Livewell

Take a ride down the ice road out of Kenora and it quickly will become apparent how popular permanent fish houses or shacks are becoming for area anglers.
Shacks litter the ice around nearly every island and reveal everyone’s favourite walleye spots. The same scene can be found in Nestor Falls, with shacks present over most of the best crappie holes.

Northwestern Ontario’s two big bass tournaments, the Kenora Bass International and Fort Frances Canadian Bass Championship, are two of the finest in North America.
No other team events attract the number of anglers, the media attention, nor the large crowds these two garner each year.
Neither of these events would be possible without all the fine support they get from sponsors, both local and national, and all the volunteers who contribute countless hours each year to make these the successes that they are.

With Christmas just around the corner, I’m sure plenty of shoppers already have found the perfect gift for their favourite angler or hunter.
But if you are like me, you wait until the last minute and make a mad scramble to come up with a thoughtful gift for everybody you love.
Well, if you still are looking for a gift for someone who spends a lot of time in the outdoors, here are some good ideas that may be able to save you time.
Are you living with a hardcore ice angler? If so, the solutions are easy.

Now that winter has set in here in Sunset Country, ice anglers surely have to be thinking about hitting the hardwater in search of a hot bite.
When I think about early ice, the first thought that comes to my mind is stocked trout. When I was younger, it always was a tradition with my Dad to hit some of these small, stocked lakes as soon as the ice was safe—and we caught plenty of them.

Although the big waters in Sunset Country, like Lake of the Woods and Rainy Lake, are far from being ready for anglers to hit the ice, many of the smaller, inland waters have been frozen for a couple of weeks and I’ve been hearing reports of good fishing for walleyes, crappies, and stocked trout.
Now that hunting season has begun to wind down, it’s time to start preparing for the upcoming ice-fishing season.

Kenora’s Julia Beveridge had the opportunity of a lifetime last summer when she got the chance to head up to the Yukon on a contract as a fisheries biologist for the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (Central and Arctic Division) based out of the Freshwater Institute at the University of Manitoba.
Now away at Lakehead University in Thunder Bay studying medicine to become a doctor just like her dad, Julia recently gave me a report on her three-month visit to the Yukon and it sounds like she had a great time in the north—and found plenty of fish to play with.

By Jeff Gustafson
Now that winter is bearing down, temperatures around Sunset Country are beginning to fall off and snow is upon us.
Fortunately for hunters, the cold weather makes animals move around a little bit more while snow allows us to see fresh sign of the game we pursue.
With plenty of time left in the season for hunters to hit the woods, there are a few tricks I’ve learned that will help keep you warm while you are out there.

Much like underwater cameras when they became available to the public about 10 years ago, trail (or game) cameras were slow to become popular with the everyday sportsman.
When underwater cameras first came out, they were expensive and only the most avid anglers had them. But over the years, cheaper—and better—versions came along and now they are common in the boats of tournament and weekend anglers alike.

In recent years, as whitetail deer populations continue to grow across Northwestern Ontario, various methods of hunting have become popular.
Sitting in tree stands or ground blinds, overlooking high percentage travel areas, is likely the best way to take a big buck—the goal of many hunters.
Add to this method of sitting and being patient some sounds to emulate deer, especially bucks fighting, and you could bag the biggest deer of your life this season.

I love to fish and over the years, along with my friends and family, have spent many days on the water chasing bass, crappies, and walleyes around right up until freeze-up.
I’ve wrecked plenty of my dad’s equipment pushing the limits—breaking ice just to get that one last fish in of the year.
But over the last few years, fishing has taken a back seat after September as I’ve become addicted to deer hunting and spend seven or eight weeks each season in the woods pursuing whitetails.