Abitibi Nip Combo Trip

So the original plan was to head up to my place with a couple buddies and fish the last 2 days of the Nipissing Season. Well sometimes #$@% happens. Unfortunately one buddy had a serious family emergency and had to cancel. Than yours truly got #$%^&'d by the province when they dumped a surprise 2 day audit on me at one the water treatment facilities that my company operates. Audit was fine but it happened Monday and Tuesday meaning i was not able to facilitate the trip and had to cancel on short notice on the other buddy. I hate that.

Anyways i was able to take off the morning of the 15th and lines in the water just after lunch. Was a beautiful day but with just enough wind i put the shelter up. The Nip view on the last day of the season:



Bite was non-existent until about 5 pm. Than from that point until 745 pm i managed to ice 8 walleyes and lost a few to boot. They were remarkably consistent in size between 15 and 15.5 inches - just under the slot:



Did manage one keeper at 16.5 inches:



At dark i headed for the truck, loaded up and drove straight to the Super 8 in Kirkland Lake. Pulled in shortly after midnight. Hit the sack and slept until 9 than headed for Big Abitibi. Access is via a logging road for 20 km and than 10 km by sled on a bush trail. It is a very shallow lake mostly between 8 and 10 feet deep which means there is only 5 to 7 feet of water under the ice. Had lines in the water just after lunch.

The Abitibi view:



The weather was warm and no wind so fished open air all day:



Bite was steady all day - mostly golden eyes - kept 20 of them to try on the smoker. They are no good to eat cooked conventionally but smoked they are supposed to be quite good:



And a few little gaffers like this:



Was planning on hitting Abitibi again Friday but weather man issued a winter storm warning with 30 to 50 cm of snow expected. Decided not to chance it as not sure the truck could manage that logging road with 40 cm of snow and pulling the trailer. Not a good place to get stranded - nearest cell signal is 30 km away and even that is spotty. Nearest reliable cell signal is 50 km away at the nearest town (Matheson). Regardless all and all a fun few days.

This post has been edited by Species8472 on Mar 17, 2023 - 10:54 pm

Thanks for the report. Abitibi is on the "to do list" lol.

sounds like a few good days of fishing anyways. Looks like there was some slush on Abitibi. Yeah was up that way years ago to drop boy off for summer working with the rangers. Not a lot of cell coverage, you certainly wouldn't want to be stuff in a snow storm.

Slush was not too bad at all. Most of what you see in that pic is the local pocket i created when i drilled my holes.

Just finished the brine and got the first batch for the smoker soaking: