Fall Fishing at Restoule Provincial Park

It took one trip to Restoule Provincial Park for it to become one of our favourite parks. Catching a few musky while fishing there certainly helped. However, the spacious campsites, awesome dog areas, great hiking trails and beaches also swayed our opinion.

After that first trip, we knew we couldn’t wait to return, so we booked another weekend away for the end of September. This time, we left the Gnome Homes teardrop trailer at home, in favour of taking our Lund Rebel boat. We planned to fish as much as possible, and we’d found the 12-foot aluminum boat we use with the trailer was really cramped.

As we headed north on Saturday morning, we were greeted with sunny skies and fall colours. I couldn’t wait to spend the weekend looking for musky!

Of course, the tradeoff of leaving the trailer at home was that we had to sleep in a tent. No comfy bed or all that comfy bedding I like to pack. Since it’s hard to know how cold it will get at night, we took the 4-season tent and multiple sleeping bags. But even with all the sleeping bags and some mats, I wasn’t looking forward to sleeping on the ground.

Restoule was even more beautiful with the changing leaves and fewer campers. The dogs were excited to be back and after setting up camp, which takes a lot less work without the bugs, we headed for the boat launch on Restoule Lake.

Being creatures of habit and having a bare minimum of a pattern established, we started fishing in the same location where Darrell caught fish on the last trip. Topwater lures were our go-to, with both of us throwing them on our big rods. I was only a few casts in with my Whopper Plopper, when the water around my lure blew up and I saw a head coming out of the water. Yay! My heart started racing, but unfortunately, the fish missed the lure and I couldn’t convince it to come back.

But still, what a rush.

A little while later, while fishing over a rocky point, Darrell saw a dorsal fin heading in from the side, towards his lure. It swam around for another look, but it never bit. Bummer. That’s musky fishing. Heck, that’s any fishing.

We didn’t have much action for the rest of the evening and headed back to the launch just as it was starting to get dark. Time for Darrell to try backing the boat into our campsite in the dark, something he did without issue, as usual. Having realized I’d forgotten to pack a can opener, we changed our plans for dinner, had a quick meal, tidied the boat, and headed to bed.

Did I say that we had to sleep on the ground? Ugh. I had a terrible night of tossing and turning and longing for the mattress in the trailer. It’s been a little over a year since we drove out to Alberta and picked up the trailer. In that time I haven’t slept in a tent. I’ve slept in the ice hut on a cot or a chair, but not in a tent, with a sleeping pad and sleeping bag. I’ve gotten soft.

To start our second day, we took the dogs to the dog park. They love it there. A nice fenced-in area to run around, complete with a beach. They stretched their legs, played, and took in all the smells.

Then it was time to head back out on the water. To be honest, day two was a bust. No sign of a musky. I got one smallmouth bass, and I couldn’t even find panfish hidden among the weeds when I took a break from casting the musky gear.

On the bright side, we got a better chance to explore the lake. We were fishing in beautiful weather. The dogs enjoyed snoozing in the boat all day. And we largely stuck to our mission of fishing for musky. Normally I would get bored and switch over to targeting other species entirely. Of course, spending the day with my favourite person and our dogs, out on the water fishing, really is the best thing.

On the morning of the third day, we had another breakfast of cereal and I really regretted my choice of Fruit Loops. Why did I think I would want that?

After getting on the water, we headed for our usual spot that had yielded fish in the past and those hits on the first day. Unfortunately, no fish revealed themselves. We continued to work around the lake and found some spots that set up very similar to that first spot. Shallow rocky humps or points, with deeper weed next to them. Perfect areas to stop the boat and cast.

Darrell got the first action in this new spot, and this time he actually had a fish on! I was so excited and quickly reeled my lure in to grab the net. Then his fish shook the hooks and was gone. The story of our trip.

A few minutes later, I was waiting on a phone call from my doctor’s office and found myself spacing out on a retrieve as I thought about the call (fortunately it was nothing serious). I’d brought the lure back to the boat, but didn’t do a figure eight. I looked down as I lifted my lure out of the water, and there was a musky that had followed my lure back, just sitting there by the boat. Crap! I quickly tossed my lure back in, but my crazy movements had the fish turning away and I never convinced it to come back.

Far too soon it was time to pack up and start the drive home.

Although our weekend was severely lacking in fish, I was glad to see that we at least had been able to find our target species and get hits. We even stuck to our plan of fishing for musky all weekend. Not that it’s hard to do that when you’re actually getting hits and seeing the odd fish.

Restoule Provincial Park was the perfect backdrop for another adventure. This park really has something for everyone and I highly recommend putting it on your list to visit. Next year we’re thinking about getting one of the backcountry sites on Stormy Lake, even though that means sleeping in a tent again (my back aches as I write this). No matter what we end up doing, it’s sure to be a good time at Restoule.