Trip report - Kearns Lake with Thousand Lakes Outposts

[phishfearme]

July 1 – Canada Day 2014 – we arrived at the Mattice lake base in Armstrong after 10 days at Kearns Lake through Thousand Lakes Outposts. The lilacs are just starting to bloom (great fragrance), the black flies are at their peak (yuck) and the water levels are receding from the highest levels people have seen in decades. Sounds like a spring time trip and given the very late ice out and cold spring, it essentially was.

Six of us – including LarryS and his sister Pat – spent 10 wonderful days at the Kearns Lake outpost. This is our second trip there and you can see the first trip report (2011) at:
https://www.walleyecentral.com/forums...ht=kearns+lake

I won’t repeat the Taj Mahal cabin conditions and contents (you can get the details from the previous report) except to note that the indoor bathroom has been totally remodeled (in cedar panels with new shower stall), there’s a remote generator start in the cabin, the satellite phone works essentially all the time now and there’s brand new 14ft Lunds with brand new 15 hp 4-stroke motors (the cabin is now no more than 10 minutes away from anywhere on the lake). All are very nice upgrades.

Walleye fishing: last trip we got to expect to pull in 24inch plus whoppers every few hours but for this trip, the big girls were hard to find. We did get 2 x 26inchers and 3 x 24 inchers with quite a few 22/23 inchers but they were mixed in with the swarm of standard walleyes we got. Walleye are indeed essentially everywhere in the lake but were concentrated in the inlet and outlet areas – probably due to the late ice-out and high water flowage. 40-50 walleye a day with about a 17 inch average is typical.

Pike fishing: truly incredible with the number of trophy size fish – 38inches and above – much more than we expected. We all got at least one 41incher – except LarryS who “only” got himself a 39incher – his sister pulled in a 41inch whopper - and I was fortunate enough to haul in a 44incher beating my old personal best by 2 inches. About 16 pike above 38 inches for us – to me this is excellent trophy pike fishing – especially for such a small lake. This was good enough but the number of pike in the 30-33inch range was huge – and these are lots of fun to catch.

One, more than interesting occurrence: two of our guys tied two walleye off at the dock for me to fillet when I came in at lunch. I’ll bet everyone on this board has come back to find a walleye tied off to the dock in the grasp of a pike – but we had a 42incher totally swallow one walleye AND the stringer! (at least the stringer hook that the walleye was on). The pike swallowed the walleye head first then in its struggle to get away, the walleye doubled over in the pikes belly making the belly incredibly distended. See photo. we cut the stringer as close down as possible and the pike swam off to hopefully enjoy her unique lunch.

All in all, a totally enjoyable trip and it was nice to have a young lady in camp. We probably took more showers this trip than in all of the past 10 trips combined!

Questions? Feel free to ask.
phish

[bkw67]

Thanks so much for the report!

We are going to be at Loganberry, which is directly connected to the southwest, early next month. Did you go down the river to the south? if so, how far did you get?

What colors were working best & what depths were the Walleyes?

[SinOrSwim]

holy moly. LOL that is awesome. Don't dangle your toes off the dock.

[tooski]

I regret we weren't able to get the time frame right for the vets to go there. Are they still flying out of Armstrong? I see Wilderness North is advertising flights out of Thunder Bay which would be a lot closer...(And their rates reflect it with the longer flights.)

[phishfearme]

Originally Posted by bkw67

Thanks so much for the report!

We are going to be at Loganberry, which is directly connected to the southwest, early next month. Did you go down the river to the south? if so, how far did you get?

What colors were working best & what depths were the Walleyes?

I've never been to loganberry - best of luck and please post a report when you get back - I've heard mixed results for loganberry from one group we replaced at kearns. if it's half as good as kearns (lake and cabin) you'll have a nice trip.

"downriver" at kearns means going north - out to stonehouse lake where Dwayne also has a cabin. loganberry is upstream of kearns to the south (maybe south west). we went as far as the rapids that exit a very small lake after the outlet of loganberry. the grew river is more of a creek by our definitions in PA but this year the water is quite high and it's flowing pretty good - but it would still be extremely difficult to get from one lake to the other.

at kearns, at least half the lake is 30ft deep or over so we find walleye and pike on the numerous shallow rocky reefs and shorelines - this year the inlet and outlet channels provided excellent walleye - whereas in our provious trip the reefs were best. best depths on kearns - 8 to 12 feet - but got some deeper and shallower - one bay had only 8-9 ft max depth but LarryS and his sister got over about 200 pike and walleye there over a two day window.

we pretty much used 3inch1/4 ounce twister tails in white or yellow (color makes no real difference) and crawlers and leeches - did about the same on either.

hope this helps
phish

[phishfearme]

Originally Posted by tooski

I regret we weren't able to get the time frame right for the vets to go there. Are they still flying out of Armstrong? I see Wilderness North is advertising flights out of Thunder Bay which would be a lot closer...(And their rates reflect it with the longer flights.)

joe - yes, we still had to drive to Armstrong to get the flight in. this is a large cabin (holds 10 easily) and I think Dwayne needs to use the Otter that Mattice provides. but for a large group, I would bet that two beaver flights out of TB would be much more attractive than one otter out of Armstrong.

i'll ask him about wilderness north.

best of luck with the vets next month.
phish

[dbmoss]

Heading there next June.

[dbmoss]

Heading there next June!

[fishron]

Man what a trip you had. Certainly much more in the way of amenities than my group that flew into Hebert in northern Quebec. For us it was a trip of a lifetime, (hope we have a few more left). It's amazing to hear how good some of these trips have been for the walleye groups this year. Hope it continues for the rest of the season. Here's some of the good fish we experienced on our first fly-in.

[bkw67]

I never knew the water flowed north up their.. Learned something new!!!!

I'm leaving tomorrow to our group meeting place.. so I promise to post once I get back of my experience! I know the cabin is not as plush as yours was, but that is fine with me. I spend most of the time in the boat anyways.

BKW