Fishing at Wye Lake, Manitoba, Manitoba

• Overview

  This water sits in Manitoba. It sits in spruce and muskeg. The water covers some 74 hectares, so pick a bank rather than trying to cover it all. Shoreline comes to about 4.5 km, small enough to learn in a day. Supplies mean a trip to Pelican Narrows, 217 km off. Saskatoon is the closest city, 633 km away. Rules here are straightforward: one set of provincial rules.

• Where to Fish on Wye Lake

  No depth figure has reached our records, which makes a plummet useful. A soft bed grows weed late into autumn, which keeps fish shallow. A natural lake fishes on cover, and cover here means weed and timber. Take Wye Lake a stretch at a time. Yearly totals run near 500 mm, with February the driest stretch.

• Seasonal Patterns

  In an average year July sits at 16°C and January at -25°C. Little of the calendar is open water, so timing counts for everything. Ice is part of the season here, ending near mid May. On the long-run averages the water opens up around mid May and starts locking again about early November. The first weeks of open water and the last are the ones to plan for. Anyone fishing Wye Lake regularly works to that calendar.

• Tackle & Baits

  The rules here are undocumented as far as public sources go. No dam controls it, and the level follows the season. Access points are not mapped for this water, which suits people who like quiet. Where access is informal, keep it that way by behaving. Some stretches are reserved and marked as such on the ground. Veronica Lake, 3.8 km away, makes the obvious fallback. Nothing here settles the position at Wye Lake for certain.