fishing tobin lake

[walleye junkie]

new to the form .. we are making our first trip to tobin lake in early june . I,m thinking of camping at the nipawin regional park as it,s close to town . is the fishing good in the river at that time of the year ? any advise on fishing tobin would be appreciated .we will be there for about a week before heading to green lake .
I find the form to be a great source of info.

thanks

[spyguy 0-0-7]

The regional park is a great place to stay. Your close enough to town that pizza can be delivered right to the front gate. Boat launch and parking is hard to beat. Fishing the river is a great start. River mapping is available on line with all the usual points marking common species. Fishing the main lake for BIG pike will keep you coming back. Keep your eyes open for all the dead heads and watch the sky for bad weather. When the wind picks up, start looking at heading for the river. Good luck and enjoy.

[58thecat]

Luv it when people share good information on lakes etc.

Not saying when you get there the fish will bite but it is a great start.

[rcales]

Wild Bill's is amazing pizza

[deschambault]

In early June the pig pike should still be shallow - I caught the biggest pike of my life on a sand bar in about 3 feet of water but the majority in 5 to 8 feet. Some time in June they do go deeper so if you aren't catching any, ask around and someone will tell you where they are. The walleye relate to the edges of the old river channel. Follow the river channel and just vary your depth depending on the water temperature.

[walleye junkie]

thanks fellows for the feed back,im looking forward to the trip

[cube]

Originally Posted by walleye junkie

new to the form .. we are making our first trip to tobin lake in early june . I,m thinking of camping at the nipawin regional park as it,s close to town . is the fishing good in the river at that time of the year ? any advise on fishing tobin would be appreciated .we will be there for about a week before heading to green lake .
I find the form to be a great source of info.

thanks

Be prepared to loose lots of hooks. If you are planning on using your more expensive stuff make sure your in the old channel. In many reservoirs they cut down the timber before flooding but this is not the case with Tobin. The trees were left standing so there are allot of snags around. This is good for structure but causes allot of lost lures. Hence the most common setup used is live bait rigs and spinner rigs. These are inexpensive and easy to tie on your own.

My common go to for walleye was some kind of snag resistant weight such as a slinky weight then a swivel. To this I tied 5-6 feet of leader (use mono if you want it to float a bit or flouro if you want more sink at the hook). Then tied on either a slow death hook or 1-2 wide gap hooks for walleye (you might try weedless here ) finishes off the rig. For bait anything seemed to work. Leeches were very common but watch out as your not allowed to bring in leeches from Alberta.

As a previous poster said you must watch carefully for black near submerged floating logs. Depending on the river flows when you are there if high it will bring up allot more logs. The other kind of wood you need to watch out for is dead heads. You will be going along and be in 20 ft of water in the lake and go by an old dead tree still sticking out 30 feet. These are the safe ones. It's the ones that break off right at water level that you need to watch out for, especially in the waves.

I would say there is a bit of a learning curve to fish Tobin but you will soon get how the river channels run and come up with a system for the logs and wood. In our case I would watch my gps track closely and have my wife carefully scan for logs and dead heads. (I would also mark the more dangerous ones on my finder to make sure we would never meet.) Needless to say on your first night I would not recommend coming back from the lake to the regional park in the dark.

As another poster indicated the locals are very friendly and helpful. They truly want you to have success and a good time while you are there so don't be afraid to ask.

Tobin Lake fishing map http://www.nipawin.com/documents/fis...binlakemap.pdf

Good luck out there.

[cube]

Originally Posted by cube

Be prepared to loose lots of hooks. If you are planning on using your more expensive stuff make sure your in the old channel. In many reservoirs they cut down the timber before flooding but this is not the case with Tobin. The trees were left standing so there are allot of snags around. This is good for structure but causes allot of lost lures. Hence the most common setup used is live bait rigs and spinner rigs. These are inexpensive and easy to tie on your own.

My common go to for walleye was some kind of snag resistant weight such as a slinky weight then a swivel. To this I tied 5-6 feet of leader (use mono if you want it to float a bit or flouro if you want more sink at the hook). Then tied on either a slow death hook or 1-2 wide gap hooks for walleye (you might try weedless here ) finishes off the rig. For bait anything seemed to work. Leeches were very common but watch out as your not allowed to bring in leeches from Alberta.

.

Forgot to mention that the leader/rig portion should be of a lighter pound test than your main line so you don't loose your weight and swivel. Just the leader and hooks will be lost if its the hooks that foul that way.

[Topwater]

Early June the better pike fishing should be in shallow bays in the river portion and the walleye can be caught everywhere. Have a great trip...

[schmedlap]

Originally Posted by Topwater

Early June the better pike fishing should be in shallow bays in the river portion and the walleye can be caught everywhere. Have a great trip...

But this year is unusual in terms of the spring being so early(?). Most years in early June, if you want the big pike, they are in the bays off the river, or in the shallow bays and/or flooded old road ditches (5-6' of water) in the lower reservoir. This year ...? it may be late for that. My ex b-in-law and I had an epic day of casting anything shiny or wiggly to big pike about 18 years ago at that time (actually end of May). Sitting on an old flooded road in 2-3' of water, way back in the shallow SE area of the reservoir, and casting to the former ditch (maybe 5-6' of water) and just getting pike between 8-15 lb. on virtually every cast. My youngest son, on a different spring expedition, landed an 18 pounder trolling a big crank in one of the river back bays about 10 years back. And I lost a much bigger one just a short while later in the same back bay - we just caught a glimpse of what would have been my best ever pike (we were pretty excited and in awe at the size of that monster) before she somehow slipped the hooks and escaped.

I've caught, and seen caught, some very large walleye out of both the river stretch and the reservoir, on the old river bank edge or the reservoir flats, or (my biggest) right down by the lower dam. But for me it is the average size of the pike that is the draw to Tobin. Even in mid-summer one can troll the deep flats and weed-bank edges and be guaranteed some incredible action. And I've never been able to get out there in the late fall - I know a local "pro", who guided some TV show guys to several 20+ pike in October, 20years back. Have a good trip - wish I could get out there this spring.

[cube]

Originally Posted by schmedlap

But this year is unusual in terms of the spring being so early(?). Most years in early June, if you want the big pike, they are in the bays off the river, or in the shallow bays and/or flooded old road ditches (5-6' of water) in the lower reservoir. This year ...? it may be late for that. My ex b-in-law and I had an epic day of casting anything shiny or wiggly to big pike about 18 years ago at that time (actually end of May). Sitting on an old flooded road in 2-3' of water, way back in the shallow SE area of the reservoir, and casting to the former ditch (maybe 5-6' of water) and just getting pike between 8-15 lb. on virtually every cast. My youngest son, on a different spring expedition, landed an 18 pounder trolling a big crank in one of the river back bays about 10 years back. And I lost a much bigger one just a short while later in the same back bay - we just caught a glimpse of what would have been my best ever pike (we were pretty excited and in awe at the size of that monster) before she somehow slipped the hooks and escaped.

I've caught, and seen caught, some very large walleye out of both the river stretch and the reservoir, on the old river bank edge or the reservoir flats, or (my biggest) right down by the lower dam. But for me it is the average size of the pike that is the draw to Tobin. Even in mid-summer one can troll the deep flats and weed-bank edges and be guaranteed some incredible action. And I've never been able to get out there in the late fall - I know a local "pro", who guided some TV show guys to several 20+ pike in October, 20years back. Have a good trip - wish I could get out there this spring.

I one of those pro's was Topwater though it was probably not the same show as your thinking of.