We’ve all heard of a diamond in the rough. Well, Killarney Mountain Lodge is a jewel when it comes to destinations in Northeastern Ontario. This full-service luxury resort and marina are on the northern shore of Georgian Bay, just over a four-hour drive north of the City of Toronto. My first impression was, “Wow, this place is incredible!”
There are a number of types of accommodations whether you’re up for a getaway, a wedding, a conference or fishing like we were. There are plenty of amenities at the resort and surrounding area.
I love my food and they have it all at this resort. Fine dining, a café and bake shop, and everything in between to satisfy anyone’s appetite. The recently built Canada House conference centre, at 34,000 square feet, is the largest log-constructed conference centre in the world. This amazing building can facilitate weddings, conferences or parties.
I'd first heard about this place less than a year ago. You'd think that I would have known about this incredible facility earlier, with me being in the business, but I hadn’t until 2020.
We went up there in mid-October to see what we could find in terms of bass and pike. We had three days of wind on our excursion but, with all of the protected water to fish on the northern part of Lake Huron, there’s always a place to get out of the wind.
My guests on this trip were musicians John P. Allen, formerly of the country band Prairie Oyster, and Brian Good from The Good Brothers. Between the two of them, these talented musicians have won 14 Juno awards. And both of them like fishing.
Just over a year prior to us doing this trip, John P. Allen had gotten a heart transplant. Before his operation, I said to him, “John, as soon as you’re healed up we’re going fishing,” and that’s what we did. Brian Good is a friend of John’s so that’s how they came to be my guests.
Even though we had windy conditions on our October outing we still managed to get some decent-sized pike by throwing Berkley Champ Swimmers on Berkley Underspin jigheads. We targeted any isolated weedbeds we could find amongst the numerous rock shoals and the islands in this region. If we found green, crisp cabbage weed, the pike was in it.
This was one of those trips where you couldn’t have asked for everything to fall into place any better. We ended up catching some very good-sized northern pike by covering water until we’d find these isolated weedbeds. Some of them would only be 20 or 30-yards long but we'd throw multiple casts over and through these little cabbage patches and, lo and behold, the pike would be in there.
I’d be hard-pressed to find a better place to stay than Killarney Mountain Lodge. Best of all, it’s located in the heart of the Ontario wilderness with way too many fishing opportunities to explore!
