02-26-2010, 07:27 PM

I spoke to someone who stated that the fish in this lake are not fit for human consumsion due to the massisve oil spill that occurred, is this the truth or not? Catch and release only then.

? does anyone actually read the regs anymore.

beerhonky

02-26-2010, 11:52 PM

Going tomarrow with Trouter. We`ll let you know how it went!

mustard73

03-02-2010, 10:38 PM

Are the pike still biting out at Wab? Thinking of checking it out.

DNORTHERNSNIPER

03-02-2010, 11:49 PM

Check out my addition to the early spring Wabamun post :(

mooseknuckle

03-03-2010, 08:25 AM

? does anyone actually read the regs anymore.

No doubt or watch the news?? I mean that de-railment was a very hot topic when it happened... like nationwide!!:huh:

BBJTKLE&FISHINGADVENTURES

03-04-2010, 04:15 PM

I spoke to someone who stated that the fish in this lake are not fit for human consumption due to the massive oil spill that occurred, is this the truth or not? Catch and release only then.

http://i263.photobucket.com/albums/ii122/JOHN_CONROY/60ed42ee.jpgGo to the fishing hole ask kindly for a set of Fishing regulations , they are your friend .
Actually it looks like they are weighing the fish properly. The scale hook is not in the gills. Its the squeezing and fingers in the gills that kill, which there are a lot of pictures on this board if you look. An angler will usually want to know the weight of a fish this size and with this common type of scale, this is as good as it gets. Don't worry, I look for this sort of thing. Get your own gig.

Actually proper way of doing so In with a scale and a cradle but not everyone does this . But more fish are killed by putting your hand in there gills , tearing there gills aswell as your hand , them things are bloody sharp . This is why I dont stick my hands in there unless I'm taking them home . And well if your taking them home from Wabamun YOUR A POACHER .

DNORTHERNSNIPER

03-06-2010, 09:38 AM

Hillbillys??????
Mr.lazerloop

Listen pal...........
I have fished there for years.
We release all fish with care. If we lift them up to weigh them, we do so quickly and put them right back quickly. That's why they are still there.
That's why we can keep fishing there.
They were not biting from the temperature change shock to their system.
They are not dead.

crazyfish

03-09-2010, 03:05 PM

I agree with sniper, the the big sharks in wab. can turn on/off in a few hrs and stay that way for a few days, and they won't even bite if you drop a smelt on their nose ! (tried it) THe next day they might chase a spoon from 20 ft away ! They are there, but always interesting , if it was easy everyday then it wouldn't be any fun !