Need help on canada trip

[dschiebel]

It sounds like we will be going on a trip to North Western Ontario in late May. We have always used salted shiners on spinners. I understand now that we can not bring salted minnows across the border. Anyways, we are wondering what make, size, and color of plastics we could use on spinners and jigs. We have absolutely no idea what and how much to buy. We would greatly appreciate any help from the plastic experts that have a lot of experience fishing artificials, plastics for walleyes in Canada. The lake is a large lake named Sessi out of Northern Wilderness Outfitters. THANKS FOR ANY HELP.

[Da' Walleye Assassun]

I use three and a half or four inch paddletail plastics for walleyes and upsize to four and a half or five inch paddletails for northern pike. Firetiger, white, orange. and chartreuse are good colors. Berkekey Powerbait and Walleye Assassin make great paddletails. Stay away from Berkeley Gulp. I use one eighth, one quarter, or three eighth ounce jig heads depending on wind, current, and depth. Paddletails work great rigged normally or rigged with the side down. This gives you three times the use from every plastic. Northern pike and walleyes have tough mouths so use jig heads with sharp hooks. Gamakatsu hooks are the best in my book. Hope this helps.

[SweetD]

Berkley twitchtail plastics were our go to bait this past September!!!!

[Pooch]

There is a tongue in cheek discussion here that might be a clue.

https://www.walleyecentral.com/forum...=729382&page=4

Pooch

[NM_Trout]

Originally Posted by Da' Walleye Assassun

Stay away from Berkeley Gulp.

Why? Too messy?

[NM_Trout]

BTW, here are a bunch of my favorites. I too like chartreuse, although there are none shown below.
Motor Oil, Green Pumpkin, White and chartreuse paddle tails. You really can't go too wrong, and it is fun to experiment. I like a 3/8 oz jig with eyes on it. I like spin jigs with a small blade.

One note.. the softer plastics get torn up pretty quick, and they tend to get pulled off the hook too. I'm going to try superglue this summer and see if that helps with keeping things on the hook.

[mms3rd]

A few years ago, we fished Osborne Bay on Eagle Lake. Toward end of May. A veteran of the water helped set us up with double bladed spinners with red, orange and green plastics dangling everywhere.

We fished shallow along the shoreline and nailed smallmouth, northerns and walleyes. I was dumbfounded that such a bright, ugly bait could catch the fish.

[Da' Walleye Assassun]

Originally Posted by NM_Trout

Why? Too messy?

Gulp plastics dry up quickly when taken out of the package. After they dry up they are pretty much useless.

[adempsey2.0]

I use many of what NM_Trout Posted...or at least something very similar like the Lunker City Fin-S for a fluke-style bait.

Last few trips I primarily used (for no particular reason really) the Berkley Havoc Grass Pig Jr. (cheap and work great), Berkley Powerbait Ripple Shad (3.5") and a local Canadian paddletail very similar to the Northland Impulse (I think it was Angler's Choice). I often use the Northland Impulse Paddle Minnow, but just wanted to switch things up.

I also used 3" or 4" grubs from whoever. Doesn't really matter to me. Yum, Zoom, Gary Yamamoto, Mr.Twister, BPS XPS, Kalin's.... I just choose the right profile for the season.

Westin, Z-Man, Keitech, X-zone....also all make good plastics.

You will cover all the bases (not that you really need to) with a fluke style bait, a paddle tail and twister/curly tail grub. Even just the paddle tails or grubs alone would be fine. Heck you could go old school with a bucktail jig and probably slay them.

When you are in that area of the province, I doubt it really matters what you use.

Kalin's 5" Lunker grub in June Bug or White for walleyes.
Dr. Spoons for Pike.