Betty and Steve MacKenzie made a return trip to Cree Lake in Northern Saskatchewan. Last year, they had an excellent trip but they had to deal with some windy conditions. This year they had an amazing trip. If you love trophy pike, walleye, grayling and lake trout fly fishing; this is definitely a destination to consider!
The trip report below is from Betty and Steve!
Early in July we made the 6 hour drive north on Highway 63 to Fort McMurray to the FT. McMurray Aviation hanger. Highway 63 is in terrible shape with deep sharp edged potholes all along. The government just committed some funds to do some repaving so it should be improved next year.
Ten guests flew in two planes eastward to Cree Lake in Saskatchewan. Upon arrival we were shown our cabin for the week and then the lodge owner gave an orientation talk. Next morning breakfast was at 7:00 am and blast off in the boats occurred at 8:00 am.
The lodge has some nice new boats equipped with 60hp Mercury outboards that allow you to reach out to the many bays and islands on this huge lake. With 4 main species of fish to catch there was something for everyone. A couple from Denver concentrated on lakers, while two groups from North Dakota and Grande Prairie were after the large trophy walleye with great success.
During the week we caught Arctic Grayling on our 5weights and walleye and pike on the 8 weights.
The pike we targeted were in shallow bays and often we could sight fish them with large streamers. In certain bays the walleye were very numerous and could be caught on the streamers. A couple of 30 inchers were our best for the week. Forty inch pike were the baseline size and we caught many in the mid forties up to 47.5 inches. We opted for the fried fish shore lunches on every day but the last. The guides make sure everyone gets a good feed of fish and fries with beans and corn. The resident bears have homed in on the favourite shore lunch spots and sometimes cant wait to come and see if there are any scraps for them. One day we had a fat cinnamon bear stroll right in close and lay down like a Labrador dog where he could watch our lunch preparations. Where the guides pour the frying pan oil the bears have excavated large holes to eat the oily sand. I bet that really cleans them out.
The forest fire smoke came and went on a couple days but wasn't too bad. The bugs were not an issue. I got one bite from a deerfly and one from a horsefly for the week, I have more mosquitos in my backyard back home! On our last day, we had a very unusual incident that turned into a happy ending,
We noticed a cow and calf moose attempting a long swim over to a big island, The calf couldn't keep up and soon was far behind when the cow got to the island and disappeared, The calf got confused and was swimming in circles getting more exhausted by the minute. We reeled up and bombed over to the little moose and the guide and I hauled him up into the front of the boat, I held the calf down on the deck while being careful not to get kicked with its sharp hooves, We zoomed over to the island and plopped the moose into the water by the shore. The guide ditched his shoes and jeans and jumped in to guide the confused little moose between the rocks and bushes to dry ground. We hoped that the pair would be reunited before long.
In no time the week flew past and we were on the floatplaned back to Fort. McMurray.
We did book in for next year before we left!
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