Tomiko Lake Bass

Editor's Note: This article was published in 2020.

There are so many little diamonds in the rough when it comes to Ontario fishing lodges. From Western, Northern, Eastern, and Southern Ontario, these resorts and lodges offer everything from fantastic fishing to great family getaways.

The next stop on our Northern Ontario adventure was a little lake called Tomiko, and what a lake it is! We were fortunate enough to stay at the beautiful Tomiko Lake Lodge, and our host and owner, Johnny, was over the top welcoming our crew to his outstanding resort.

Known for its family atmosphere, this resort has eight cottages: three modern waterfront cottages and five log cabin cottages, all up to date and looking brand new. There is an open view to the water from every cottage, so you can keep an eye on the kids all day long, sitting on your deck. Along with the unbelievable accommodations, they offer a fish cleaning station, boat rentals, kayaks, and various other water sports. The grounds are kept to perfection! You can tell Lisa and Johnny take their visiting families very personally and want you to have the best time you could possibly have.

Tomiko Lake is located just minutes north of Sturgeon Falls within Fisheries Management Zone 11 and Wildlife Management Area 41 (Lat. 46° 31′ 49″ Long. 79° 49′ 28”). The perimeter of the lake is approximately 55 km (34 miles), and the surface area is about 1,819 hectares (4,496 acres). Its average depth is about 25 feet, with the deepest point being approximately 80 feet.

Tomiko Lake is fed by Mosquito Creek and Tomiko River, which provide good spawning habitat for walleye. This is a sanctuary in the spring. The lake joins Chebogan Lake, although access by boat is limited to very small vessels (canoes, small aluminum, etc.). The fishing is excellent, with pickerel/walleye and smallmouth bass being the predominant catch. The surrounding creeks, marshes, and woods provide excellent hunting for birds, deer, moose, and bears.

Our crew was there to fish for the smallmouth, and I can tell you there is no problem catching smallmouth in this lake. We arrived at about 2 pm on Aug 7, the sun was shining, and the lake looked flat and calm, so we decided to tie up some lines and head out… what a great call that was! We were not on the water for 10 minutes when we hooked into our first smallmouth.

There are a lot of rocks and sand in Tomiko Lake, so the whole lake looks good once you get moving around, but what we found was that you had to look for smaller gravel rocks, as that was what the smallmouth was relating to, not the big boulder-type rocks. Usually, when the three of us (Leo, Jeff, and I) start fishing a lake we have never been on, we will hit shorelines and use different bait. One guy will throw a topwater bait like an X-Pop, the other will throw a jerk bait like Shadow Rap Shad, and one will throw a drop shot or a tube bait, something that is near the bottom—and that is usually Jeff, as he loves to dropshot, and Leo and I love to power fish.

We started getting a few fish here and there, but nothing to write home about, and then we hit this spot that had a cliff-like shore with small rocks on each side of the cliff. The wind started to blow just a little bit into this shore, and there was a little bowl-shaped bay on the left side of the cliffs; when we got there, the smallmouth was pushing bait into that little bowl, and it was game on. The three of us had three triple headers, all kinds of doubles, and steady fish on for one hour right from the top to the bottom! It did not matter what bait you were throwing; it was one of those moments you never want to end. The fish were all between 2 to 3 pounds, but we had a blast.

The next day, we woke up to a storm—the rain was pouring down in buckets, thunder, lightning, and the whole nine yards. In all the years I have been fishing after a storm like that, the fishing can be really tough. It cleared out by about 1 pm, and we decided to head out and see if we could find some big fish. We went back to the spot we had the day before, and there was not a fish to be had.

That’s the thing with smallmouth: they are here today, gone tomorrow. As it was getting a little too windy, we started fishing on the west side of the lake, as there was some wind protection on that side. We were on our Motorguide trolling motor, and we noticed on our Garmin Panoptix that there was an underwater point that came pretty far off the shore, so we decided to head to the end of it. After the storm, we figured the fish would move deep, and we were right.

I made my first cast with a deep shadow rap shad and hooks into a 7- or 8-pound walleye, with Jeff hooking a 4-pounder at the same time. As we are fighting to get our fish in, Leo hooked into a 3-pound smallmouth, all in the same area. During the fight, Jeff’s walleye got off the hook, but he made another cast before we landed our fish, and he hooked up with about a 3-pound smallmouth.

It was a spot you dream of landing on just after a storm front. It turned out to be magic! It was fish after fish for an hour before we wrapped up the show, fishing in just two locations. Some day I am going to go back to beautiful Tomiko Lake Lodge and fish this lake again… and this time, I might just hunt for walleye.

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