Saskatchewan Walleye Fishing

By Matt Landry - Jun 15, 2003

Me and my regular fishing partner decided that instead of making our annual May long weekend trip to Roche Lake in B.C.'s interior, we would go somewhere different. Being from Regina originally, I decided on combining a get together with some old high school buddies with a fishing trip.

We decided on the Saskatchewan River near Nipawin Saskatchewan as our destination. The target species would be Walley.

We arrived in Nipawin on the Friday. The weather was nice, nearing 20 degrees celsius. Ice off on the river, though,was only a week prior. We had arrived opening weekend, so no fishing reports were available

We checked into our cabins, picked out our rooms, and began working our way through a large amount of beer and meat.

The first day of fishing started off slow. The water temperature was really cold and none of the other boats around us were producing any fish. The Czech landed the weekend's first fish around noon on Saturday, a 3 pound Sauger.

The first day ended with only 4 fish in the boat, with no fish for myself or Tate. So far only the Czech and Wardy had landed any fish.

Walleye are some of the best eating fish out there so we killed all four and Momma Tate cooked up a small feast.

The next morning we woke up, loaded the rental boat, a 17 foot crestliner aluminum with a sick Honda 4 stroke, and headed out for more Walleye. The morning was slow again, and we only had three fish to the boat by lunchtime. We stopped in at Twin Marine for a burger, and then headed out for the afternoon shift.

That afternoon, our last on the river, we finally found fish. We found most of the 'eyes were in 13 feet of water or less. If we stayed in that zone we were able to produce a fish on almost every pass. The deeper water, where most guys were fishing, wasn't producing any fish .

Our setup consisted of 3 to 5 foot leaders attached to 1/2 to 1 oz. bottom bouncers. Attached to the leaders were a small spinner with a two hook setup. The hooks were then tipped with either leeches or nightcrawlers. To fish these rigs we would motor up to the top of our drift and let the current carry us downstream with our bouncers ticking the bottom.

We ended up with 10 fish on the boat on Sunday, and Chef Tate once again cooked up a feast that was washed down by lots of beer, rye, and Southern Comfort.

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