You will catch walleyes, northern pike and jumbo size perch. The chain of lakes is famous as one of Ontario's best walleye fisheries, a true angler's paradise. Besides good fishing, you will enjoy solitude and very lovely scenery.

For fishing rules and licences, please go here

The Chapleau River is actually a chain of lakes. It has walleyes, northern pike and yellow perch. Here is a map of it with lots of pictures.

Fish pictures. Here are photos of fish that were caught in our lakes.

Here is a very effective walleye rig that works surprisingly well in our waters. We call it Jack's method:

Use a small single hook with a nightcrawler bunched up on it (we keep crawlers in stock). Tie it to your line without a steel leader (a leader adds too much weight). About 4 feet from the hook, put a quarter ounce of splitshot (about pea size). Troll or drift with it in 6 to 10 foot of water. Leave the bail of your reel open when you have let enough line out and put your thumb on the spool to prevent more line from going out. Troll as slowly as possible. When you think that you have a strike, don't set the hook but rather take your thumb off the spool, put the motor in neutral and let the line go out. Do nothing for an entire minute and then reel in and see what you have. This method works well in the shallow area in front of our cabins.

On days when walleye fishing is slow, you might improve your chances by fishing early and late in the day.

Good artificial lures for walleyes in our chain of lakes are floating Rapalas. The No. 9 or No. 11 black and gold works well.

Above is the black and gold Rapala Original Floater. Click here for more info about it.

If you fish with a floating Rapala, put a pea size piece of splitshot on the line, about 4 feet from the lure. The splitshot will take it down and the Rapala will then float up slightly and miss most of the snags. Troll or drift with this if there is a breeze. Favour shoreline that the wind is blowing against and look for shaded water.

Another good walleye lure is a white or yellow twister tail on a lead-headed jig. Use the jig with the small head, about a quarter ounce of lead. Troll with it.

Here is more about fishing with jigs

Minnows work too, but are harder to keep and don't seem to give any noticable advantage over worms or floating Rapalas.

For northern pike, all types of spoons and spinners work well. Northerns will usually strike anything in your tackle box. Trolling, drifting and casting all give good results with northerns.

If you have an electric trolling motor, you might consider to bring it along. We have electric outlets near the docks, where you can plug in your battery charger. The electric motors work particularly well on the canoes that we provide for the canoe excursions. You can use an electric motor to move your canoe once you have reached the "canoe only" lake.

You will need eight to ten pound line. Light to medium action rods are preferred.

Typical perch. These were caught by Ed Timm and his buddies.

Yellow perch bite best on night crawlers. About three to four feet of water near lily pads or reeds are good places to try for perch.

We have found that most people have good luck with whatever method they are accustomed to, because they have learned to fish that particular way. If your favorite method doesn't seem to work, try one of our suggestions. Click here to jump to the fishing regulations.

Best Time to Fish

Fishing for walleyes and northern pike is good from May till the end of September. If you take a look at our fish pictures page you will see that nice walleyes are caught from spring to fall.

Yellow perch are also caught right from May through the end of September. We have the best luck with night crawlers. We keep crawlers in stock.

I suggest that you simply pick a time when you can best get away from home and work and leave the rest to the fish and to providence. No two years are the same. One thing is certain, you will always catch enough here to eat fish every day, even if you hit some slow days.

Here is a good northern pike caught in 2008 by Patrick Kempf, shown holding the fish and flanked by his father and brother.