A Wild and Crazy Ice-Out Outpost Fishing Trip!
Greg Engle and his family are veteran Canadian fishermen and Greg has fished with Ganglers for almost 30 years. He, his family and pals are excellent, experienced Canadian fishermen who love being on their own in outposts. Greg’s friend and a member of his 2026 group, Merle Erickson, wrote a great report which captures all elements of a trip to the Seal River in early June
Some insane fishing sessions post ice out, … and a few scary adventures
Ganglers Clifton Lake Outpost trip report – June 6-13, 2026
Last fall sometime I was invited to join a group of guys to fish the Clifton Lake outpost which is part of Ganglers north seal river lodge (ganglers.com).
An outpost is a cabin on a remote lake where the guests are self guided and set their own schedule. I had done one trip like this one to Gangler’s Bain Lake camp in August of 2022 with my son and we had a good time, and hammered the walleyes fishing self guided (see prior report from summer 2022).
I was joined by Greg (from Tennessee) who has fished Ganglers for 26 years and was the trip organizer, his old buddy Al from Fargo ND, and Garren from Rochester MN who is a musky fisherman.
We met in Winnipeg on June 4th and fished the red river for channel catfish on 6/5. As a result, Al and I were a little salty to start the trip. Anyway, lot of action and a fun way to spend the day getting ready for our trip, and we were in Winnipeg for the once a week charter flight to the Gangler’s main Lodge early on June 6th.
6/6 – We caught a twin turbo prop 60 seat charter plane out of Winnipeg to Ganglers in northern Manitoba. We landed at the main lodge’s runway about 10 a.m. and caught a float plane to Clifton lake outpost about 11:45 a.m., and we were on the water fishing by 1 pm. I was with Garren and Greg and Al were together. We were on new 16’ Alumarine boats with new 25 horse Yamaha outboards. Nice boats.
Garren and I headed west and fished several shorelines and bays for maybe 20 small pike during the afternoon. We also trolled along a huge chunk of ice in the lake for awhile but got nothing. Pretty slow fishing and no quality fish in the mix.
The wind shifted a bit mid afternoon and next thing you know there was ice blocking our path back to the lodge. Greg had warned us all to keep an eye out for this kind of problem. We cut through some channels of open water through the ice flow in hopes of finding a path back to camp, but had to turn back. We headed back to where we were fishing and I told Garren we needed to get to shore before the ice trapped us. We headed for a beach that was connected to the island on which the camp rests and after nearly getting stuck in the ice flow beached our boat. We texted the camp manager via our Garmin “in reach” and he came and meet us, with a rifle, in case we encountered a bear, for the hike to the camp. We secured our boat to a couple trees on shore. We got back to camp and I was a little shook. We called it a day at about 6:45 p.m.. Greg and Al ran south to one of Greg’s spots and found warmer water and smashed the pike and walleye for most of the afternoon.
We had fresh walleye for an appetizer and a few beers for our first night in camp.
The rest of the week was a blur but here are a couple high level descriptions of some great “sessions.” There was a lot of time spent investigating pike bays that held relatively cold water and only had smallish pike in residence, but once in awhile we’d find a warmer bay loaded with pike and walleye.
On Monday June 8th after a slow day and at about 5:30 p.m. we found a bay that was warmer than the other bays we had been fishing. First cast and a big pike boiled on my chatterbait. For 2.5 hours we had pike after pike smash our lures cast near the shoreline with many large boils created as the pike attacked our lures, some chasing the lures boatside and engulfing our lures at our feet. Crazy action. We landed about 30-40 pike and another 30+ or so big walleyes in the mix in a frenzied 2.5 hour session. Ton of fun. It was just insane how this one bay was loaded with aggressive active fish after we’d fished maybe 10 bays that looked about the same as this bay that were effectively a dead zone for quality fish. Big pike for the day was 41” with a number in that size class hooked or seen that did not make it into the net.
On the June 9th we hit a bay near camp late afternoon and got about 40 nice walleyes and several pike to 38”. That morning we fished lake trout and Garren got a fat 36” laker. Garren wanted to fish lakers just about every day and was willing to run way across the lake to his lake trout spot for the chance to catch one or two lakers. I quickly diagnosed him with early stage lake trout fever with which I have first hand experience.
June 9-10
Greg and Al were catching walleyes like crazy down in the south end of Clinton and picking up fish here and there along the way.
Garren and I had some slow fishing in bays around the lake as we looked for another hot pike bay. We hit the walleye bay behind camp one windy afternoon and got maybe 50-60 nice walleyes (to 24-25”) casting lures in 25 mph SE winds, and there were a few pike to 38” mixed in. Lot of fun.
When we headed back to camp after our walleye session, the rope that was tied around the front of the boat (to tie up on shore with) got in the water somehow and found its way around the prop. The motor seized up and the wind pushed us against some large rocks on shore for several minutes as we looked for a knife to cut the rope (which we did not have in the boat – it was in the cabin after having been used to clean fish). Luckily the rope came free and we pulled it into the boat and got the Yamaha enging going again and made it back to camp asap. This was a real scare and we were in danger in the wind with no power and icy water.
We tried the north west end of the lake on June 10 and got a few nice pike. Then we ran south to a small bay we called “cloverleaf” and Garren got a 42.5” fat pike on the first cast. We experienced pike mayhem in the relatively tiny bay for about 45 minutes landing a bunch of 35-38” pike, and missed several in the process.
On June 11 Greg invited Garren and I to follow he and Al to spot in the south part of Clifton where the walleye fishing had been great for he and Al over the week.
We made the run south and then through a rocky passage on the morning of June 11th and fishing was insane as Greg had suggested it might be (although not nearly as good as the prior day according to Al and Greg). Al and Greg caught 213 walleyes (measured using a counter) on June 11 with us watching and catching nearby. Garren and I got about 150 walleyes. We also got at least 30 pike up to 39.5”. Great fishing. If I had not fished Ganglers Bain Lake previously for walleyes, I would have said this was the best/craziest walleye fishing I’d ever seen. And, we had horrible horrible weather on this day. With a couple of 70 degree days with sun, the walleyes would have been even more ignorant than they were. Weather was bad with temps in the mid 40s and 30+ mph winds out of the north.
At about 6 pm it was time to head north to camp and we knew it was gonna be a bit of a rough ride and it was worse than we anticipated. When we turned the first corner into open water we encountered 3-4 foot waves whipped up by 35 mph North winds.
Garren and I followed Greg for a wet ride as we pounded through wave after wave in our 16’ boats. We made it to camp after 45 minutes or so and Greg said that was the worst conditions he had encountered at Ganglers, and he “did not want to ever do that again.” We got into the cabin and built a big fire to try to warm up and dry out our wet clothes. A few words in an email don’t really capture an experience like this. We were 20 miles from the main lodge with relatively little help nearby and were in a remote Canadian lake traversing large waves with 50 degree water coming over the side rails as we hit wave after wave.
On June 12th it was 40 mph north winds and we stayed in camp all day. We were able to stream the USA soccer game that night and it was fun to watch.
Summary:
Weather was not great with cold temperatures and high winds for a good part of the week. However, there was some great fishing along the way. Garren and I got 6 pike over 40” and quite a few between 35-39”. Greg and Al got five pike over 40” but got several at 43”. We also had some great walleye sessions here and there and could have caught more if we had targeted them rather than looking for pike and lake trout. Greg and Al had more consistent fishing because Greg knows all the best spots on this lake and has fished Clifton for years. Clifton has a reputation as one of the better walleye lakes around and I can see why. Several spots were loaded with walleye and the average size fish is impressive. I would guestimate Al and Greg caught over 700 walleyes and Garren and I probably got 300-350 walleyes would be my guess, and again, with quite poor weather conditions for much of the week.
