One of the biggest differences between fishing close to home and traveling into northern Saskatchewan is fishing pressure. On popular lakes, fish can see boats and anglers day after day throughout the season. At Hatchet Lake Lodge, our remote location and the amount of water available to us create a very different fishing experience.
Hatchet provides access to 20 lakes across a remote area of northern Saskatchewan. We are the only outfitter operating on 19 of those lakes, with Wollaston Lake being the exception. There are no communities or residents on our fishing lakes and virtually no road access. With only 16 guests at the lodge at one time, there is an incredible amount of water available to a very small number of anglers.
For our guests, that means fishing water that sees remarkably little pressure throughout the season.
Low Fishing Pressure Starts at the Main Lodge
You don’t need to board a floatplane to experience lightly pressured fishing at Hatchet. Directly from the main lodge, guests have access to four lakes: Hatchet Lake itself and three additional portage lakes—Corson, LeDrew and Thrift. Each portage is only a three-to-five-minute walk, with boats and motors waiting on the other side.
Hatchet Lake offers opportunities to pursue lake trout, northern pike, Arctic grayling and walleye, while the three portage lakes add even more water that can be explored without getting on another aircraft.
With only 16 guests in camp and four lakes immediately available, anglers naturally spread out. There are no lines of boats working the same shoreline or crowds gathering at productive fishing spots. You’re simply fishing a lot of water with very few other anglers around.
20 Lakes Give Us Options
One of Hatchet’s biggest advantages isn’t simply having access to remote water. It’s having enough water that we don’t need to continually fish the same places.
Between Hatchet Lake, our three portage lakes and 16 fly-out destinations, our guides have an incredible amount of water to choose from throughout the season. Some of our remote destinations may only see Hatchet guests a handful of times over an entire summer.
That also gives us the ability to manage where we’re fishing. If we feel one of our lakes hasn’t been producing the experience we’re looking for, we can give it a break and explore another destination instead. With this much water available, we’re never dependent on continually sending guests back to the same few areas.
Giving Lakes a Break
Throughout the summer, our team pays attention to how each destination is fishing. If we feel a lake has been less productive, we’ll often take it out of the rotation for a period and open another option.
Sometimes that means returning to water that hasn’t been fished by Hatchet guests for years. We currently have several destinations that we haven’t fished in more than a decade that we’re looking forward to exploring again.
It’s one of the unique advantages of operating across such a large area. Rather than continuing to put fishing pressure on the same destination, we have the flexibility to move somewhere else and give that water a break.
What Low Fishing Pressure Means on the Water
Most anglers don’t arrive at Hatchet thinking about fishing pressure as a number. They experience it in the absence of other anglers: rounding a point and having the shoreline ahead of you to yourself, fishing a productive area without another boat waiting behind you or spending a day on the water where the only other boats you may see belong to other Hatchet guests.
For anglers accustomed to fishing popular lakes closer to home, the difference can be noticeable. But low fishing pressure isn’t only about having fewer boats around. It also means these fisheries aren’t seeing hundreds of anglers casting at the same fish throughout the summer.
When you’re traveling this far north for the opportunity to pursue trophy lake trout, northern pike, Arctic grayling and walleye, that matters.
Fly Even Farther Into the North
Our fly-out program is an optional addition to a Hatchet Lake Lodge trip. You don’t need to fly out to find great fishing—Hatchet Lake and our portage lakes already offer excellent fishing with very little pressure. A fly-out is about experiencing another side of the north.
Our Turbo Otter takes your group even farther into the northern Saskatchewan wilderness to one of our remote fishing destinations. Typically, we have eight or nine fly-out options available at a given time, with the destinations changing throughout the season based on fishing quality.
Different destinations offer different fishing opportunities. Depending on what you want to pursue, our team can recommend a lake suited to your goals. On many fly-out days, your group can even have an entire lake to itself.
An Entire Lake to Your Group
There’s something about a fly-out that is difficult to appreciate until you’ve done one. The morning starts at Hatchet, where our dock staff and guides prepare the equipment and supplies for the day. You board the Turbo Otter and fly farther into a landscape already well beyond the end of the road.
The plane lands, your group unloads and the aircraft takes off again. For approximately eight hours, you fish a remote northern lake that may see only a handful of Hatchet guests during the entire summer. There may not be another person or boat anywhere on the lake.
At the end of the fishing day, you hear the Turbo Otter returning in the distance to take you back to the main lodge. The fishing is obviously a major part of the experience, but so is knowing exactly how remote you are.
Different Water, Different Opportunities
Having access to so many lakes also gives our guides the ability to match the fishing experience to what guests want to accomplish. Across Hatchet and our surrounding destinations, there are opportunities to pursue lake trout, northern pike, Arctic grayling and walleye, with different lakes offering different species and styles of fishing.
Even without a fly-out, Hatchet itself provides an unusual amount of variety. All four species can be targeted close to the lodge and in the area where Hatchet flows toward Corson, it’s possible to pursue them within a remarkably small area.
You can spend one day exploring water minutes from your cabin and another flying into a completely different fishery. That variety is a big part of what makes a fishing trip at Hatchet different.
Protecting the Fishing We Have
Having access to lightly pressured water comes with a responsibility to protect it. At Hatchet Lake Lodge, our fishing program is catch-and-release other than a small number of eater-sized fish kept for shore lunch. Trophy fish are released.
That philosophy, combined with our low guest capacity and the amount of water available to us, helps reduce our impact on the fisheries we depend on. It takes years for fish to reach trophy size in northern Saskatchewan, and we want the lake trout, northern pike, Arctic grayling and walleye our guests catch today to continue being part of this fishery tomorrow.
16 Guests, 20 Lakes
Hatchet Lake Lodge hosts only 16 guests at a time. Those guests have access to four lakes directly from the lodge and the option to explore 16 additional fly-out destinations. We’re the only outfitter operating on 19 of those 20 lakes.
Some destinations are fished regularly throughout the season. Others may see anglers only a handful of times, while some haven’t been visited by our guests in years.
Put together, it creates something that’s becoming increasingly difficult to find: a huge amount of remote Canadian fishing water shared among very few anglers.
Northern Saskatchewan Without the Crowds
Trophy fishing is one of the reasons anglers travel to Hatchet Lake Lodge, but low fishing pressure is part of a bigger experience. It’s the absence of boat traffic, miles of northern shoreline without development and several lakes available within minutes of the lodge, with another 16 remote destinations beyond them.
And if you choose to fly out, it’s watching the Turbo Otter disappear over the trees and realizing your group may have an entire lake to itself for the day.
That’s what low fishing pressure looks like at Hatchet. It’s not limited to one secret lake or one fly-out destination. It’s part of the entire experience.
Find More Water to Yourself
If your idea of a great fishing trip includes fewer boats, more water and the freedom to explore, Hatchet offers plenty of room to find it. Discover the lakes, species and fishing experiences that make a trip to northern Saskatchewan worth the journey.