May go after pike, walleye, and lake trout in August.

Not Manitoba, but NW Ontario.

You will find slot limits on the walleyes and maybe northerns depending on the lakes. Generally you can easily catch all the walleyes, northern, smallmouths an depending on the lake, lake trout you can bring back and then some. Muskies, depending on the lake may be available and can be decent sized and moderately cooperative. A couple 4 footers shouldn't be a problem if weather cooperates.

What are you looking for information wise?

The northern fishing as well as the barb-less hooks will be new to me. Interesting that some of my larger large-mouth bass lures, and peacock bass lures, sound usable once the hooks are swapped out.

Be sure to take an ultralight rig jut in case you have Smallmouths in the lake. Crayfish pattern shallow shad raps work well and they are fun to catch when you can find a lot of 4-5 pounders. Chrome finish husky jerks have done well on northerns for me, but when you find big northerns stacked up in deeper water you might have to go down 20-40 feet to get them that time of year. For lakers, probably look for 51 degrees. Those native redfins can eat pretty well.

I've got Bomber Long "A" lures, 7/8 ounce, some in chrome. They look a lot like the Rapala Husky Jerk.

We're going to focus on pike most likely. I'm not into trolling.....or deep water jigging for that matter. Neither is my partner. We may have to change our whole outlook once we get there.

At the end of the day, you have to feed the fish what they want. Seems like pike will strike just about anything.

I've got 30# braid on one reel and 65# braid on another. We'll be using 30# steel leaders I think. I like as few connections (knots) as possible. I see in videos people fishing with braid backing to fluorocarbon leaders, to a swivel, to a snap. Is all that necessary?

Watching YouTube videos, it feels a little like peacock bass fishing I used to do in Venezuela. I'll probably throw a few peacock bass lures at the pike and see what happens. (I think Brazil and peacock bass are the plan for 2023.)

Back from Manitoba. The charters from Winnipeg and float planes from Flin Flon were excellent with the logistics well planned and executed.

The fishing trip was successful. Overall I would rate it a 4 out of 5. The last half-day saved the trip.

Things We Would Do Different - Bring our own rods

We used rental rods with our own reels. The rental rods were "Medium Action", not stout enough for the fish we were catching. I would have preferred my Heavy Action rods. (With barbless hooks I don't want to mess around.)

They matched a spinning reel with a baitcasting rod. They provided a rod with a badly bent guide. They provided a rod with a missing ceramic insert in a guide which abraded my partners line badly. We sorted that all out.

Don't count on Canadian guides knowing anything about baitcasting reels. After our guide bird-nested my reel, they lent me one of their reels. The handle came off in my hand on the first cast.

We found the front seat socket in our boat was missing a plastic insert, so the seat when install wobbled all around and was unusable. We stood the whole time.

They had a full lodge of customers so they had to pull in additional guides to assist. We drew a guide that did not know the lake (Kississing). They put him on a short leash until the last day, and then he earned his tip.

On the plus side, we caught a lot of fish. Pike to 42" and walleye to 26". It was great to catch fish in the morning, then go to shore for lunch and have the walleye and pike filleted and fried for us.

Had a guest come in one day for lunch. As they were filleting fish, a female black bear weighing about 300 pounds came in to snatch the fish carcasses. The guides estimated she was three to four years old. A little unnerving to have a wild bear at 10 yards. The guides just said to not make any sudden movements or run.

One fisherman was able to video a caribou on the bank. Said he videoed a "moose", then showed me the video. Nah!

Good trip and one more bucket list item checked-off.

Kensco , What Outfit did you go with ? Im ready to make a trip back up north later this year. Normally i go to Ontario but would like to try a new place, thanks

We used Kississing Lake Lodge. https://kississinglodge.com/ The fishing and facilities were good. We decided not to take our rods. That was a mistake. Their gear was not well maintained. We had a little trouble with the guide service. They had "over-booked" for the guides they had, and had to bring in additional guides that were not familiar with the lake. We noticed our guide was just following one of their guides around the lake. Once we got that straightened out, we started nailing pike up to 42" and plenty of nice sized Walleye. (If you get one of their guides, you will have a hell of a trip.) Saw bear and caribou.

The logistics of getting us there and back was perfectly managed. We flew thru Minneapolis, Winnipeg, and Flin Flon.