Biggar Lake Fishing
On May Long Weekend, I had the opportunity to fish Biggar Lake in Algonquin Park with my friend and photographer extraordinaire Nick. We fished for lake trout, basically following to a tee these guidelines (I strongly recommend reading those guidelines if you've never fished for lake trout in a canoe before). Basically, the only thing I did differently was use 10 lb braid rather than 6, knowing that the water was still pretty cold and that the extra diameter of the line would not prevent me from getting my lure down into the strike zone. I also used 8 lb fluorocarbon line for my leaders.
On our first night on Biggar, I went fishing on my own while Nick stayed behind at our campsite, proving that it is possible to troll on your own so long as you have a rod holder and the conditions aren't too windy. It had been raining all day, but by evening it was sunny, fairly warm, and still enough for me to solo. I started fishing using a Mepps Dressed Aglia #2 Silver around 6:30 pm, and within 20 minutes caught my first fish not too far from shore just to the west of our site. It was around dinner time, so I quickly took the fish back to our campsite where we measured, weighed, and cleaned it. It was 22" long and just under 5 lbs. While cleaning it, I counted 6 minnows in its stomach, so I knew the fish were actively feeding at this time.
On the second day, Nick joined me, and we fished twice that day- first from 6:30 to 9:00 in the morning, then again from 6:30 to 9:00 in the evening. In the morning, it was overcast, and there was a slight wind, though I could still paddle solo while Nick fished up front. Travelling around the lake, staying parallel to the shoreline, we caught five fish. Nick caught three, one of which we kept, on a Mepps Aglia Long #1 Rainbo Scale, while I caught one on my Mepps #2 and one on a Mepps Syclops #1 Silver-Hot Firetiger. We basically caught one fish every half hour, as if the strikes were set on a timer. Towards the end of the morning, the sun came out, though this didn't seem to impact our fishing.
In the evening, we followed the same trolling route, but this time I sat up front. It was pretty windy, so often both Nick and I had to paddle, except when we were going with the wind, which was blowing us west. It was sunny all evening, and once again we caught five fish- this time all of them on my Mepps Syclops. Just like in the morning, the catches were fairly spread out throughout the evening, one fish every half hour, though we did seem to get more fish when travelling against the wind- probably because our speed was too high going with the wind, even when we weren't paddling.
Later that night, around 11 pm, there was a thunderstorm. The next morning, it was overcast and somewhat windy, but luckily it wasn't raining. It was also a bit cooler. We fished from 6:30 to 8:00, and the weather change finally slowed the bite down a little. Still, we caught two more fish, both of them on my Mepps #2. The fish we caught that morning are the ones in the video above.
Unfortunately, I didn't have a line counter with me, so I can't say for sure how deep the fish were- nor can I tell you the water temperature. But based on our proximity to shore and the amount of line we would put out, I'd say that most of the fish we caught were in 10-20' of water, with most of the bigger fish (~ 5 lbs) on the deeper side of that spectrum, if not a little bit deeper. My advice, unless you have a depth finder with you, is to first focus on your distance from shore, and then to find the bottom with your lure. If you're not having any luck, try fishing deeper or shallower- farther or closer to shore as a general guideline- depending on the time of year: deeper in the summer, shallower in the spring and autumn. The important thing is to make notes of what works and what doesn't on any given day, and to find a balance between changing your approach and being patient with it (by the way, currently there is no bathymetric map of Biggar Lake, but Stephen from http://www.molsonmapping.com/ told me that he will be making one soon).
My last piece of advice concerns getting to Biggar Lake. If you're more interested in fishing than canoeing, spare yourself the trouble of doing the Manitou-Three Mile-Biggar loop; just go straight to Biggar from North Tea and return the same way. We did the loop, travelling through Manitou on the first day, ending with a brutal 3 km portage. This route is a b*#&!, especially when the copious amounts of photography and fishing gear you carry force you to do every portage twice, effectively tripling the distance (yes, 3 km turned into 9 km). I will admit that this painful detour made our trip less monotonous and all the more memorable and epic, but I probably won't do it again.
And remember, knowledge is important, but it's no substitute for experience!
Greg Cholkan is a lawyer, fisherman, and Hemingway impersonator. He works in Huntsville and Haliburton with Barriston LLP and his practice focuses on real estate, wills and estates, and corporate matters.
On our first night on Biggar, I went fishing on my own while Nick stayed behind at our campsite, proving that it is possible to troll on your own so long as you have a rod holder and the conditions aren't too windy. It had been raining all day, but by evening it was sunny, fairly warm, and still enough for me to solo. I started fishing using a Mepps Dressed Aglia #2 Silver around 6:30 pm, and within 20 minutes caught my first fish not too far from shore just to the west of our site. It was around dinner time, so I quickly took the fish back to our campsite where we measured, weighed, and cleaned it. It was 22" long and just under 5 lbs. While cleaning it, I counted 6 minnows in its stomach, so I knew the fish were actively feeding at this time.
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| Our trolling route, represented by the black dotted line; the orange triangle represents our campsite; the arrow shows our trolling direction; the stars represent some of the spots where we caught fish (click to enlarge). |
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| Although we had slightly heavier line and fluorocarbon leaders, this is the basic set-up that we used. |
And remember, knowledge is important, but it's no substitute for experience!
Greg Cholkan is a lawyer, fisherman, and Hemingway impersonator. He works in Huntsville and Haliburton with Barriston LLP and his practice focuses on real estate, wills and estates, and corporate matters.
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