Abitibi April Hardwater

Left home at 1100 am on Friday (April 01) and headed to the cottage to pick up all my gear. Arrived at about 230 pm and had the trailer loaded by about 330 pm.

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From there i drove to Matheson and spent the night in a hotel to head out first thing in the morning. The road into the lake ended up being more or less plowed to about 10 km (or 6 km depending on the trail) from the lake. The road in - snow was about 3 to 4 feet in the bush and banks on the road were about 6 or 7 feet:

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The trailhead:

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Trail quickly narrows to this:

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There were two options at the trailhead. First is a longer wider trail that most people use (10 km). Second is a shorter less traveled trail (6 km). I chose the shorter trail first time going in but subsequently used the longer wider trail as the shorter trail had two significant mudholes and a small river crossing. The weather was warm (2 to 5 degrees) so i opted to not use the hut and because i was closer to the truck than expected i slept in the snowmobile trailer instead of setting up camp on the lake. Typically setup:

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The view from the hole:

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The first fish i caught was a micro walleye:

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Remainder of the walleye were all 13 to 16 inches (kept and ate four of these each day):

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Also caught a bazillion mooneyes:

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Kept a dozen of them to try. Gonna fry them up tomorrow. Ice was 2 inches of white ice followed by about 6 inches of slush followed by 30 inches of ice for a total hole length of +/- 38 inches. Below that maybe 5 or 6 feet of water - don't really even need a reel as you never have more than 8 or 9 feet of line out. The bite was incredibly light/soft. With my most sensitive light action rod most times i could not feel it at all - my line instead would start moving sideways across the hole. Took some getting used to and even by the end i was maybe connecting about 20% of the time - but that's okay because bites were so frequent that even a 20% hookup meant lots of fish.

No real surprises or issues on this trip other than a sunburned face.

Awesome pictures and report....thanks for bringing us along

Sounds like a great trip and fantastic weather

Always enjoy your trips. Thanks

Glad you had a great time and success, always enjoy your posts

Great report thanks for sharing. Let us know how the fish was for dinner.


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Thanks for the story and pics. I wasn’t aware that there are mooneyes in that system.

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Originally Posted by fishfood

Great report thanks for sharing. Let us know how the fish was for dinner.


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So the mooneyes were alright but certainly don't compare to say walleye, perch or char (my favs). I little bit mushy and greasy. Did some reading and supposedly most people that eat them smoke them.

I'm thinking that might be a Goldeye rather than a Mooneye in the pic. Hard to tell from the pic without seeing the dorsal fin location. Big mouth, gold hew on flanks, and predominantly big yellow eye looks like a goldeye to me. Leading edge of anal fin is round so probably a male. Do you have any pics that show the dorsal and anal fins? Those would be amazing in the smoker. I've tasted smoked goldeye from the Little abitibi River and they are fantastic. Better than whitefish (sweeter).

I dug out the old Scott and Crossman bible. Looks like Lake Abitibi has Goldeye. I don't see Mooneye ocurring there in the distribution notes. It says that Goldeye were dogfood up until 1900. Fresh taste is said yo be "insipid (lacking flavour), muddy, and like that of salted brown paper. It doesn't mention if you notice this taste after you've had six Canadians, or you're pigging them fresh out of the fry pan in the ice hut. Flesh is mushy and an unattractive grey colour". Then someone decided to willow smoke them and realized they were amazing. Considered "Goormet" Canadian delicacy by 1930. Used to be a valuable item for the commercial fishermen on lake Winnipeg.

https://archive.macleans.ca/article/...morous-goldeye

A cool read on the history of Goldeye

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Originally Posted by Fenelon

I'm thinking that might be a Goldeye rather than a Mooneye in the pic. Hard to tell from the pic without seeing the dorsal fin location. Big mouth, gold hew on flanks, and predominantly big yellow eye looks like a goldeye to me. Leading edge of anal fin is round so probably a male. Do you have any pics that show the dorsal and anal fins? Those would be amazing in the smoker. I've tasted smoked goldeye from the Little abitibi River and they are fantastic. Better than whitefish (sweeter).

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Only pic i had showing anal and dorsal fins. Angle on pic is not quite right but from the relative positions I would say you are correct - Goldeneye. I was simply calling them what the locals told me they were.

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Looks like a good day of fishing.

Wow, $2.00 and up a plate in swanky restaurants. Memories of the good old days.
rodmcd

Yep, Goldeye for sure. If the ice is still good, you should go back and fill that Pelican sled of yours with them, then break out the smoker. You're a lucky man if you can harvest a few buckets of those every winter. I've eaten them smoked but I've never had a chance to actually catch one.