Trip Report- Montreal River/ Lady Evelyn Lake
Returned yesterday from 7 days at White Pine Lodge, just outside Haileybury(nearest town, 25 min drive) / New Liskeard. Roughly 600km (6 1/2 hours with stops) from Newmarket area. Met Lorraine at the Spring Fishing and Boat Show and chatted extensively with her at the booth. Very easy going and great to deal with. The price was highly competitive so we booked a 6 man trip. You arrive to your own parking lot and decent gravel launch, honk your horn, and within minutes John arrives to pick you and your crew up and ferry you to the camp ( 5 minute boat ride). For those renting boats, they use 16' Lunds with 15hp Yamaha motors. Boats/motors were in great condition and none of our crew had any issues. Lots of protected ( strong river current) dock space if you bring your own boat also. The cabins were very well equipped with anything you could need, and if you forgot anything- just ask, and it was on your counter within an hour.
Why we went…..the fishing. Our crew tends to try a new lodge every year for a week, just to see a new place and try something different. This may be the first lodge we return to in back to back years. While we didn't land any trophies, the action was non stop daily. The pike in the 1-3 lb range were actually getting annoying- but great fun on light gear. Our largest pike were in the 5-6 lb range. Smallmouth averaged 3lb, were area specific but plentiful once we found them. The walleye were 10-16 inches and mostly caught trolling in 15-25 feet of water, but bit all day long. The perch were mostly jumbos, but we didn't catch many of them.
With the exception of the bass, and some pike in back bays, almost all our fish were caught trolling. Combinations of black /silver, or anything in perch pattern, or just plain white seemed to be the ticket for us. Worm harnesses and rapalas/ stickbaits worked equally well. We jigged a few spots with worms, but produced the same amount and size walleye as we did trolling.
There is literally 25 miles of river to explore with varying depths, drop offs, weeds, shoals, bays……basically everything a fisherman could ask for. We never even took advantage of the $25 daily boat lift that a local runs to take you up to Lady Evelyn, as the fishing kept us busy in the river. Next year will include a couple of day trips up to the lake above the dam for sure, just to say we did.
I'm not an employee or associated with the lodge in any way, so here are the cons from our trip……in all my outdoors years/experience, I've never seen so many mosquitos. There is lots of space/trees between the cabins, and whether you are on the water ( smaller group size cottage), or up the hill tucked away in the bigger cabins- they find you in black swarming clouds. Take lots of bug spray, and the mosquito coils. You have been warned. The lodge uses generator power in the evening from 730-1030pm. A couple more hours would have been nice. There are limited electrical plugs in the cabins, and it doesn't take long to fill them to charge music devices/ cameras/etc. We always take a power bar for such occasions, and it came in handy this trip. Plug stuff in before the evening fish, and hopefully 3 hours is enough. Propane runs the cabins at other times, with 3-5 wall mounted lights at off power times, and was enough to keep you from stubbing your foot on furniture. If you can find blocks of ice to fill your coolers prior to arrival - do it. Ice is purchased in town, transported back in coolers, and the cubes don't seem to last long, even in the propane fridge/freezers in the bait shack. It was really warm only a couple days, and there wasn't enough ice for all the cabins in camp. Due to the nature of the area and river, current, and drop offs so close to shore, there was no beach per say, but a swimming platform that was being used by a couple families with smaller kids in about 5' of water.
Overall, I was very impressed with the lodge, and John and Lorraine were the hosts you want- not hovering or hounding you see how things are going every hour. If you needed something, they were there, otherwise they let you be to enjoy your getaway. Fishing was good, as were the faclities
