Key Harbour Lodge Key River Georgian Bay Ontario Canada
Bill Dice & Fritts Thomas Dayton Ohio
When Fritts & I first started going to Georgian Bay years ago we would always go to The Key Harbour Lodge to buy gasoline, cigarettes, bread, live bait & anything we would run out of.
Back in those days if you went up in May when the yellow pickerel were running there would be at least 500 fishing parties camped out on the islands & all the lodges were booked years ahead.
This area & The Moon River area of Georgian Bay were the hottest big yellow pickerel fishing in all of Canada for many years.
Fifteen to seventeen pound yellow pickerel were common & very few would run under six pounds when they came out of the big lake & started up the rivers to spawn.
Fishermen would be trolling all over the area & any lure would do but most used the floating black & silver floating Rapalas.
You could easily get your limit in an hour or two or catch & release large numbers in a days time.
When a fishermen got a hook up they would yell out “Fish On”.
We carried on that tradition & always yell out fish on when we get a hookup.
One year one of the guys that went with us tied on a small yellow Rooster Tail & he hooked one pickerel after another & out-fished all of us with six pound line & ultra light rod.
He used the same lure all week & had it when he left minus a few tail feathers.
When we first started going up to the Key River Mrs. Lyttle owner of Key Harbour Lodge was very nice to us & took us under her wing.
She knew we were young & inexperienced & worried about us just like any mother would her own children.
We always enjoyed going to the lodge to see the big fish pictures & chat with the experienced fishermen that were staying there.
We would go in the evening when they came in from a days fishing & that way we could see what they got & find out where.
They had an Indian Guide named Ivan & he told us to get there early in the morning & we could follow him when he took out fishing parties & he would lead us to all the hot spots in the area.
No one knew more about the area than Ivan & probably never will.
Ivan told us to always use twenty pound line in Georgian Bay & he only used one lure A red & white Daredevil the medium or next size down from the standard size model & he always had a wire leader.
Mrs. Lyttle’s son Al grew up at the lodge & trapped the area for many years & he had a cabin out on the islands where he & his family lived.
He also showed us where to go & he would help us fix our boat motors when we had a problem.
Mr. Lyttle had a stroke & lived at the lodge until he passed away at which time she put the lodge up for sale & retired.
Mrs. Lyttle always treated us special even though we never stayed at the lodge & went out of her way to teach us things & caution us about weather & cold water & the dangers of small boats in Georgian Bay storms & bears & rattlesnakes.
She told us to leave some bacon & grease out overnight in a skillet if we wanted to see a big black bear in our camp & warned us about not cooking or leaving anything in our tents that had an odor including soap & things like that.
She told us black bears in Georgian Bay can get real nasty when cornered so we should always give them a quick way out if we got one cornered by accident walking around the islands.
One time we told her the pike were not hitting.
She laughed & told us to catch a few live perch & put them in a minnow bucket & put one out set four foot deep on a bobber & then come back & tell her what happened.
Boy did we.
One ten to fifteen pound pike after another right off the bank at our campsite.
From that time on when we told her we got a big pike trolling or casting lures she would always smirk & say “Sure You Were Not Using A Live Perch?”.
The Lyttles ran the lodge for many years & all of them were top notch people that helped us every way they could.
They went out of their way to teach us everything they knew.
They always had a big smile when we returned each year.
They also had a pay telephone if we needed to call home for anything.
If you are not the wilderness camping type The Key Harbour Lodge is a great place to stay & learn the area.
You can catch big pickerel in the bay at night when they are running & also really big pike over twenty pounds.
They also have guides & tackle & gasoline.
Yo can fish the areas we fish from Key Harbour Lodge & even run out to The French & Bad River Areas or Bustard Islands when the weather is right if you have a deep boat & 25 HP motor.
We always camped out there when we went because of our small motors.
If you are after largemouth this area is better than The French or Bad River area if you know where to go.
The smallmouth fishing is good out there but the water is to cold for largemouth & they are hard to locate out in the big water areas & bays.
For largemouth go back in & find the warm water bays & swamps with lilly pads with six to ten feet of water nearby.
Low Water Conditions: Mrs. Lyttle told us years ago that Georgian Bay has a 35 year water cycle where it goes up for 35 years & then down for 35 years.
If her theory is correct & I believe it is the water levels in Georgian Bay should start going back up again in the next few years as the water started to go down slowly when we first started going up so the down cycle should be about over.
The water has really been low over the last few years & that hurts a lot of the really good bass holes many of which may be high & dry.
The bass are still around somewhere so you just have to find them.
When we were young & full of vigor we would fish from sun up to sun down.
One year one of the local Indians stopped by our boat & simply said:
If the fish ain’t biting boys “Why Don’t You Leave Them Alone?”
He said he drops his worm down & if he gets one right away he keeps fishing & if not he pulls up his line & goes home & drinks a couple of beers.
He knew no one could make a fish bite.
We found that out the hard way but it was sure fun trying.
- Fritts Thomas & Bill Dice Dayton Ohio
April 1, 2008 at 1:54 am |
Interesting. I grew up near Key Harbour.
April 18, 2008 at 10:34 am |
I take the kid’s up the Ash River in Voyeguer’s National Park each summer and fish below the water falls for Smallmouth Bass, they just love it. Some good info here- http://www.fishingminnesota.110mb.com Changes quit often, but they had a good article about the park and Smallmouth fishing.
June 5, 2008 at 4:55 pm |
Interesting history and personal insight.
Our family rented at Ludgate up to 1951 at which time our Grandfather (Henry Long) bought the property and camp now owned by Billy Michaud at the harbour. My cousin Gary Davidson and I are the only grandkids that had the pleasure of riding in the Jitney from Key Junction to the Harbour. I was pretty young but remember the ride.
We frequented Agnas Trott’s Original Key Harbour Store and eventually worked full time one summer and part time for quite a few summers for Agnas. Besides guiding I had the honour of sitting for hours at Ludgate waiting for the National Grocers order to be dropped off the train. Took hours to lug all the supplies down to the 18″ cedar strip and then chug down the river to the harbour.
Another old timer that was considered a character was Jim Secord, Larry’s dad. He taught me a lot about fishing and the life in the bush. Still recall the time we spent a few days at Gauthiers camp and he taught me about commercial fishing from the workers point of view.
My wife and family still summer at the Key. Unfortunately we cannot afford a camp but we do have an old trailer up behind the ESSO, drop in and say hello. Our trailer is cream and two tone blue and is the last one against the escarpment. Generally we spend 5 day long weekends at the trailer and on the Key.
Appreciate your site, thanks
E.W. (Ed), Long
My contact information is available at http://www.acscc.com under the Contacts banner
June 10, 2008 at 2:19 am |
Thanks Mr. Long,
I will sure look you up next time I get up there. Maybe next year. Thanks for the history. I love The Key River & would live up there all summer if I could.
August 14, 2008 at 7:17 pm |
As a child my dad (I’m 57 now) would take us up to Camp Henry to fish. It was on an island with its own ice house. I’ve looked around to see if I could find info to see if its still open, but to date have found nothing. I imagine its been sold and goes under a different name. Does anyone have any information on the camp? I would greatly appreciate it. I would like to take a trip up there some time to get in some fishing. Thank you.
September 21, 2008 at 3:52 am |
Yes, it’s still open and running under the same name – but privately owned by a group of people – from London, Ontario – It is not a commercial operation anymore. It is located south of Key Harbour, close to the mouth of Henvey Inlet. Apart from Key Harbour Lodge, the closest fishing camps are Diamond Key http://www.diamondkeyresort.com/ or Georgian Bay Fishing Camp http://www.georgianbayfishing.com/pike-fishing-ontario.html
May 2, 2009 at 1:18 am |
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