Back from Canada!

[Sidekick]

Man! It was a fantastic trip. The pike and walleye fishing was fantastic! I had no idea how aggressive pike were. I destroyed all of my spinbaits and spoons. I had to do a little borrowing at the end. We got weathered in and it took two extra days for our bush pilot to come get us but it was still a good trip. Ten days in a cabin on a remote lake in Northern Ontario. Our group probably caught over 1000 walleye and netted 42 pike over 30". The biggest of our trip were 39,40 and 41". I caught the 39 and 40 and my cousin caught the 41. Check out my big boy!

[ncboman]

Wow, I love those fish even though I've never fished for em.

We have duckbill jacks, a smaller cousin, and I've always thought they look prehistoric.

[Bill Gunn]

Boy does that picture bring back some Canadian memories. My Dad use to take me starting in the early 70's.
Last good trip was a fly in, 150 miles north of Red Lake Ontario with my wife.

There's no place like it :) :)

[Altjaeger]

Sounds like memories for a lifetime!:)

[Bushman]

At this point I'm wondering who hooked who. I suspect that Sidekick is hooked on fishing up there now too. Those toothy things really tear up your baits, but they sure are a kick to latch on to. Those walleye fillets go pretty good come supper time don't they.

Looks like an S14 or S16 Lund boat to me from the picture. Tell us more.

[Sidekick]

You've got a good eye, it's an S14 Lund. And Bill we flew 135 miles north of Red Lake so I'm sure the fishing was very similar. There is so much I could tell I don't really know where to start. I'll start with tackle. For pike spinnerbaits and spoons ruled. No point throwing anything else. And if you didn't have a 1/2 dozen of each you were out by the end of the week. I found that a 1/2 oz chartreuse, yellow and orange spinnerbait with gold blades to be one of the best lures followed very closely by a 3/4 or 1/2 oz. Johnson Silver Spoon. Adding a 3" grub to it helped but wasn't required. Those two lures were all you needed. For walleye it was really simple. A 3/8 or 3/16 jighead of any color with a chartreuse grub got you walleye all day. I just pretended I was bass fishing and caught the heck out of both of them all day. I had never seen, caught or eaten walleye before so that was a new and tasty experience. We had fried walleye, baked walleye, poached walleye, bbq walleye, walleye gumbo, walleye appetizers.......you get the idea. Pretty tasty fish and it didn't take too long to figure out how to handle them. My hands are still a little battlescarred. We had a very skilled and competent pilot who really knew his stuff. It was a good experience and hell yeah I would do it again. Sitting next to the mosquitoe coil with a cold LaBatts watching the shooting stars in the nighttime Ontario sky was pretty tolerable too. I did get to watch one of our party land a 35" pike on an ultralight rod with 6# mono and no leader. It took him a while but he got it done. He was lucky. That's all for now. And bald eagles everywhere....

[Bushman]

An S14 or S16 is about as much boat as will fit under the wing of a Beaver or Otter which are the working planes up in the bush. That boat is the difference between a good camp and a mediocre one. A lot of fly-in camps will scrimp and use C14 Lunds and when you get into some big water, you want some bigger boats under you.

What was happening with your spinner and spoons? Were you getting bit off or snagged up? When we started using Fireline, I would have bet some serious money that a northern would not bite it off as it does not even cut well with a scissors. Wrong, if anything they cut it off faster than mono.

Those walleyes will get you with those sharp gill plates when they flair them. After a week you are pretty full of walleye wounds. Mine were always getting infected by the end of the week until I got the dish washing duty. That hot soapy water helps a lot, so don't grumble about washing dishes too much next year.

That is a lot of pike on an ultra light. I found that I could not set the hook into the big walleyes with a light weight rod. You could get the little ones, but that isn't what I went for. I'll bet that fish had it's way with your buddy for a while. I took a fly rod for vertical jigging for a few years, but a big northern put such a strain on my right wrist that I wanted more rod after that.

[Sidekick]

The spoons I mostly lost or just had the wire that made it weedless torn up. The spinners were ruined from having the blades and skirts torn off (which I replaced a few) or they had so many big fish on them that eventually the wire frame was bent and straightened too many times and they just broke. There were a few times that they were almost straight by the time I got the fish into the boat. And I broke one leader. The ultralight pike was caught while walleye jigging and the jig was fortunately hooked on the outside of the mouth otherwise he would have never gotten it. And we flew in an Otter which is a pretty good aircraft.

[Bill Gunn]

Sounds like a great trip...

Here's where we went, but it now has different ownership.

http://www.waynorthlodge.com/

[Bushman]

Did you guys fly out of Red Lake on Green's Airways by chance? We only fly 68 miles NE of Red Lake to: www.bullmoosecamp.com

[Bill Gunn]

I don't think we flew out with Greens, but it was long enough ago that I forgot it's name.
The camp had it's oun plane for daily trips to other lakes.

[Wild_Bill_Hiccup]

It sounds like you had some great fishing. I grew up fishing for pike and walleye and still love catching big pike over just about anything else.

[Sidekick]

I think I might be hooked on this northern fishing thing. I've spent the last week obsessing about how I can justify and afford to do this on a regular basis. I also reorganized my tacklebox and and started browsing sites for a better rod. Is there any hope for me or will my dreams be full of big toothy fish for the rest of my life?

[Bushman]

No, you are permanently hooked. I remember thinking that you would be when you wrote "This will be sort of a once in a lifetime trip for me..." back on 5/31 in a pm. Good fishing up there is like a drug. We are pretty close to our 30th year going up there and good as WI. fishing can be, it isn't like a good lake in Canada. I remember one year when we didn't rebook for the next year and we were walking around like lost souls all summer with no reason to go buy new lures. It was awful.

There might be cheaper ways to go than flying in though. I've heard that those house boats out of Rainy Lake are a good time and you can split the cost up between a lot of guys and bring your own boats. Another popular way is being picked up by boat and boating to remote area. Catch and release is getting the fish bigger every year up there. No those big fish have hooked you and Canada will reel you back in next year.

I'm glad that you had a good experience, but the sad truth is that all camps are not the same. We have been to places where we could not wait to get back to work because it was more like we were serving time than having a vacation.

[Sidekick]

Before I left I was wondering if I would be able to fish all day every day for a week and still find it fun. Fishing for me is mostly a quick trip behind the house or down the road a few miles to hit a farm pond for a few hours at the most. There might be an occasional trip to a local lake but I haven't done that for years. The first two days up there I honestly was starting to have a bit of regret. And then I found a better boat partner and I caught my first big pike. Honestly any bad moments I had on the trip could be attributed to one person who I simply could not tolerate. But after a few days he got the hint and left me alone and things were fine after that. I'm still not sure what it was about the experience that I liked so much. We caught lots of fish and big ones for sure but I can do that here pretty well. I think it has a lot to do with the remoteness, solitude and unspoiled beauty of it all. Of course big fish help :D I'll have to do it again someday and I completely understand why people keep going back. It hit my bank account pretty hard but it was worth it.

[Bushman]

Who you go on a trip with makes a lot of difference. We used to go with as many as 8 guys, but the extra work and putting up with all the personalities was just not worth it. We have had two type A's in the camp at the same time and both of them tried to run the show. You run into stuff like one guy wanted to sleep with the light on or one guy snored too loud. Another time dad invited a new friend who drank up all the beer and ate all the snacks three days into the trip that was supposed to last all week. "When it's gone, its gone" will be a quote I'll remember for a long time. The guys next to us in a camp were arguing all week when they advertised for a fourth guy to come along. What they got was a pudgy used car salesman that they picked on all week. "We advertised for a fisherman, but what we got was an a** hole" was another quote.

Lots of any trip is just changing your scene with a few guys that you can get along with. The state record walleye over 16# was netted and released by the DNR not two miles from my house, but I don't even fish there. There is just something missing fishing in the shadow and the affluent of a paper mill.

[Sidekick]

We drove past a papermill on the way north. At first we blamed the smell on each other but the real source soon became apparent. I can't really complain about the guys I was with. We were cut from different cloth to be sure but they did respect each others property and getting into someone elses beer just wasn't done. We each had our area of responsibility and no one shirked their duty or questioned whoever was in charge of their area. I have to say it really worked out pretty well. We all voluntarily took turns washing dishes and helping cook. Kind of surprising really. And this probably won't surprise you but there are a few members of my family that are really really interested in doing this so there could very well be a small group of us head up next year which would be a very good thing. I have an amazing family. We get along so well we could be a Normann Rockwell painting. I hope we do it.