(Jeremy Smith, August 13, 2021)
We are very excited the Canada border finally opened for tourists to come fishing! We ran for 5 weeks and it was a whirlwind! Those who visited enjoyed some of the best fishing we have ever seen in the fall on Perrault Lake. More about fishing later.
We were extremely grateful for the guests who visited in 2021. It was not a typical visit to Manotak as we were severely short staffed, and many guests had already made other plans so we were not at capacity like normal. We did our best to keep operations as close to what you are accustomed to. Five weeks by no stretch of the imagination comes close to helping us recover from the nearly TWO years we were closed, but we are thankful we opened and could get back to what we love. We also have tremendous hope and plans for the future of Manotak!
As you know, we allowed everyone to roll their deposits forward to 2022 rather than losing them. Deposits not used in 2022 will be forfeited. If you cannot come your scheduled week, we will do our best to find a time for you. It is imperative for us to have a full camp in 2022 so we can continue to invest in Manotak’s infrastructure and equipment. We have done our best to work with each guest and will continue to do so. If you visited us in 2021 and used your deposit, we need to get a new deposit in November 2021 to finalize your 2022 reservation. Call us if you have questions.
Christine is beginning the manual process of sending out confirmations for 2022. Please recall that our reservations always start on Walleye Opener (week 1), which is the third Saturday of May. For 2022, the third Saturday is May 21st. This means your week may not be what you are expecting! For example, if you were booked for week 3 in 2021, those dates were May 29 – June 5, 2021. Week 3 in 2022 is June 4-11, 2022! If you have questions, please call us! We don’t want anyone showing up on the wrong dates!
Also, we anticipate the border crossing rules for 2022 to be the same as they are now. I won’t re-post all of them here, but you must have the COVID-19 vaccine to enter Canada. We will help you as much as possible with understanding what you need to do to enter Canada. We do not want to ask, but we must know that each person in your group will be permitted to enter Canada under the current rules (vaccine mandatory, pre-arrival testing, use the Arrive CAN app.) If you do not have the vaccine and do not intend to get it, we will have no choice but to cancel your reservation for 2022. As stated prior, it is imperative that we have a full camp in 2022. We hope you will understand the tough position we are in regarding the rules. Call us with questions 800-541-3431. We are here to help!
Now, let’s talk fishing!
2021 was a weird year for sure. Nothing seemed normal at all but the thing that was normal was the fishing. We saw some pretty amazing fishing over the course of our 5 week fishing season. Amazing fishing is nothing new on Perrault Lake.
We saw a number of 30+ inch walleyes caught with the biggest being 31.5”. The bait of choice was 1/8 oz gold glitter jigs with a minnow. We had a lot of nice fish caught on some artificial baits like jiggin’ raps and similar baits. Later on in the fall, a lot of guests had some really great luck trolling deep diving crank baits. Once the fish moved deeper the folks trolling had to run lead core line to get their baits down and that ended up producing far more fish than the big deep divers.
The bass fishing was good as well. The bass are normally quite a bit harder to catch during the fall months on Perrault, but we saw above average fishing. We had a ton of 17-19” fish that were in that 5lb range. Crank baits and swim baits were the ticket for the bass until later in the fall when drop shots became far more productive.
The Northern fishing was nothing new. If you wanted to target the big ones and fish a little deeper water, they were there. We had a few fish in the 40” range caught. Some were being targeted but some were caught as a surprise while Musky fishing.
The musky fishing was pretty good this fall. We only saw a couple fish over the 50” mark but we had a lot of 45-49” fish caught. It seemed like every fish caught was a 48’. A wide range of baits were used to catch the musky. Not really any baits were better than the others.
We had a lot of fun seeing our guests catch some awesome fish. Also if you have pictures from your 2021 trip please send them to us so we can use them for the Facebook page and some website updates.
Wishing everyone a very happy 2021 Holiday Season! See you in 2022!
Steve, Christine, and Jeremiah Swafford
Manotak Lodge
Winter:
PO Box 7406
Bloomington, IN 47407
www.manotak.com
800-541-3431
manotaklodge@gmail.com
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@manotaklodge – Instagram
@manotak1945 – Twitter
Manotak Lodge on The Ontario Experience
