By John Hackett
Planning on a fishing trip to Canada? All the resorts make their claim as to why you should spend your hard-earned money at their establishment. Everything from it is the “greatest place on earth”, “they have the best fishing anywhere on the planet”, to “you’re quite possibly the Anti-Christ if you don’t come here”, and really everything in between. Sorting out the fact from B.S. on the claims is a difficult process at best.
Recently the Northwest Iowa Outdoors Pro Staff spent some time at Skyline Lodge in Perrault Falls Ontario. Here we will explore some of the claims, or “selling points” made by Skyline Lodge.
One of the biggest selling points is that Skyline is the “only lodge on pristine Florence Lake”. This claim is actually greatly understated! Skyline is not only the only lodge, it is the only access point to the 2,000 acres lake, the rest of the lake’s shoreline is all federal ground with no public access. The minimal environmental impact the lodge has on the shoreline is the only man-made changes to Florence Lake since it was formed thousands of years ago! The only other fisherman you will see on the lake will be from one of the seven Skyline cabins.
Skyline also proclaims “world class fishing”. Well this claim seems to be very much true also! I know first hand that it would be hard to find a better smallmouth lake. You can find some just as good, but in my estimation not better. In one morning of fishing with three of in the boat we landed about 40 smallies. A couple were about 13”, most were in the 15”-17” range, the biggest of which were right at the 20” mark. Case & point, Florence Lake does have world class smallmouth bass fishing!
While we were there the walleye bite was a bit slow, this is what the Skyline staff said anyway. But we still had little trouble catching a limit of 16”-17” eater sized walleyes for dinner. We released several walleyes in the 24” range.
We also caught lots of 10”-12” perch for shore lunch fodder. When the bass or walleyes slowed down it was relatively easy to locate & land a mess of Florence Lake’s hawg perch for shore lunch. I know, who wants to make a trip to Canada to catch perch? But nowhere in Iowa, or even Minnesota for that matter, can you catch this many lunker sized perch!
As far as northern pike fishing goes, I will have to reference the Skyline staff. We didn’t catch many pike, mostly because we didn’t target them. It was hard to give up on catching the class of small mouths & walleyes to go after pike. It isn’t that we’re against catching pike, we just didn’t get around to it. But photos of some of the pike coming out of Florence Lake shows that 30”ers are no fluke.
Besides the great fishing, another plus to fishing Skyline is the boats that are provided. The 16’ boats are in very good condition & very clean. The motors provided were very dependable and never ran out of gas. The motors were gassed-up every morning as part of your lodge fee. The swivel seats in the boats were comfortable enough to keep one in the boat all day.
“Comfort & relaxation” is another claim. And like all the others this is also very much true. The cabins at Skyline were built in the 1940’s but have been very well maintained over the years. The modern bathrooms in the cabins are a great bonus. The showers always seemed to have plenty of warm water. Make sure to take plenty of drinking water though. The water is not treated; therefore, it is not advised to drink it.
Sometimes, at other resorts, you run into odor problems with fishing cabins, they kind of get to smell like an old fish house. At Skyline you are not allowed to clean or cook fish in the cabins. This is not a problem as there is a very nice fish house at the lodge, complete with freezer space if you need it. Also, each cabin is provided with a propane deep fryer outside to cook your fish.
The only regret I have about the trip was not going later in the year so I could take advantage of the grouse hunting offered by Skyline. Well, maybe next year. . . .
For more information
visit www.fishskyline.com
