Enjoyed Every Minute – Cree River Lodge
Beautiful Cree River Pike
Overview
I spend way too much research different lodges and fishing options in the far North. One of the locations I had been studying for the last few years is Cree River Lodge. My research turned up a river system (Cree River) which flowed through a lake (Lake Wapata) that had a long-standing lodge on it which had some very good pike fishing and crazy good walleye fishing. It sounded interesting so when a fishing buddy said give me 5 places to research for a big pike trip I included it on the list. The list by the way was (Cree Lake / Cree River / Taltson big pike / Lac La Martre / Brabrant Lodge).
- Cree Lake Lodge was a finalist, but the 4.5 days of fishing was a turn off
- Taltson had recently dropped their booking agent who kept the lodge running smoothly so we passed that one up
- Lac La Marte has a lot of long runs which was a turn off
- Brabrant is extremely expensive
Getting There
Well, the trips start in Edmonton, so you need to fly to Edmonton through a major US city like Denver / Chicago / LA / SF / Atlanta. Once in Edmonton you need to overnight for the 530a flight into Stony Rapids and finally a quick 10-minute float flight to the lodge. Honestly these N Saskatchewan locations are tough to get to and prone to delays and missed flights. I think in many cases getting to Yellowknife is easier with three flights vs four.
Camp Life
The cabins are neat and clean. The food is decent. Despite the price of 5500+ for six days they charge extra for the soft drinks and beer/wine. The schedule for guests is up ~7, eat at 730, meet the guides at 8a and fish 8-5. The boats and motors are decent and well suited to fish the lake/river combo which Cree River offers. The lodge puts on a daily shore lunch which was tasty and a nice break.
Fishing Techniques
For Walleyes trolling Hot-N-Tots is the good to method and man did it produce for our group. It would be really east to catch 100 fish with most being above average fish that are 23-24 inches. For pike everything works. A few things that seemed to work above average. The Mepps Musky Killer in pike was really good. 6 inch paddle tails worked well. Other options that fished well in weeds like Johnson Silver Minnows and Barney Spoon with trailers worked well.
Wrap
First of all I want to thank my fishing buddies on this trip. Wayne, great job with organization and thank you for the invite. Thank you Doctor Bill for a fun week. I hope to see you on the next fishing adventure!
The guides are excellent and work really hard to deliver good days on the water. The camp is nice and clean. The access through Stony rapids is honestly a pain in the butt with 4 flights to get there for most guys. We nearly missed out connections on the way home due to delays on the inbound flights.
When I consider return trips to lodges, I look for value. Value in my eyes, looks at how was the cost relative to quality of fishing with a small bump to things like access, accommodations, food, and guides. Let me say my #1/2/3/4 top priorities are the fishing. Despite a couple of nice fish our group landed 6 fish at 40 or above in a week. That just doesn’t cut it for me to spend $5500. Places like Alaska regularly turn out over 25-35 fish over 40 inches per man for $7500. Places like the Taltson River/Bay turn out 10-20 over 40 per man for ~$5000 despite not very nice accommodations or guides. To me the fishing drives me back to the top places and Cree River unfortunately has just average fishing and comparable to many lodges around SK/MB/NW ON that are a lot less money.
Fishing – Average for a remote N SK lodge
Camp – Good
Travel –Long / Difficult / Pricey
Guides – Exceptional
Value – Average