Are you looking for a place to get away from it all and unwind, de-stress or de-compress?
The perfect way to reconnect with nature and realign your spirit is by spending quality time in Ontario’s northern landscape with time on the land and water.
This is exactly what we experienced during a road trip to Ontario’s Algoma Country. This region of Northern Ontario is famous around the world for its jaw-dropping scenery that inspired the Group of Seven landscape artists.
Today its vast tracts of wilderness remain largely untouched and publicly accessible as Crown Land or provincial parks, with hundreds of miles of beautiful forests, winding rivers, thundering waterfalls, and crystal-clear lakes to explore and experience world-class fishing opportunities.
Our trip focused on the spectacular smallmouth bass fishing this region has to offer in terms of quantity and quality while visiting with the family-friendly folks at Northern Skies Resort (formerly known as Kegos Camp from 1969-2020) which is now operated by Robin Sutherland and her husband Fred Post, a daughter of the former owner.
This place is simply incredible, but we will get to that after we share some of the incredible bass fishing we experienced on our trip.
We planned our visit in early summer, a time when many stages of the spawn come into play depending on which lakes you decide to fish within the vicinity of the resort. The resort is located on a body of water called Chub Lake which is a crystal-clear spring-fed lake that has lake trout and big smallmouth bass.
The resort is perfectly located to make the most of short scenic drives to nearby lakes that offer more opportunities for smallmouth bass, walleye, northern pike, trout, and whitefish, but it was the scrappy smallmouth bass we came to battle.
During our trip, we fished several nearby lakes as well as Chub Lake offering us a variety of bait selection and presentation choices, various water clarity options, and breathtaking scenery on virtually unspoiled lakes with limitless locations to explore and catch some big ole` smallmouth bass.
We chose one of the quickest ways to locate smallmouth bass on any new body of water and that is with noisy topwater baits fished near traditional locations such as island points, mid-lake reefs and shoals, sand bars, and rock-strewn back bays close to deeper main lake basins, connecting with Algoma’s famous brown bass almost immediately on spot number one, along the rocky shoreline with pea gravel, sand, and countless short points, the smallmouth were virtually everywhere along this shoreline. Since this region is world-renowned for trophy size smallmouth bass, the anticipation of a monster bass inhaling our topwater presentation was priceless.
We fished similar locations with varied success catching bass in the two-to-three plus pound range and located some post-spawn bass on deeper edges with soft plastic Ned Rig presentations and caught some beautiful bass in the four- to five-pound class which we photographed and quickly released in the same locations as caught.
Okay, the resort, is as comfortable as it gets. Northern Skies is a fourth-generation family-owned resort offering cozy accommodations, healing retreats, wilderness adventures and local art & culture experiences in the heart of beautiful Algoma Country.
All resort cottages include stunning lake views of beautiful Chub Lake, a full kitchen and bathroom with hot running water (taken directly from the crystal-clear spring-fed lake and purified to the highest standards), propane or wood-burning fireplaces, comfortable beds, a private dock, a deck with barbecue and complimentary propane, access to the communal fire pit and sand beach, and free use of canoes and kayaks.
High-speed WiFi and boat and motor rentals are also available upon request.
The resort property is set on twelve acres of mixed coniferous and hardwood forest, with four hundred feet of sandy shoreline perfect for even the youngest of swimmers. The resort is laid out so that all eight cabins have considerable privacy, with their own parking spot and private dock. Chub Lake is a large, quiet spring-fed lake that connects to three other lakes, all of which are surrounded mostly by uninhabited crown land and contain a variety of species. The resort is located in the heart of the beautiful Mississagi River Valley, well known for having some of the most breathtaking scenic drives and hikes in the province, including Aubrey Falls and Rock Candy Mountain.
Do you want to impress your family or friends next summer to the vacation that will create positive memories that will last a lifetime, introduce them to Northern Skies Resort, it sure made a positive impression on us and you too will find that happy place in Ontario’s north country.
For more information or to book your resort vacation visit www.northernskiesresort.com/our-story.
You can also reach them by email at robin@northernskiesresort.com or by phone at (705) 206-4066.
For information on visiting Algoma Country visit www.algomacountry.com.
