Walleye Fishing

Red Cedar Lake is one of the best-kept Walleye fishing secrets in northeastern Ontario. Most people heading north of North Bay focus on roadside lakes that are over-fished; never realizing they are passing a pristine Walleye lake that has the best fishing in the entire region. Red Cedar Lake is located west of the Village of Marten River, with our camp being one of the few access points.

There are a lot of factors determining your Walleye fishing success on this lake. Knowing effective Walleye fishing tactics and techniques for different weather conditions and water structure is essential. Red Cedar Lake is a huge lake with 83 miles of shoreline encompassing almost 6000 acres of fertile water. It's fed by the Marten River and the Temagami River along with small creeks and feeder streams. Near our camp are a few privately owned cottages and once you get past them you are entering into a very remote wilderness lake that looks like any lake 500 miles farther north. Parts of the lake are very remote and beautiful.

If you are new to the lake we can safely say you should catch between 5 and 10 good size Walleye in a day. Then there are really good days where you may catch 10 to 20 or more Walleye in a day. Some of our guests have been fishing the lake for years and have their secret spots. They definitely have the advantage but our description needs to be realistically geared towards people that have never fishing here before. Anyone who is really experienced at fishing new lakes will find success.

The lake has an extremely diverse structure typical of Canadian Shield lakes. There are massive outcroppings of Precambrian Rock, which are covered with towering pine and cedar trees. The lake has many islands and shoals as well as shallow weedy plateaus. Everywhere you look you will see spots that look great for Walleye fishing. Not all spots will have Walleye as they are a schooling fish and will move from area to area to find food. The Walleye are typically found off rocky points and many times on flat lightly-weeded sandy areas that lead into the thick weeds of small back-bays. They are also found along rocky ridges beside deep drop-offs. Where rivers and streams flow into the lake there is more food for minnows, which attracts Walleye. All such structure is common and viewable everywhere you look.

Big lakes produce big fish. Red Cedar Lake is far enough north to protect it from over-fishing but far enough south for the Walleye to experience a longer growing season. This has made the availability of trophy-size Walleye outstanding. The Walleye are most common in the 1.5 to 3-pound range but we do get some big ones. Throughout the year guests catch and release Walleye over 10 pounds. The bigger Walleye in the 6 to 10-pound range are usually female and they tend to go deeper during the day so fishing 15 to 20 feet deep off the rocky points may produce less fish but it will increase the size that you catch. In the evening and the first couple of hours after dark some guests find great success trolling along the shore with small shallow running Rapalas and Thundersticks in 3 feet of water.

We are only 5 hours drive north of Toronto. No other lake that close to the city produces better Walleye Fishing or is as beautiful as Red Cedar Lake.