I am going in at Beaverhouse on the 1st for 15 days. Here is my fishing gear pile. A mix of flies, plugs, spoons and jigs. Spoons for the lakers, plugs and jigs for the walleye and flies for the bass and pike. Hopefully I have it all covered and don’t break or lose anything critical. We are doing a loop through the south part of Quetico and taking out at French Lake. Most of it will be new water for me so it should be interesting.

Looks pretty good to me! I would probably take half the spoons out and add some heavy jigs (2 oz white hair jigs with treble follower) or big white tubes of similar weight to target lakers. Unless you have a way to get the spoons deep.

And don’t discount the plugs for lake trout either!


Good luck and let us know how the trip goes. :)

If you loose a hemostat you got 3 as backup.

Good point on the jigs but I don’t really know how to find the lakers other than trolling. I know people with electronics can find them and jig for them. All we will have is a depth finder. Is it possible to troll and when we get bites stop and start jigging near the bottom? I could use a little help on the jigging strategy without the fish finding electronics.

Flies are sometimes hard to get out with your fingers so the long hemos are a big deal especially with the pike. Plus it is really easy to drop them in the water.

All advice is appreciated. Thanks.

Your flies look great! Good luck; hope you get into some good fish.

Trolling with heavy jigs is a technique that has put many Lakers in my canoe. A 2oz Northland Bionic Bucktail is my favorite, but a regular lead head with a 4 to 6 inch twister will work also.

You are so right about dropping a tool in the water. On one musky trip, I took five needlenose pliers and had muskies knock four into the water. I was down to my last pliers and if I'd lost that one too, the trip would have ended, so I tied it to the canoe and have done that every since, losing not a single tool since that trip.

I take 1 pair of pliers with a wrist lanyard.

I'd probably double the number of pliers, if 4 is good 8 is better :)

Enjoy the trip.

walllee: "Trolling with heavy jigs is a technique that has put many Lakers in my canoe. A 2oz Northland Bionic Bucktail is my favorite, but a regular lead head with a 4 to 6 inch twister will work also."

Yup! Just drift/troll with a bunch of line out. (Experiment. 100, 150, 200 feet. The slower you troll, the deeper.) A white 2oz tube with a skirt or a hair jig can both do well. They're "jigs" but you don't have to vertically jig them.

You can also look at the contour maps ahead of time and note structure like points, drop-offs, rock piles, etc. Structure with immediate/easy access to deep water can be a good bet. If you have a hand-held GPS unit (or a phone with GPS) go ahead and mark them in advance at home. That could at least get you in the area where traditional jigging could find you some fish.