Sturgeon/Balsam weekend fishing, Shallow walleyes

So here is my brief report on June 10-12 weekend fishing on Sturgeon/Balsam with friends.

Every time we get together (there were 8 of us on 3 boats) we obviously enjoy our fishing but it kinda comes secondary to the good times spent together on and off the water.

So we fished Friday afternoon, Saturday and a few hours on Sunday on Balsam after the storm has passed after 11 am.

I have noticed that over the years I am taking less and less pictures and just enjoying the flow of my fishing day. Every time I show a picture of the fish caught to my wife she says that it’s the same one I’ve showed her last time LOL.

Most of my buddies don’t even bother with taking pictures if it’s not for a trophy. But still we were able to catch a few fish and took some pictures.

We caught a bunch of walleyes (and lost a few too) , including the good ones in 21-24” range, lots of OOS bass (on walleye lures) and one musky (lost a big one too).

The weather was all over the map so we did not fish the full days on Saturday and Sunday.

As my friend Crappeeeman always saying- most of the folks fish too deep for the walleye. Our biggest eyes came out of 5-7 FOW on weedy/stumpy flats on shallow diving cranks and small jerks during daytime (but it a bit windy).

Deep weed edges in 10-12 FOW were also working but mainly at dinner time and the walleyes caught there were smaller.

Sunday we woke up at 6 am hoping the weatherman was wrong and there is no rain but we had to wait till 10.30-11 am for the storm to pass before going to Balsam. As a result we came at the end of the front and fished a couple of hours before the sky completely cleared but we still managed to get 1 walleye , 2 SMs and lost a pike and at 2pm we call it off.

It was great meeting with Crappeeman and fish wish him for a bit on Friday night

All in all was a great get together with lots of food, drinks (for most of the guys, but not for me as I don’t drink) and fishing.

Below are some pics and some additional info.

Pre dawn lights on Saturday were gorgeous...

Lots of loones around , including whole families with little chicks, learning how to swim..

Small one on lipless crank in 10 FOW...

Buddy's musky- C&R on a 5" Jerkbait.

Sorry, my friends do not like to be on the public forums so I had to cut his face off the pic

A keeper...

A good one caught by a friend...

Beautiful Kawartha gold - a 23 incher

Some nice scenery ...

So we had a discussion a while ago about lure retrievers and I have recommended this one for cranks and jerks.

Well we had to use it on a buddy's jerk which got caught in the stumps and if not for this retriever he certainly would have lost it .

It designed with various length wire loops to reach the lure trebles and made of heavy lead to go down deep on the line.

Simple and effective tool.

Fish soup made of fresh walleye and some potatoes, onions, a bit of carrots, garlic and parsley.
It was delicious...

Looks like a great weekend had.

great report you did well enough


thanks for sharing


btw...I agree about the photo ops.....many I fish with don't want photos posted, so we don't anymore. got to respect their wishes

I was looking forward to your update since seeing you last week. Those are some very nice pictures of the fish and the food. It was great meeting your friends and hanging out for a bit with you guys. Too bad that I had to come back to civilization. Your trip sounded like a success even with that weird weather. As far as pictures go, before I joined this forum I had almost no pictures of fish. Now I like taking blurry pictures of everything LOL.....As for my theory of walleye not being deep and more often shallow in the Kawarthas. This Friday and Saturday the walleye will be so shallow you can just reach over the side of the boat and pick them out of the water. LOL Friday afternoon wind is 35kmh gusting to 70kmh....Friday evening 25kmh to 50kmh....Saturday 30kmh gusting to 50kmh...Saturday evening it starts to be less wind. So stay safe out there all, a big just of wind can put you in the rocks in no time. Especially on Balsam where the rocks like to hide where there should not be any rocks.

Thanks, LS.

Yeah, lots of people are camera shy these days and want to stay away from the social media publicity as we continue to have our privacy eroded.

Thanks, CM, and it was great meeting you as well.

Hopefully you can fish this weekend.

Yes, It's going to be a windy one so i will likely go to a smaller lake. I agree that the wind should push fish to the shallows so the walleyes should also be active shallow.

Love fishing for walleyes in the shallows - the strikes are almost always pretty wild.

We shall see.

Good luck and stay safe.