For the Masses Fishing: At Northern Alberta's Island Lake Lodge, the Five of Diamonds Reigns Supreme

A Big Island Lake walleye

Last month, my friends Adam Ellis, Steve Priestly and I went on our first fly-in fishing trip to *Island Lake Lodge on Big Island Lake in Northern Alberta.

Island Lake Lodge is a full service fishing lodge in Alberta's Birch Mountains Wildland Provincial Park. Guests can target trophy walleye and northern pike on Big Island Lake and on neighbouring Gardiner Lake.

A year of anticipation mixed with the lodge’s isolation and my tendency to believe everything I read in fishing magazines meant only one thing; some of the most epic tackle shopping trips ever embarked upon by amateur fishermen.

Organizing new gear

Pre-shopping conversations went kind of like this: “Oh look, people are slaying big pike on these big, 24k gold-plated spoons with the treble hook swapped out for a siwash hook dressed with white curly-tailed musky grub. I better get a couple of those spoons, a box of those hooks and a bag of big grubs and extras of everything ‘cause you know, we can’t just walk to the local tackle shop when we’re in the middle of nowhere…”

Needless to say, we spent nearly as much money on new gear as we did on the trip itself. Still, throughout the whole planning process one lure kept appearing in our research. Every so often during our reading, we would be reminded of the effectiveness of the classic Len Thompson Five of Diamonds spoon. The day before the trip Bob, from Island Lake Lodge, called to see if we could bring up some supplies for the lodge on our flight. He concluded the phone call by saying, “Hope you got your Five of Diamonds ready for the lake!”

The Five of Diamonds

Not unfamiliar with the classic yellow and red spoons, we each bought a few in different sizes to top off our tackle collections. After all, the five dollar spoons were just a drop in the tackle pond when the smoke cleared and the receipts were handed across the counter.

New tackle carefully unwrapped and organized, the much anticipated trip finally arrived. We made the seven hour drive from Calgary to Fort McMurray, stayed a night in a Fort Mac motel and flew to Island Lake Lodge the next morning. As soon as we got off the plane and introduced ourselves to the lodge proprietors and other guests, the conversation predictably turned to fishing. Again, we were reminded of the Five of Diamonds spoon and Bob even went so far as to say that it was "the hottest lure on the lake."

To keep things simple, and inline with our tendency to believe every tip we hear, we all tied on a Five of Diamonds and decided to start by casting the spoons along weedlines and at points for pike. As expected the pike action was fast and furious almost immediately. More surprising to us were the incidental walleye hookups we started getting while casting traditional pike spoons toward traditional pike structure.

Adam's river walleye

This continued all week. Many trips out started and finished with a Five of Diamonds spoon on the end of our lines. Adam even caught a 7 pound walleye casting a Five of Diamonds spoon into the little river we were waiting to travel down to Gardiner Lake. Actually, most of our best fish of the week were caught on Five of Diamonds spoons. Naturally we lost a few of the spoons as well and Steve ended up buying the entire stock of the deadly yellow lures for sale in the main lodge.

Of course, numbers of fish were caught on other lures as well. Trolling plastic swim baits was my favourite walleye presentation of the week and Steve did well with a perch-coloured spoon too. Still, this trip reminded all of us that there is a reason certain lures, that don’t look like anything a fish will ever encounter let alone eat, consistently sell well over the years.

And in case you’re wondering, I did tie on one of those 24k gold plated spoons with a single siwash hook dressed with a white curly-tailed grub…just to say I used it before I tied my Five of Diamonds back on and got back into the fish.