Soo Trip 2014 Vision Rods, Kayaking, Speckle Trout and Steelhead "Part 1"

A trip has to start from somewhere

Well-being a very unproductive spring for me  in Southwestern Ontario for steelies, it was time to do my annual spring trip to the Soo but this year Brad planned a little twist. He invited a couple other guys from the southwest and planned to head off to Superior Provincial Park to kayak and fish for Speckle trout and steelhead. It meant camping in a tent which I hadn't done in something like 30 years but thought what the hell my boy got me heading to Algonquin in August better tuffin up. Now if you never travelled highway 17 you are missing out on one of the most beautiful scenic drives.

Telling there is a lot of beautiful country in Canada to explore there is no need to travel abroad. We finally arrive at our camp ground and set up camp we decide to go out to a nearby lake and fish off the Kayaks for some speckle trout while we wait for Nic and Jay.

Lake Superior Provincial Park Camp Grounds

View out to Lake Superior from our camp site

The fishing was slow but Brad managed a couple bumps using his  silver and cult vision rod with a sinking line. I used a GT four vision rod with a floating line which was silent for this lake making it a nice kayak ride for me.

Brad Kayak fishing for Speckle trout

The boys finally arrived set up camp and we decided to head off to the Agawa river to try for some steelhead. Brad had been up to this river a week earlier hitting it in its prime with a good catch and release of fish. The river had warmed up and dropped a couple feet from the previous week on our arrival. By the end of the night Nic caught and land a nice steelie by nymphing and Jay caught about a 1 1/2 pound speckle trout using the same Technic

Nick's Agawa Steelie

Jay's Agawa Speckled Trout

The next morning we decided to try some rivers an the northern side of  Superior Provincial park for some steelies and speckle trout. The night before we got a lot of rain and finding a river that had not been effected was tuff. Brad and I decided to hit a small lake again for Specks and Jay and Ncck went off to try to find a river fishable. Brad and I fished Rabbit lake and being the nice guy Brad is he asked which rod I wanted to use. I decided go the silver and cult vision rod with sinking line which turn to be a good choice. I had a few fish on but ony landed the one.

Rabbit Lake Speckle Trout

Nick and Jay fished their way back to the camp hitting a couple river stil fishable but rising fast. Nick again nymphng was able to pick up a couple steelies on the mouth of coldwater river.

 Lake Superior Wild Steelhead

Well that night trorrental rains ended this leg of our trip with all the rivers rising fast the next morning so we decided to pack up and  head back to the Soo to fish the rappids which I will describe in my next blog Soo Trip 2014 "part 2". Even though the weather forced us to head back to the Soo I still enjoyed the senery, camping and fishing for specks which I hadn't done in over 30 years and  was very rewarding.

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Fun Day Kayaking for small Hammer heads (pike)

Well the weekend plans were set to get the deck painted and a few chore around the house. Kory came home for the weekend to get out of the big city of Toronto and he wanted to get into some fishing. Mom informed him if he helps out and gets most of the chores done he could borrow me for the morning to do some Kayak fishing. Six am Sunday morning came quicker than we thought (Kory being a young guy was out at a stag and Doe until one in the morning) we loaded the Kayaks up to head out to a local stream we knew had an abundance of hammerheads (small Pike) in this water system. Before I could get the Kayaks unloaded Kory was already out casting his favorite spoon for pike called Cyclops. 1^st fricken cast he has one on, I hadn't even unloaded the camera gear yet. Well that was the prelude to a good fishing ahead of us.

I stayed at the lower end of the river where we had caught pike previous but Kory being the explorer, ventured 3 k down the river to less traveled area and popped 12 .

 By the time dear old dad made the trek the fishing had pretty much slowed because of  the time of day. Plus we had promised  to be home by 1pm to get  back to work on the deck.