We’ve had a beautiful year of flying so far and the fishing pictures are such a rewarding treat to share on our Facebook Page!
July filled the docks.
Families came back who’d been coming back for years, and a few came for the first time.
Our cameras weren’t the ones that caught most of this — yours were.
Here’s the season you gave us:
There is a moment on the dock at Nestor Falls, usually a little before nine in the morning, when a group that has been planning this for eleven months finally stops planning it. Gear is loaded. The engine is warming. Somebody’s father-in-law is checking his rod tube for the fourth time.
We watch that moment hundreds of times a summer and it never gets old.
What follows is May, June and July 2026 in reverse. Almost none of these photos are ours. They came off your cameras and your Facebook posts, and a few came from people who love these aircraft enough to stand on a dock in the fog at sunrise to photograph them. Thank you !
Anne Caten left this on Google Maps after her trip:
“All the guys here are great! Intended on taking a site seeing flight but turned into a remote fly-in day fishing trip on Arrow Lake. (So glad we did!) They’re timely, get you there and pick you up when scheduled. We had a fantastic time-even allowing our tiny chihuahua to ride along. I’m ready for our next trip!”
— Anne Caten, Google Maps
Anne came for a sightseeing flight. She left having spent a day fishing Arrow Lake.
A sightseeing flight is a look at the country. A day-fishing trip is a day in it — the same aircraft and a completely different memory. You fly out in the morning, you fish, we come back for you when we said we would. That’s the whole thing.
Anne shared the Beaver lifting off, and the aerial looking down over the lake country from her flight. She came here as a customer and left as one of our photographers.
If you’ve been thinking about a fly-in trip but the price of a week at an outpost has kept it hypothetical, Anne found the door in.
Here are a couple more reviews and comments on our Google Profile:
July 13
Six of them on the dock in front of the Beaver, half in shorts, one of them sunburned. Nobody is holding a fish. It’s still one of the best photos of the summer.
Two of these guys are brothers who grew up right here in Nestor Falls. They moved away years ago, but they come back every year — this time with one of their sons and a couple of the friends they grew up with, one of whom runs his own place out on Miles Bay now. They didn’t come back for the walleye. They came back for each other, and for a town that shaped a big part of their lives.
July 11
Bill Campbell shot the Beech 18 and one of our Beavers C-GEBL
These aircraft are older than most of the people who ride in them and they are still working hard every single day.
The local outfits we point guests to — for a bed the night before, a ride from the airport, groceries for the week — are all on our Before You Fly page.
July 7
Sun coming up through the mist behind the Beech 18, the whole airbase still quiet. This is what the dock looks like about two hours before your group gets here.
We have been flying out of Nestor Falls for a very long time and the mornings still take our breath away.
Then the trucks start pulling in, and the coolers come out, and it’s a different place entirely by nine.
Your morning here is the first hour of your trip, and it’s worth understanding before you’re standing in it — Before You Fly covers what to have done by the time you arrive, and why we ask you to be at the base at your scheduled time.
June 25
An outstanding trophy muskie
It’s nearly the same size as the angler who caught it.
That fish is now an unforgettable story.
Muskie turn up on a few of our lakes, and they’re the reason a quiet afternoon can turn to shear excitement ! Nobody plans a trip around them. Everybody remembers them.
Muskie fishing with Northwest Flying — and what one of them does to an otherwise ordinary afternoon.
June 22
A full day on Loonhaunt, a walleye early on, grinning like it was the first fish anyone ever caught. A bigger one by midday, thick across the shoulders. By late afternoon, stringers on the dock. By evening, fillets going into the fish cooker.
Loonhaunt holds walleye, northern pike, bass and lake trout. The cabin sleeps eight, and it has a full kitchen, a BBQ and a fish cooker in it, which is the part first-timers always ask about — if we catch them, then what?
Then you eat them.
Groups don’t usually get stuck on where to fish. They get stuck on food. How much do eight people actually eat in six days, when part of dinner is a fish you haven’t caught yet? That’s the calculation that stalls a lot of bookings for a month or two. Check out our Meal Planning Guide.
June 20
Spring Fly in fishing trip photos shared by Alexanders On Rowan.
June 11
June Fly in fishing trip photos shared by Wilderness Fishing Oasis
June 8
A boy, standing in the bow with a lake trout held out in both hands, both arms fully extended, doing the thing every angler on earth does with a good fish and every parent on earth recognizes on sight.
He is going to remember this for the rest of his life.
So is whoever took the picture.
Later that day, another nice lake trout came to the boat. Somebody crouched over a pot on the fire rocks. And at the end of it — wieners on sticks and marshmallows going black over the coals.
The hot dog isn’t the point. Everyone around that fire already knows it.
Would our kids actually like it? is the question that decides whether a lot of these trips ever happen. The answer is in this gallery, not in anything we could write. Kids are half price, and the Fly in Fishing FAQ covers the rest of what parents ask us.
May 29
Late May is a particular kind of week up here. The water’s still cold, the bugs haven’t found their enthusiasm yet, and the fishing has a different character than it does in August.
If you’re deciding between early season and high summer, that’s worth a conversation — tell us your dates and what you’re hoping to catch and we’ll walk you through what each stretch of the season tends to look like.
May 21
Another trip to Shingwak for the Carlson gang
Four of them in front of the aircraft, they’ve done this before, they’ll do it again next year, and they don’t need us to explain anything to them. Shingwak is fly-in camping and day-fishing no cabin, no kitchen, no fish cooker. Bass, lake trout and muskie, four boats on the water, and you bring your own camping gear.
It’s a different trip for a different kind of group. Some people want the cabin Some people want a plane to set them down on a remote lake, completely in nature.
A few of our day lakes are also set up for fly-in camping.
Round-trip airfare from Nestor Falls, boats, motors and gas included. Here’s how it works.
May 20
May Fly in fishing trip Lake Trout and Walleye photos shared by Wilderness Fishing Oasis
Every season starts with one aircraft, one group, and a lake that’s had nobody on it since October.
It’s a good morning to be at the base.
The whole trip belongs to you and the people you bring. Our part is small — we fly you out, and we come back for you when we said we would.
Everything else on this page was yours, and we’re grateful to have had a seat near it.
If you got this far and you’re thinking about next year, there are two doors in and they’re both open.
You can tell us your group size, your dates and what you want to catch, and we’ll tell you which lake fits — that’s a phone call, it takes five minutes, and choosing the lake is the part we’re actually good at. Or you can do what Anne did: book a single day on one of the camping lakes and find out for yourself whether this is your kind of thing.
Most of the people who’ve been flying with us for decades started with one or the other.
And if you’d rather just read the whole thing through before you call anybody — what to bring, and Nestor Falls community resources are good places to start.
(800) 461-2126 · (807) 484-2126 · northwestflying@gmail.com
Your escape.
Guest photos from our Page on Facebook and our profile on Google Maps. Aviation photography courtesy of Bill Campbell and Anne Caten.
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