Truly, absolutely, amazing fishing! The fishing was insane this month with lots of numbers and sizes! Lots of fishermen used some artificial bait but minnows seemed to come out on top still! We heard about catching the bass around the nests before they spawned and using some top water plugs and plastics that really produced! The water temperatures warmed up quicker than other previous years into the 70’s and the fishing was unbelievable!!!

The Landing

It was a busy month at Caribou Falls Landing and truly enjoyed the good conversations and listening to the true fishing ‘tales’. Tom caught the largest northern measuring in at a yard stick and ¾ of a ruler-that is a very lengthy 45”!!! Tom’s monster pike was not a torpedo but a submarine wanting to stay down in the water putting up a fight! Look at Todd’s pike too-his was measuring in at 42”-it is a hog!!!
Look at Tony’s trophy hat! He collects his trophy pins and now his trophy pins wrap around his hat. Love to see some people treasure’s like Tony’s bling!

Proud parent alert!

Just a quick congrats to Louis for getting his pilot license complete in Edmonton, Alberta and Jonny for graduating high school!!

Kettle Falls Lodge -lovin’ it

Meet your host, Lisa. Lisa is new to Kettle Falls Lodge but has worked prior before 20 years ago and has helped out during the years at busy times. She made Kettle Falls her home this summer and we are happy to have her on our team!

Kettle Falls guests have been enjoying the updated meals with the big hunks of prime ribs and homemade Yorkshire pudding (pop overs), and a lot of Robert’s yummy food!

Father/son duo Jim and Dusty were quite the fishing crew as Dusty caught a 30” walleye and Jim caught a 42” pike! We had 17 pike registering 39” or over this month as well as 120 WALLEYES registering 27” or larger!!! Gigi caught 21” smallmouth bass which was the largest out of all fishermen in her fishing group as well as in the month at Kettle-wowza!!

Grandfather/grandson duo Lonnie and Chris caught the heck out of the fish! It was Chris’s first-time coming fishing with Lonnie and it was one to remember! Chris caught 2 trophies-one walleye and one bass while Grandpa Lonnie caught a trophy bass.

Father/son duo Rick and Nate had probably the greatest number of trophies at Kettle in June with 30 trophy fish between the 2 of them! Good fishing boys!

The fish are not far from the dock at Kettle. Josh caught a big ol’ monster walleye from the dock while fishing in the evening!!

Tom, his son and friend fished with Louis at Kettle and they had some wonderful fishing! Lots of walleyes-every size under the moon almost! Goes to show that the fishing doesn’t stop when it’s sunny or when raining-the fish don’t mind getting wet!

June’s island life at One Man

We had the pleasure of hosting a new group the Kenyon’s. They fished with Junior and had a memorable trip. They caught piles of fish and had a wonderful time!! Jay actually had a trifecta for trophies-he caught 3 species of trophies!

Gabe and his fishing buddies (and family) brought up their kids and they ventured out to One Man to fish for the week. The memories that were created with these kids and their dads is very memorable. Enjoying time in the boat, cooking shore lunches, and just enjoying their adventures in the north.
Couples Trip! Greg and his close buddy brought their wives up for the first time to One Man. Jackie caught trophy trifecta as well-27” walleye, 41” pike and 19” smallmouth bass while her gal pal, Jackie, registered her 27” walleye! Looks like the husbands will be bringing their wives on future trips to One Man as they are hooked on Halley’s Camps!

Jon, sons, family and friends encompassed One Man for their annual fishing trip. They love fishing the English River around One Man and everyone really enjoys it. You can see them in the pictures of One Man where they are enjoying the evening hanging out after a fun day’s fish. They even got to see a moose swim across and watched as it climbed out of the water!

Moosehorn, Rex and Trapline News

A great group of guests from Minnesota showed off their fishing skills at Trapline registering 11 trophy walleyes ranging from 27-29”! They not only had nice sized fish but they had a walleye frenzy going on! They caught so many fish! Justin and the gang are hooked and booked for 2024!

The largest trophy caught at the outposts was by Kurt measuring 40”-look at this monster’s head size!! I think Kurt also won for the smallest this month at the outposts with his northern measuring just over one hand length-they cannot all be MONSTERS!

Tom brought his grandson as a graduation present to our Moosehorn Lake Outpost. What a great gift! They had 7 trophy bass and were able to catch some fish and have some grandfather/grandson memories as they came from Florida for their fishing trip!

Caribou Falls Landing

May was a warm weather month where the ice melted by May 9 which is a normal ice out week for us here on the English River. We had bear hunters at Dufault’s just days after all the ice had melted on the river. Look at the pictures of their bears! They also took advantage of the northern fishing. The northern were still very much in the shallows with the water temp around 32 degrees Fahrenheit.

In preparation to the fishing season, Chris and Amber ordered 26 NEW Mercury motors for all the fishing boats at our all-inclusive lodges. The motors were all delivered and now it was time to strap these on 26 boats. Backhoes, excavator and lots of trucks, trailers, and man power made this happen in 1 day! Great work team!! This will ensure that everyone will enjoy their fishing trips and not have to worry about any equipment breakdowns and every one can spend their fishing trip fishing!!

Fishermen at Caribou Falls Landing had dynamite fishing-literally the reports kept coming in that this was by far the best fishing year they have ever had! The amount of fish that they were catching was absolutely silly but kept everyone smiling. Rob caught a 38” laker on the river!!! That was GINORMOUS-we are still awaiting to see the picture!

Caribou fishermen registered 54 pike measuring 38” and over, which 22 of those were 40” +. Wyatt caught the largest pike at a lengthy 43.5”. The walleyes trophy count was 16 caught in May with the largest being caught by Scott at 29.5”. For the bass there was 25 registered bass with a 20.5” taking the cake for the largest in May.

Kettle Falls

We have been making quite a few updates to Kettle Falls-some of the larger being the new walkways that are so solid and sturdy-they make it easy to access much of the grounds at Kettle. The other is the large tables out on the main deck-it’s great to come and visit with your friends, or have a meal/drink outside enjoying the view and the fresh air.

75 TROPHY fish registered in the month of May 2023!!! What a way to start the fishing season off at Kettle Falls Lodge!! The northern fishing was superb this month. Emily caught 2 trophy northerns-she wrangled in a 44.5” pike and ALSO a 40.5” pike!! Another large river beast was horsed in by Jerry and his pike came in measuring at 41.75”. Barry, Jerry’s brother, was one of the Trophy Waters winners for 2022 with his 46” northern pike! Troy, who also had a 46” northern in 2022, registered a 20” smallmouth bass. Where did this fisherman catch this big bass? By the upper lip! The walleye list was quite impressive as well with Joey’s 30” and Matt’s 31” trophy walleyes. Cannot wait to see what June brings!

Eat, sleep, fish, repeat at One Man

Guests in May fished hard and their efforts paid off!! We had our very seasoned group in from Nebraska, Kurt and his family/friends, fished their traditional spring fishing hot spots-and WOW! The fish were hitting just about any bait that they were throwing! The group caught 13 trophies-walleyes (26, 29), bass (18, 19.75, 18.5, 18.75), and pike (43.5, 42, 40, 40.25)! Russ even caught a 38” musky-which musky are not usually found in our section of the English River but there are some out there where we might have 5-10 being caught each year. Check out their pictures from their crew!

Wally from one of our groups caught a 42” + 43” pike-those are some nice fish!! Wally also caught a 21” bass that was like a football as it was so round!

3 Fly in Remote Cabins

Fishermen were sure happy to be back in at our remote fly in cabins-Trapline, Rex and Moosehorn! We had some wonderful return guests that feel our nestled cabins in the woods are their home away from home and they were pleased as punch!

At Trapline Lake, Julie again 2 years in a row came out with a ringer of a walleye at 27” while her son Joe caught a 28” and this set a little competition amongst their fishing crew!

The next crew at Trapline, Kye registered a 39” northern-look at his beast!!!

The Rex Lake and Moosehorn Lake guests at both cabins have reported that you can see the smallmouth bass nests in the shallows. The bass are getting ready to spawn. Richard hooked into a football bass at Rex Lake and got himself a trophy hat! ~ Whoot whoot! We also had another group at Rex say the fishing was amazing getting 8 smallmouth bass 18” and over! Rex Lake also has some big northern registered over 38”!

We are super excited for the fishing season! Only a few weeks to go! May 20th is walleye opener (which is always the 3rd Saturday of May) and the season for northern pike and smallmouth bass does not close at any point through the year. The lake trout season is closed from October 1 to January 1 every year as they spawn later in the year than other fish species.

At Caribou, we are putting in a new kitchen, flooring and paint in one of the rental cabins. Check out the progress!

Here is a picture of Amber and Lisa going across on the side by side to One Man bringing in groceries.

We will be contacting everyone who is flying into a lodge or requiring ground transportation to make sure all the i’s are dotted and t’s are crossed!

Again, please check your passports expiry dates and that everything is correct to ensure you are able to cross the border.

If you have any questions about your fishing trip or future trips, please contact us.

Fishermen fishing this summer with us: CHECK YOUR PASSPORT EXPIRY DATES. We want to see you this summer!!! Ensure that you can come fishing this summer with a quick look at your passports!

Chris loves to be able to fly in the winter time as you can get around so easily. Check out the scenery from up above! Gorgeous winter views!! This plane here is fully equipped with skis so he can land on the snow.

Lake trout for supper! Quick family recipe: put fresh trout fillets on a greased baking dish/pan, add lemon wedge, sliced onion, seasonings (we love Old Bay) and sliced tomato. For those who like ketchup you can even put a little squeeze on that. Bake it at 400 degrees for 10-15 minutes until fillets just start to shrink-your fish is cooked!

Chris started off the month in Iowa doing a sport show and went straight to Chicago to meet up with Amber and Lisa, the new manager of Kettle Falls. We were able to visit with lots of memorable guests and met a lot of new fishermen as well. We cannot wait for this upcoming summer!

Once back from Chicago, it was getting organized so we could bring snowmobile sleighs full with our stock of supplies into the remote camps. What a great few days it was-look at the blue skies in the picture-pretty deceiving when the temperature was -30C.