Video: “Lund: The Ultimate Fishing Experience” at Aikens

“This is insane.” “Doubles!” “Where else can you do this?”

These three quotes might entice you to watch this episode of “Lund: The Ultimate Fishing Experience” filmed at and featuring our very own Aikens Lake Wilderness Lodge. If you need another reason, consider this: In the video, fishing pros Jeremy Smith and Mike Hehner share their how-to approach for bottom bouncing big walleyes and what to do when fishing during a May fly hatch.

In short, there’s awesome footage of the place we call home, cool scenes that show the unique flavor of Aikens and a few practical pointers that could help you boat more walleyes wherever you fish. The Ultimate Fishing Experience is a well-done series that spotlights elite fisheries and bucket-list type trips, so we were honored the crew chose to visit Aikens. It was also fun to see the crew fall in love with our slice of paradise.

“As avid anglers Mike and I are here to set the hook, but it’s hard not to kick back and enjoy the spectacular scenery––waterfalls, sheer wall cliffs with ancient pictographs, and miles and miles of shoreline,” says host Jeremy Smith.

Jeremy and Mike also enjoyed several fishing highlights very unique to Aikens, the first being the sunset, open-water trolling bite that turns on mid-summer. This unique phenomenon, which has been featured in other publications such as OutdoorHub, both surprised and delighted the Lund crew.

“We’re in 50 feet of water, ciscoes are jumping on the surface and we’re trolling a bait 5-feet beneath the surface,” says Jeremy, noting the surprise at catching these dark-colored, roamer walleyes. “Earlier in the day we were in 4-feet of water catching walleyes.”

The other unique highlight the crew loved was catching burbot late at night alongside a crew of our Aikens pro-staff guides. We enjoyed this sequence because our guests and guides have a blast burbot fishing after hours, and you can tell in the video that Jeremy and Mike are genuinely having a ball.

They get out their clicker and try to keep track of the fast action––laughing about catching four burbot in the first 60 seconds. Head guide Ben, and last year’s head guide JB, are both featured in the burbot bite, and the Lund crew can’t get enough of this unique Aikens experience, exclaiming, “If you can get your bait to the bottom of the lake, you’re going to catch fish!”

On the tactical side, earlier in the episode the duo also showcase exactly how they bottom-bounce crawlers with a Slow Death hook, using a 1.5-ounce bouncer and 4- to 6-foot fluorocarbon leaders tied to 15-pound braided line, trolled at 1-mph with 7-foot, medium action rods.

One final teaser for you with another killer quote from the show, they also show a mouth-watering Aikens shorelunch, “all in a setting that’s second to none.”

Click here to watch the episode online.