OC Online - Fishing - Where the big ones are

text by Gord Pyzer
photo by Kevin Hollerbaum
map by Robert Biron
published in May 2006 issue

Where the Big Ones Are (part 6)

Tobin Lake, Saskatchewan
Prairie Classic champ Andrew Klopak may have a lock on Lake of the Prairies, but Kevin Hollerbaum reigns supreme on Saskatchewan’s Tobin Lake. And what a waterbody to call your kingdom. Gigantic walleye from this Prairie fish bowl set new provincial records every year between 1994 and 1997. The 1997 record weighed a staggering 18.06 pounds, which would seem unbeatable in any other lake. But Tobin’s not any other lake.

Father Mariusz Zajak proved that in January 2005 when he squeezed an 18.3-pound behemoth through a hole in the ice, establishing not only a new Saskatchewan record, but an ice-fishing world record to boot. His secret, he later revealed, was a combination of praying and jigging. Other mere mortals might want to keep that in mind.

PRO TIP

Fall guy: Kevin Hollerbaum finds an autumn giant
Hollerbaum says the fall conditions on Tobin are perfect when the water is clear and the current is brisk.

LEARN MORE
• Town of Nipawin, 1-877-647-2946; www.nipawin.com • Tourism Saskatchewan, 1-877-237-2273; sasktourism.com

“You can catch a trophy-sized walleye in Tobin Lake just about any time of the year,” says Hollerbaum, who won the Nipawin Vanity Cup—the most prestigious walleye tournament in the country—in 1999 and again in 2003. “But from September until freeze-up is my favourite time,” he says. “That’s when the big fish come in from the main lake and stage in the river.”

While Hollerbaum loves pulling a Lindy Rig set-up with a 3/8-ounce sinker, 36-inch leader and #6 or 8 Gamakatsu hook tipped with a leech, he does it in an unorthodox manner—by backtrolling into the current. “We discovered the pattern while pre-fishing one year for the Vanity Cup,” he explains. “In a few hours we caught a dozen walleye between 12 and 13 pounds.” Yes, you heard him right.

All the other teams were using a typical river-walleye technique, drifting with the current and using their electric motors to keep pace with the flow. “So here we were backtrolling,” explains Hollerbaum. “It was kind of comical because we had to keep pulling in and out of everybody’s way. But we were presenting our lures much more slowly and we wound up winning the tournament. Now, it seems like everybody’s backtrolling.”

What makes Tobin Lake particularly suited to the unconventional technique is that it’s a man-made reservoir in the midst of the Saskatchewan River, sandwiched between the Francois Finlay and E.B. Campbell Dams. Unlike most natural rivers on the Canadian Shield, which feature hard, granite bottoms littered with innumerable rock shoals, boulder shelves and stony outcroppings, the bottom of Tobin is essentially mud and sand.

“There’s not a lot of structure,” says Hollerbaum. “The current keeps it clean. It looks like the Sahara Desert. You can monitor it on your sonar and feel your rig sliding up a sandy dune, then feel a walleye hit as it passes over a dip.” According to Hollerbaum, the water is roughly 12 to 15 feet deep about halfway down the river, where much of the fall fishing has traditionally taken place. But in the last few years, he says, the better fishing is occurring a little farther downriver, where the water is around 25 feet deep.