How do you enjoy Northern Ontario fly-in fishing without a taking plane? On a boat-in adventure!

Expect to catch lots of fish, especially walleye and pike

You can usually count on catching plenty of fish in the backcountry, and Northwind didn’t disappoint. Like most lakes in this part of the world, it had northern pike and walleye. As a bonus there were also a few surprisingly chunky smallmouth, here and there.

In addition, Vezina Lake, which we traversed en route to Northwind has lake trout and whitefish, as well as bass, pike and walleye. We intended to check it out on one day, but there was so much else to do that we never got around to it.

Most of our fish went back in the water, but we did keep enough for a feed of Steve Rudd-style pike tacos: crispy shallow-fried fish, topped with coleslaw, chopped tomatoes and sliced green onions (below). Simple, and divine.

In these little-fished backcountry lakes there’s usually a great distribution of size, with plenty of pike, especially, in that 24-28” range (or two-footers) as we call them, which are a ton of fun in between sessions of walleye fishing. But there were bigger fish, too…