Allanwaters Unique Walleye Fishing Lake And River System Defies Comparison

In the heart of Ontario's virgin north-western wilderness you will find Allanwater Bridge Lodge; a small, northern, friendly, fly-in fishing lodge with a Walleye fishery so unique it defies comparison.

A Story Illustrates The Fishery.

Walleye Click To Enlarge

For walleye fishing enthusiasts here is a story that Illustrates the bounty of our walleye fishery. There is a story told about biologists who were once curious about the numbers of fish they found in the Allanwaters system. Realizing that the fishery was unusually productive, they surveyed the waters for the purpose of creating bottom profiles to study the structures and learn the walleye fishing fishery's secret. As the story goes, at one point a structure appeared on the recorders that seemed to be an anomaly. What was seen on the recorders looked like an shoal that was not connected to any other structure! Upon further examination it was determined that it was not structure at all. The supposed shoal was determined to be a school of walleye one half a mile long and one quarter mile wide. The fish were so closely packed together the recorders could not determine that the structure was if fact biological, not geological! This story begins to explain that the walleye fishing at Allanwater Lodge is very unusual.

Current: Part of what makes the Allanwaters system so great for walleye fishing is the size and structure. The Allanwaters is a chain of five accessible lakes over seventeen miles long and between four to ten miles wide. The lakes are in part widened rivers! The river waters slow down upon entering the Allenwaters lake system but as waters bunch up going around islands, points of land and shoals they quicken again and scour and constantly remove the silt from the gravel bottoms. The constant currents are ideal for spawning walleye and huge northern pike. The lakes produce fish in numbers many times greater than in an ordinary walleye or pike bathtub lake.

Pike this size are predators of the first order and grow to such dimensions from preying on even the largest walleye! - Click To Enlarge

Food: Simply put the system is force-fed by the nutrients supplied by two rivers flowing rivers, the Allanwater River and the Brightsands River. Normally silt is deposited at the mouth of a river as the waters slow down and stops. In the Allenwaters case the waters slow down but do not stop. The silt may fall out of the water but the nutrients do not. They are carried down the system and are slowly deposited along the bottom and grave exposed by the moving waters. Because of the acres and acres of exposed gravel around the islands, point and shoals, a constant supply of the nutrients from both the Allanwater River and the Brightsands river are distributed to the acres of spawning areas. Simply put its continuous 'a-la-carte' dining for the fish!

Structure: In a normal river system, the narrowness of the river limits the structures available for fry and fingerlings to hide in. In the Allenwaters case, the river expands, turning into a series of lakes, all with bays, points, islands and shoals and with esker bottoms and gravel and rock rubble. The structures available for the fish to hide in are multiplied by hundreds of times, supporting more secure fish habitat. The natural tea stained waters provide additional screening. As silt covered the bottoms of bays where the currents slow down, they became weeded and the plant structures provide ideal biological environments that supports vast living communities of everything from single cell animals, to a multitude of insects and their larva, invertebrates and minnows. The Allanwaters provide hundreds of miles of shoreline and structure that are natural walleye rearing grounds.

Growth Rates: Northern fish in these latitudes normally grow more slowly than fish in southern latitudes. It is widely believed that water temperature is the cause of the slowness of growth. However, Allanwater is an anomaly in this respect. Allanwaters temperatures are cooler as the waters are moving and supplied by two rivers and countless streams. However the fish numbers and size suggest strong growth rates. The biologists know the truth about the Allanwaters fishery but are not talking. They must guard their findings of unusually productive fisheries carefully. They cannot afford to reveal their knowledge that one fishery is spectacularly better than another for fear of creating a rush to fish there which would place destructive pressures on the fishery. The lore of the Allanwater fishery includes descriptions of the unusual Allanwater walleye growth rates that may be true but that cannot be substantiated. It has been said that the fish grow at almost twice the rate that is expected and that the fish are twenty five percent larger per year than the expected average The explanation is 'food'. Walleye in the Allanwaters devour more food. An abundance of food and oxygen supplied by the rivers increases the growth rate of the fish. Not only do Allanwater Walleye grow faster, they are genetically larger too. Because the currents deliver the food constantly, less energy is needed to find it.

A mixed stringer of Pike and Walleye Click To Enlarge

Walleye spawn in streams, rivers and lakes where they can find a mild current, a gravelled and rocky bottom in shallow waters between 1 and 6 feet deep. Spawning begins shortly after ice breaks up in a lake as water temperatures begin to warm. Courtship may commence early in the spring when water temperature rises to between 34 and 40 degrees Fahrenheit. The males move to the spawning grounds first.

The strategy of the Walleye is to find a moving current and a gravel bottom. The current helps disperse the male milt released at the moment the female disperses her eggs. The current helps disperse the eggs too that are heavier than water and fall to the bottom. Females may drop from 250,000 to 600,000 eggs in one night. Gravel bottoms provide crevices that protect the eggs from

predators and the current disperses the eggs over a larger area. About 25% of eggs on gravel bottoms may hatch verses less than 2% on bottoms that are silted or not as ideal as gravel. It is thought that current plays a large part in the success of development of eggs and hatching. Its a fact that the fish choose currents and gravel bottoms and that currents disperse the eggs and milt and deliver the nutrients and bits that feed the fry and fingerlings.

This scenario does not apply in all respects to the Allanwaters. Five unusual factors of note affect the power of the Allanwater fishery. The factors are, current, gravel, food, structure, and growth rates.

Temperatures between 40 and 45 Fahrenheit in northern lakes trigger spawning. Walleye do not protect their eggs. They move to deeper water after spawning, returning regularly to feed in the shallows.

Fry emerge from their eggs within two weeks. They feed from the egg sac then upon the micro plant and animal and plant nutrients and bits floating in the water or attached to the rocks. One in 1,000 fry will reach fingerling size. Five percent may reach adult hood. Predators including minnows, pike and walleye prey upon them.

Within two weeks after hatching the young have dispersed into the upper levels of deeper waters. By late summer the fingerlings move closer to the bottom. Growth is normally slower in northerly latitudes where water temperatures are colder or food sources are not as plentiful or colder waters reduce the amount of energy that can be summoned by any individual fish in a given day. Females grow more quickly than males.