Fly in Gear - Wejin Lake Hawk Air

[OldRook]

Greetings flying into Wejin lake with Hawk Air in early august..

Absolute must have items in the tackle box? Would you fly in a flat of crawlers and a few pounds of leeches?

what say you experienced fly in folks? we have drove and boated into camps a number of years, but this is our first fly in!

[SinOrSwim]

We did a fly in for approx 15+ years and one thing you don't want to skimp on is bait or beer. I would much rather take way too much and waste it than run out and that was the only thing working....bait and beer.

We always took minnows. One tip for minnows is we took a mesh minnow bucket, put our minnows in there and sunk it to the bottom tied to the dock with a rock. It is very difficult to keep minnows alive and this seemed to keep them cool and oxygenated much better than sitting in oxygenated bags or in buckets. We would take smaller amounts of minnows in our buckets out for the day.

My thoughts are you are spending a fair amount of money to do a fly-in. I wouldn't hesitate to pay for weight overages to take something I really want to take. Our outfitter never charged us overages though. We would just hold some stuff like beer back and they would send it on one of their check flights later in the week.

Have fun and if this is your first fly-in, pray for a calm day. LOL Those float planes get tossed around like crazy in the wind. I can feel my knuckles turning white thinking about it.

[OldRook]

LOL

thanks - my wife asked the other day if she could bring her blow dryer...

[labsrus]

Good tips on the bait and beer.

We always take a flat of worms

I always take along some gulp worms and minnows to use.

They seem to do just as good and they can catch a few fish without falling off the hook

We always pay for the extra weight

[Ten Horse Johnson]

I may ignite a debate here, but I suggest bringing salted minnows up. Contact local bait shops to see if they can provide them for you. Or you can look up online how to make them, but it's a bit of a project. Fatheads work better than shiners (easier to get on the hook).

It defies all fishing logic, but in my experience on fly in lakes, I've seen no appreciable difference in getting bit with salties compared to live minnows (at least in the mid summer bite that we fish). Our group was a live-minnows-only group for years, and about 7 years ago we made the switch to salted only after a few years of bringing up both.

Live minnows are expensive and quite difficult to keep alive without aeration over a period of several days. You also can't bring live over the border, whereas with salted you can.

Leeches work well too. We haven't used crawlers much, but this year I tied one on and caught a 19 inch walleye immediately (last day of our fly in).

Personally, I prefer soft plastics, so when they are really hitting, switch over to twister tails, bungee leeches or Gulp. You won't have to keep re-baiting and will have more time with your line in the water while the bite is hot. You will also preserve your live bait stocks this way.

[MorganMan]

We have had a few fellas bring salted minnows, but I have little experience with em. When its hot, minnows are hard to keep alive but we have some mesh minnow buckets that we put rocks in to keep the bulk of the bait on a fly in down deeper in the water column to keep them cool at the dock and pull from that source daily. It's true that when they are hitting they will hit anything as we have used dried up or completely soggy minnows off the bottom of the boat over the years. Don't run out of beer or bait......especially beer. Bait is important and you can you can make do with many different things.