Into the Wild...

In addition to some great fishing this season, we've been fortunate to enjoy plenty of wildlife around the lodge.

A ruffed grouse hen has been running around camp since we have arrived and now has a large following of chicks. She gets pretty defensive when Cosmo gets too close to investigate. Mother grouse pictured below.



Here is one of the chicks making a break for it.



We have also enjoyed watching two baby eagles grow in the nest on Parker Lake. This is the 3rd season for the new nest and the 3rd season for two eaglets to hatch out. They are now learning to fly which is really fun to watch. The nest and young eagle can be seen in the lower part of the picture below and notice the mature eagle in the upper right.



There are also several bunches of ducklings on both lakes. A few have fallen victim to Northern Pike as snacks, but several have survived and they are growing fast.



Several loon nests have been spotted on both lakes. Here is a picture of the nest on the island closest to the lodge on Parker. Both eggs have since hatched and the chicks have already more than doubled in size.

Double Smallmouth Surprise!

Whitney continues to dominate the leaderboard, this time adding a nice 17" Smallmouth Bass caught on Parker Lake within a stone's throw of the dock. The next night Riley O'Dell wrangled a 16" Smallmouth Bass just a few yards away. If you've visited us before, you probably know how rare it is to catch a Smallmouth on Red Lake or Parker Lake so needless to say, we're pretty excited about these two fish.



Whitney, Riley, and I made the short trip down the highway to Flat Lake to chase Muskie and Smallmouth Bass. While we weren't fortunate enough to land any Muskie, we did catch two more Smallmouth Bass.

We are finally seeing an end to the drought with plenty of rain in the forecast this week. There are several forest fires burning in Northwest Ontario so hopefully the rain will aid the fire fighting efforts. Just a reminder - we are currently under a fire restriction so no open fires are allowed.

1st Annual Parker Classic

Last week we organized and hosted the first fishing tournament ever (to our knowledge) on Parker Lake. The tournament was held during the few hours between breakfast and dinner. The 1st annual Parker Classic was a single day, two category tournament with prizes for the best four Walleye lengths and best four Northern Pike lengths caught and released per boat. There was no official weigh-in since we were working off the honor system. We also threw in a rock bass bonus although no one was able to take advantage.

Jeff and Andy Zwieg topped the Northern Pike division with 95" of fish and there was a tie in the Walleye division. Carrie and I tied Team Mercer consisting of my sister Mercer Mack, Matt Dillon, and Heather Cottle-Dillon with 74" of fish. The big Walleye of the day was the 22" fish (pictured below) that I caught right off the point from the lodge where we dump the food scraps. Carrie and I fished close so we could also handle some dinner prep duties.



We are still catching plenty of fish on Parker in 6'-12' of water. The fish on Red Lake are being caught in a variety of depths although some are starting to move deeper. Last week our guests had the best luck in 10'-18' of water. Forecasts are calling for temps in the upper 80s this week so the fish should continue to move to deeper water.

Until next time, tight lines!

New Walleye Leader!

This week my sister Whitney broke the stalemate atop the walleye leaderboard with a massive 28" fish! The exciting thing about this fish was that it was caught on Parker in sight of the lodge.



Water levels have been dropping due to the extremely dry weather we have experienced over the last two weeks, but fishing has still been good. We haven't seen as many lunker fish this year as some years, although total fish counts are as good as ever. We still have over half the season remaining to find some more.

Hope to see you here soon!

Introducing....

The NEW BOAT SEATS!

For those of you who are still counting down the hours until you get to spend a week fishing with us, we thought we would give you a little sneak peak of what you will be riding in around Red Lake & Parker Lake. Oh yeah, those are high backs baby. Thanks to Cabela's, and your loving hosts, you will be sitting in Pro Fishermen highback boat seats this year. Boy are they nice!


We also added another new member to the Eagle Falls Lodge boat fleet! It has a flat deck in the front of the boat, with walk through seats in the middle and back. I wish it came with a trophy fish guarantee - but you can't have it all I suppose. This new boat still needs to be named - any ideas are welcomed!

We just dropped off our last group and town is pretty quite up here on Canada Day. We wish everyone a Happy Fourth of July and hope that anyone traveling to family and friends does so safely!