Esnagami escape: Lodge fishing in the season of social distancing

#4  The walleye fishing is wild

My companion at Esnagami was Winnipeg chef Cameron Tait. Cameron’s name will be familiar to Outdoor Canada readers, since he’s our long-time wild food expert. Cameron comes up with our awesome fish and game recipes, and shoots our food videos. He’ s also skilled fisherman and hunter, and a tournament walleye angler. And at Esnagami, Cameron seemed able to basically catch walleye at will. I swear, the walleye practically competed to impale themselves on his jigs and lures.

In one 20-minute stretch at the inflow of a tumbling creek, Cameron landed a walleye on every single cast; and on the Esnagami River (above), he was sight-fishing the Walters, which was a truly novel experience. I couldn’t even begin to guess how many walleye the chef landed during our five days on the water. In Esnagami, it seems like those rock melons hold on every bit of structure in the lake—and also everywhere without structure. There are a lot of ’em, is what I’m saying.

Between you, me and the lamppost, I’m a third-rate walleye angler at best, but the fish were so plentiful that even I caught a dozens and dozens of them, including the handsome (by walleye standards, obviously) specimen above. It was one of my biggest of the trip, and hit a seven-inch-long pike fly, in two feet of crystal-clear water on a saddle between islands.