Spring of 2023 and it was time to try out another great fishing outfitter. This year we’d be heading to Van Poele Outpost camp. The camp is located on the Van Poele River, which feeds into Kagianagami Lake, Kag, which is a huge body of water with several camps on it.
We were put onto this camp by a friend of Chris’s who has been fishing it for several years with his group. We were grateful for the recommendation as well as for some tips on the fishing.
This trip was interesting right from the get go. Our pilot was an experienced bush pilot, but it was his first season flying out of Nakina. We first headed to a camp on Kag where we dropped off a group of guys heading in for their trip. I always enjoy these side stops because it gives me a chance to look at other camps. The drop off was uneventful, and we took off heading for Van Poele, or so we thought. We were in the air for much longer than we should have been, when the pilot shared that his GPS wasn’t working and he wasn’t sure where the lake was. He was looking for a camp on a smaller body of water, with solar panels on the roof, which frankly isn’t that unique up there. We touched down on a suspected lake, but as we pulled up both Chris and I knew this was not where we were supposed to be. First off, it wasn’t a river, and second the camp was totally different from the pictures we had seen. A quick visit inside the cabin (which was amazing) showed us a lake map — we were on Cerulean Lake.
I pulled out my satellite device and loaded up a map for the pilot, and showed him where we should be headed. He took some rough bearings and off we went. A bit of exploring later, we landed on the proper body of water, and saw the familiar sign of a group of guys with their gear loaded and waiting. This may have been a tell on the previous lake, given that it was empty.
Things started out pretty well, taking off our gear and loading up the guys leaving. The water was pretty high that spring, even though we were in a spring heat wave. The high water meant that the dock was not in its usual place, which normally wouldn’t be an issue, but on this day it decided to pull free of its lines, with the plane still attached. Like a pendulum the dock and plane started to move in the current, attached at one end. It was a mad scramble as guys headed to the shoreline the plane was moving toward, in order to keep the wing out of the trees. After manually securing the plane, we completed the loading of the plane. At that point we had to decide how to get the plane off the dock and into the open water for it to take off. Luckily we had boats handy, so I hopped in the camp boat, tied a rope to a cleat on the pontoon, and after the pilot untied from the dock I gave it some gas and slowly pulled the plane out to open water. In case you are wondering, the boat was working very hard to move the plane very slowly. Once the pilot had enough room, he fired it up and took off for home.
Feeling grateful we even made it to the camp, we put our gear in the cabin and got things ready to go fishing.
We had a few spots planned out. There were a couple spots on Van Poele we were aware of, and then the main river coming into Kag. The spots on Van Poele were right there, 5-15 minutes boat ride from the cabin; the spot on Kag was a minimum of 45 minutes away, assuming the wind on the big lake was low.
As was normal, our first day we just explored and tried to figure things out. The guys before us had suggested the fishing was fussy, with the combination of spring water conditions meeting the heatwave, and the fish being unpredictable. Turns out they were right. We had mixed success in Van Poele, which can also be chalked up to angler error. We again felt super confident and brought no worms or minnows. We’ve since learned (after many examples) that even in the far north with low pressure lakes, you have to be prepared to break out a worm or a minnow if the bite is off.
Don’t get me wrong, we caught lots of fish, but it was a bit harder than it normally is in the spring, and many days we headed down Kag to fish the main inflow, where the fishing was lights out.
We did really well for numbers of walleye, as well as a number of good sized pike. Aside from the finicky fishing, the heat was unreal. Usually on a spring trip we are concerned with fire wood and warm clothes; not so on this trip. The temps were consistently in the 30s (Celsius), with 4 days in a row of 35 degrees. Add to that no wind, and it was tough to be in an aluminum boat, as there were no clouds in the sky. We’d have to take the boat for a rip just to get a breeze and cool off. The cabin, because there wasn’t any wind and the temps weren’t dropping much, was a sauna. Sleeping on top of a sheet, no sleeping bag or blanket required. On the last day of the trip we had to light a fire just to burn up the garbage we’d been storing!
Don’t let the side stories distract you from the important stuff though. Van Poele itself has a lot of water to fish in of itself. Kag is massive, and you have walleye, pike and lake trout. The Opichuan River flows out, and is known for spring brook trout. As mentioned, the inflow river where we spent most of our time was stacked with good sized walleye and bonus pike. You can check out my videos below, which include a camp walkthrough, some fishing, and a look at pulling a plane with a tin boat. If you have any questions about this camp or any others, shoot me a message at Scott@canadianfisherman.ca or give Chad a call at Twin Lakes Air.
Tight lines!