Reviews From Guests

 
First, I need to apologize for not sending out a daily fishing report. So, here is a recap of the week we spent perch fishing with Josee & Jamie at Kanipahow Wilderness Resort.

Our hosts greeted us with smiles and greetings upon arrival at Kanipahow Wilderness resort. We received a complete and thorough briefing on the do’s and don’ts to make our week with them a pleasant experience for all of us.

This fishing trip was in search of JUMBO perch. Josee, known as the “Perch Queen” gave us basic instructions on where to find the perch and how to set up our fishing gear to catch them. Perch fishing at Kanipahow isn’t rocket science. About any rod and reel setup will work. My recommendations would be a 7′ medium rod and reel combo with at least 10 pound test fishing line. For hook sizes, I used #6 TRU-TURN with 15 pound fluorocarbon leader. Some of the guys used 1/8 oz. painted jig heads. A slip bobber was preferred about 4 foot of line at the bobber stop, fine tuning the depth as necessary when finding the feeding perch. Bait, about an inch of nightcrawler slid onto the hook did the trick real well.

The perch we found were primarily in the areas of wild rice beds along the edges of the lake and feeder system that entered into Chapleau Lake. It seamed that fishing off the edge of the open water did not produce as well as when we put the 14 foot boat right into the wild rice and dropped the bait into small openings of the wild rice. If there was a perch in the area of the “hole in the rice” when you dropped in the bait, a bite could happen fast. If the bite slowed or stopped, all ya needed to do is move about 10 feet and try new “holes” in the wild rice.

We did catch a lot of perch. We were real happy to hook a 8, 9, or 10 inch perch for the evening fish fry. On average, we would clean fifteen to twenty perch for five guys evening fish fry.

About our third day, we were learning more on how to fish for the bigger perch, we started to find some, 11″, 12″ and our largest was 13 1/2″ JUMBO perch. We did have to search the rice, but when you found that spot and draged out one of those jumbos, we knew that there could be big perch anywhere in the wild rice.

This was July 27th Fish report..

Fishing this morning was great. Big Mike from Bay City and I went right up into the wild rice and fished little pocket openings. We had about 4 foot of line below a bobber stop and using slip bobber and about 1″ piece of nightcrawler. I had 15 perch from 10 to 12 !/2 inches. 4 perch were over 12 inches.

So, to wrap up our first time perch fishing at Kanipahow, I want to go back again next year. I had my limit of 25 (conversation license) perch to take home. I don’t have a count on how many perch the other four guys took home, but they were close to their limit of 50 per man (sportsman license).

I would recommend that anyone that wanted to experience probably the best jumbo perch fishing I have ever seen, you need to contact Josee and Jamie for openings. I hope that I can bring my grandsons fishing there next year. I know that they would have a ball, just like I did. My only regret is that my Dad didn’t get to go.

Tight lines and happy hooking..
Tom