Wine Lake Camp
Perrault Falls, Ontario
Family-operated boat-in fishing camp on Wine Lake in Ontario's Sunset Country, with a drive-up outpost cabin on nearby Wabaskang Lake.
Overview
Wine Lake Camp is a small, independently run wilderness camp located on Wine Lake in Northwestern Ontario, accessible only by boat rather than by floatplane. The operation traces its roots to the early 1940s, when it was started by a group of Cree brothers from the area, and it later passed to owners Herb Pugmire and Ann Sherman before coming under the current ownership of Nick Karakis, who runs the camp along with a small crew.
The main camp consists of a cluster of log cabins built on rocky shoreline surrounded by crown land, along with a central shower house, outhouses, an icehouse, a fish-cleaning shack, and a boathouse at the main dock. In addition to the main lake camp, the outfitter also operates a separate outpost-style cabin on Wabaskang Lake that guests can drive directly up to, unlike the boat-in main camp.
The camp markets itself around a long-running catch-and-release program for trophy walleye, and its base of operations is at Perrault Falls, Ontario, off Highway 105 between Vermilion Bay and Ear Falls.
Highlights
The Fishing
Wine Lake covers roughly 8,000 acres of surface water with numerous islands and bays, and anglers fish primarily for walleye, northern pike, lake trout, yellow perch, and smallmouth bass. The lake has been noted by the Ministry of Natural Resources as a trophy walleye fishery, with typical catches in the 1-2 pound range but 6-12 pound fish common and larger trophy walleye up to the low 30-inch range caught and released each season.
Fishing styles include jigging near bottom in moderate depths, trolling shorelines during wind-driven "walleye chop," and casting spoons, rapalas, or topwater baits into weed cover for pike. The camp follows a conservation-minded catch-and-release approach, particularly for larger brood-stock walleye, and guests generally fish from provided boats and motors rather than with hired guides.
Accommodations
Guests stay in log housekeeping cabins that sleep between two and eight people, lit by solar-powered lighting and heated with wood stoves, with gas appliances for cooking. Cabins have a simple, one-room, rustic layout, some with screened porches, and guests share a communal shower/bathing house and use outhouses rather than in-cabin plumbing at the main camp; an icehouse cut and stocked from the frozen lake each winter is used for refrigeration. The camp provides boats, motors, and bait, but guests are expected to bring their own food and personal gear as part of a light housekeeping arrangement; the separate Wabaskang Lake outpost cabin is drive-up and has electricity and running water.
Fish Species
What They Offer
Amenities available at one or more of this outfitter's properties.
Getting There
Guests drive to the staging area at Perrault Falls, Ontario, along Highway 105, roughly 180 miles north of the U.S. border crossing at International Falls, Minnesota, then turn off onto a dirt road to a boat launch. From there, camp boats carry guests about 22 to 25 miles across a series of lakes and rivers, including a short portage around a waterfall, to reach the only camp on Wine Lake, a trip that takes under an hour. The separate Wabaskang Lake outpost cabin, by contrast, can be driven to directly.
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