One of the best things about fishing for smallmouth bass in Northwest Ontario is the sheer number of lakes and rivers that harbour both numbers and personal best trophies for visiting anglers across North America who make the trek to this part of the province.
We recently had an opportunity to visit with the nice folks who own and operate Crystal Beach Resort near Atikokan, Ontario on Crystal Lake which is an excellent lake trout, smallmouth bass, and northern pike lake. Catches of one-hundred bass a day are not uncommon on this lake and some guests have experienced over forty lake trout in one day of fishing!
Crystal Lake is not known for its walleye fishing but many excellent walleye fishing opportunities exist in some of the lakes in the surrounding area and are teeming with them! Walleye anglers often stay at the resort and use it as a base camp to access these walleye lakes, which gives them a choice to fish different lakes each day of their trip. Anglers can choose over 20 nearby lakes, all within driving distance of the camp. This allows anglers to fish in all types of weather conditions, with some lakes wide open, and others having many bays and islands for protection.
Marimon Lake is the most known lake in the area, producing the largest smallmouth bass anywhere in Ontario's Northwest. Smallmouth bass in the 4 to 6-pound range are not uncommon! With some even up to 7 pounds! The size of Marimon Lake is about 24,000 acres of water and is a backed-up floodwater system of the Seine River. This lake is known for its northern pike, walleye and smallmouth bass fisheries.
Our trip to Crystal Beach Resort was in mid-July with slick calm and sunny conditions mixed with a few short rain showers thrown in for variety's sake just to make it a bit more challenging.
We fished a few different lakes during our visit and caught a boatload of northern pike in all sizes along with smallmouth bass ranging from one to five plus pounds on various noisy top waters including poppers and prop baits.
The bass literally crush your top waters on these lakes.
When the top water bite slowed down around lunchtime, we picked up a Ned Rig bug bait and cast it to a mixture of pebble rock and sand and caught some of the lake's bigger, thicker bass that we’re hunkered down with bellies on the bottom during the high bright sunny conditions.
At Crystal Beach Resort the very spacious cabins can accommodate small groups, all the way to large family reunion groups. Each cabin has a lakeside deck and picnic table. The cabins are heated with a wood stove and they supply the wood. The cabins also come fully furnished with electric refrigerators, electric ranges, toasters, coffee pots, microwaves and all cooking utensils.
All linens are included except personal bath towels. Each cabin also has a full bath.
Looking for the opportunity to catch your personal best smallmouth bass on some of the most scenic lakes Ontario has to offer, consider visiting with the nice folks at Crystal Beach Resort.
