Ottawa River Guided Fishing
Edwards St. K4K1G7 Rockland, ON, Canada

Hey Facebook! It's been a while. Probably because this has been my busiest Spring ever. Shoreline fishing started early this year. A new 24x10 hut build is well underway. The house got some refreshing upgrades, and turkey hunting was as always revitalizing, relaxing, and exciting all at once. Soon we'll be posting fish pictures I promise. Until then, stay safe and healthy everyone. Cheers. Yannick

For obvious reasons, this year's ice fishing derby is cancelled. HOWEVER, here's how you can help raise funds and awareness for one of our benefactors, Helping Hands For GAND. With World Rare Disease Day being February 28th, many foundations use February to raise awareness and funds for their cause. My wife has set up a fundraising page for GAND in honour of our niece Callie who is afflicted by this very rare genetic mutation. Our goal is to raise $1000. Here's where you com...e in! Every $10 donation from this page, gets you a ballot for a free weeknight in an ice bungalow with up to 5 buddies in 2022. $10, 1 entry. $20, 2 entries, $30, 3 entries..... Note that the Helping Hands for GAND headquarters is in the US so donations are in USD but they help families all over the world! Please comment below when you donate so we can keep track of just how generous the angling community is. Just click on the link to make your donation. Thanks! Yannick https://www.flipcause.com/secure/fundraiser/MTA2OTA3/54237 See more

Last week, boiled burbot. This week, walleye chowder. I generally don't keep big walleye but unfortunately this one from the weekend was bleeding quite badly. After seeing prominent fishing youtuber Jay Siemens make walleye chowder on a recent video, I figured this fish would be a prime candidate for more culinary exploration. Certainly not the simplest recipe ever but the results were better than expected. I miss hanging out with my bungalow renters but wintertime free time is alright too. Stay safe everyone. Yannick

Over the last few years, more and more of my renters are coming to me to catch ling (burbot). A few years ago, I kept a couple ling from Lake Temiskaming for the frying pan and I wasn't terribly impressed with them. Fast forward to this year. Saturday night a hefty ling manages to inhale two hooks from one line and another hook on an adjacent line in the bungalow. No saving this one. I guess we'll eat it. A few youtube videos later, the fish is skinned, the filets extracte...d and cubed. Into a bath of boiling saltwater they go. WOW! What a delicacy. From here on out we'll be keeping all our decent size ling. For the first time ever, I'm personally getting to enjoy my ice bungalows during the good January days of fishing. I've been almost every day with the wife and/or kids since I've put a couple huts on ice. A small one is parked at our private skating rink and the big one is on top of a few fish. The kids are having a blast and I'm enjoying fatherhood more than ever. Life is good. Cheers. Yannick See more

Well there you have it. 2021 Ice Bungalow season is officially cancelled. Those who were booked can have their deposits refunded or transferred to 2022 for 2021 rates and dibs on dates. In all honesty, I'm relieved that it's finally made official. I've been tethering on the brink of "Do I stay or do I go" since the New Year. Yesterday I put a couple huts on ice anticipating that putting my full fleet would be wasteful. I'll get to continue enjoying ice fishing with my fa...mily this year. As a matter of fact, we're heading to our Ottawa River rink soon for a skate and I'll work towards getting a hut ready for great nights on the River with the kids. This is obviously not ideal for business, but it's not catastrophic. We'll be back in the Spring for some great Ottawa River walleye, pike, and crappie fishing. Until then I'll be staying safe. Cheers and stay healthy. Yannick See more

Thanks to Ottawa Riverkeeper for the opportunity to be featured in their 2021 calendar! I'm all about sharing positivity about our healthy, vibrant, resilient River.

Well there you have it. 2021 Ice Bungalow season is officially cancelled. Those who were booked can have their deposits refunded or transferred to 2022 for 2021 rates and dibs on dates. In all honesty, I'm relieved that it's finally made official. I've been tethering on the brink of "Do I stay or do I go" since the New Year. Yesterday I put a couple huts on ice anticipating that putting my full fleet would be wasteful. I'll get to continue enjoying ice fishing with my fa...mily this year. As a matter of fact, we're heading to our Ottawa River rink soon for a skate and I'll work towards getting a hut ready for great nights on the River with the kids. This is obviously not ideal for business, but it's not catastrophic. We'll be back in the Spring for some great Ottawa River walleye, pike, and crappie fishing. Until then I'll be staying safe. Cheers and stay healthy. Yannick See more

Thanks to Ottawa Riverkeeper for the opportunity to be featured in their 2021 calendar! I'm all about sharing positivity about our healthy, vibrant, resilient River.

10 years. It's hard to believe it's been 10 years since that paperwork came in. December 2010 marked the beginning of a new era in my life and my family's. My son Jack was 2 months old, I was 25 years old and I had this crazy idea that maybe I could make a little money showing people a good time fishing on the Ottawa River. I was expecting to guide 20 groups my first year. I guided 71 groups. The first couple years were rough. It was very much full time work for part tim...e wages. Things grew. I did my best to make intelligent decisions for my future. My wife supported my dream from the get-go. Fast forward 10 years. I still love guiding. Despite a late start, I was still able to guide 105 groups this summer and spend more time than ever fishing with friends and family. It's not always easy. I've always said that it's a pleasantly exhausting way to make a living, but I think that I just might have another 10 years in me ;) Now, is a great opportunity to thank the partners that help make this viable. Laurentian Marine in Ottawa has always treated me exceptionally well and taken great care of me and my boat. Odds are, you'll be seeing me in a brand new Princecraft soon enough. Pronature in Rockland have saved me countless trips to town and it's nice to have part time employment in the fall to kill time between seasons. P. Morin Automobiles in Rockland sold me my Ram at cost almost 8 years ago. Soon enough, I'll need a new one of those too. Canadian owned Etic Tackle has been at the end of the line for just about every walleye we've caught over the last few years. Bungalow season is just around the corner. Then turkey season, then guiding season, then deer season, then bungalow season, then turkey season, then guiding season....hopefully for another 10 years. Cheers. Health and happiness to all. Yannick See more

Bookings for our ice bungalows are coming in daily! We still have a few spots left for January including one of our big bungalows for the weekend of January 22-24. February is starting to book up too. If you'd like to book a stay with us this winter best to act soon! Cheers. Yannick

Interrupting hunting season for a couple days of walleye fishing. Today's guests will have their first taste of fresh walleye/sauger. My limit will be added to the geese and grouse in the freezer. Happy Halloween!

There's pride in size but fun in numbers. The beauty about guiding on this stretch of the Ottawa River is that I can target 10 different species usually within site of the launch and there's always potential for a monster. Personally, I've always been more of a numbers guy. When young Sam told me he had never caught a pike, I couldn't help but smile. 2 hours later, he had lost count of how many pike he had caught. We got a handful of bigger ones in the mix too, but the excitement of a young lad in the midst of his best day of fishing ever is one of the best things about this gig. The real consistently good shallow fishing is just about done for the year but soon it's time for some falleye (and maybe a whitetail or 2). Cheers. Yannick

Plans A through E didn't work. Plans F and G provided both photos and fillets. A fun day with a couple regular guests who's patience and willingness to think outside the box was rewarded with a few dandies.

Two years ago a young guest caught an albino catfish. Today, a few hundreds yards away, another. Same fish? Maybe. The walleye are scattered and tempermental but this one saved the day Wednesday. Booked solid for 10 days. Time to bend some rods. Cheers. Yannick

Mid-August onwards usually offers the easiest fishing of the year for us but for whatever reason the fish just aren't following the script this year. Inspite of our best efforts, the last few trips had produced just ok amounts of ok sized fish. Today the switch flipped. Action all day including a number of double headers and a couple doozies for 6 year old Carter. It's looking promising for the last crazy stretch of our guiding season.

And so ends the busiest stretch of guiding I've ever had. 18 consecutive days. 16 of them 10hr + days. For those of you who read "The Guide Life" in Ontario out of Doors magazine, it printed a relatively rosy picture of this lifestyle. After this, I'm completely exhausted. Also, what's almost as hard as a stretch of long days is being able to say "no". The next 3 days are family days. Turning down bookings is an unfortunate necessity but it has to be that way. We've been bur...ning lots of gas in the boat to keep rods bent but for the most part we're putting together solid days. We enjoyed a wild musky bite that saw 6 fish caught in 10 hours capped off by Mel's 47" fish that had his way with my hands during the unhooking process! Tying knots and clipping snap swivels hasn't been the same since. A great testament to the adrenaline of catching a musky: I didn't even notice my thumbnail was detached until well after the release. I'll be back on the water Tuesday but for now, this guide's batteries need recharging. Cheers. Yannick See more