Moosebunk

Weeds are a little slower up here this year Lew. Ya still managed a few ski's for yer troubles. Good show.

Great report CCM. Rockin' in the outdoors... cool stuff.

Still waiting for part 2. C'mon maaaaaaan!

Great shots, good fizishin' for the kiddies.

When two fellas with OOD go fishing... LOOK OUT BIG BASS ALERT!!! lol. Nice job gents.

You got the Hobbit cabin for sure. lol. The bumps on the head likely helped you're fishing too. You must have rebooked?

Down on my chip stack about 3 to 1 heads up against my neighbor Bruce, the flop comes two clubs and a spade. A spade jack and a two and three of clubs. In my hand I’m holding the four and six of clubs. Bruce comes in betting strong and I call it. The turn comes the queen of clubs and I’ve hit my flush, yet Bruce throws in another big bet. I wonder if he’s hit a flush too, and his would likely be higher than my six of clubs. I call. On the river comes the five of clubs and Bruce calls all in. Pot committed and with a flush I have no choice and make the call, not even realizing yet that I just hit a straight flush. Bruce and I turn up the cards and the onlookers are quick to say, Bruce’s eight beats your six Bunk. I’m about to shake hands with Bruce and congratulate him on a good game when my buddy Ron says, “Bunk... I think your straight flush takes the hand.” “Holy 'fudge' Ron! You’re right.” (might of all drank too much, lol) I’m the chip leader now by a smidgen and about five hands later Bruce goes all in before the flop with a queen and jack unsuited. A good enough hand in heads up, it wasn’t quite up to snuff before the flop to take my pocket sixes. And after five cards were down I held a set and won $240. ‘Bout time, it was my turn for a win... Calling for thunderstorms and northwest winds today, and having been out on the river about four days ago in similar weather, figured the Moose would be a poopty fish. The season on a whole has sucked. Honestly not even really motivated to fish it, as it’s just a 1 ½ hour skeg burner to places where the fishing is only even mediocre right now. So today, packed the vest with some worms, spinners and little bucktails and took off to Moosonee for some resi-troots on Store Creek. The honey hole is about 2.2km through some pretty thick bush. An old trail exists but much of it is overgrown. Cobwebs hanging in the tight black spruce along my route were really no help at all from keeping the blood thirsty mosquitoes and blackflies from nipping at anything exposed. I had to soak myself in Deep Woods. Got to the spot drenched in sweat and panting now too, the bugs were just nuts. I had like 15 on my kneecap alone at one point. More Deep Woods and some settling down they did finally back off for a little while and allow me to get some casts in. Seven brookies in the hole. None wanting the small black bucktail, silver/pink Bluefox#2, Mepps BlackFury#3 or orange bladed and yellow bodied Panther Martin #2, they all wanted the homemade simple all silver spinner tipped with a worm on the silver single hook. It was kind of weird in fact. Nothing trophy for a resident speckled troot today. The best the creek has ever coughed up was a gorgeous 12 incher I caught three summers ago. The past years the fish seem to be getting smaller and smaller, but, the numbers are staying up pretty good. Today maybe an 8 inch specimen took top honors and four other fish were around 6-7 inches. All went back relatively unharmed. Love the speckies, they sure make ya work for them. Here they are... along with the last pic of the 12 incher I caught a couple years ago at the same spot. Good few hours out today. A little more exercise than just sitting in the boat too.

Working within a specific niche of the Canadian system I can tell you it sure has it's pros and cons. I will say though, that my experience shows me that it is quite like the American in the sense that, certain peoples get preferential treatment. Here in Canada it's generally the poor who benefit most advantageously while in the States it is the rich. Who's is right or wrong in an ethical sense......? I have my answer.

Cut the travel by a third and go to Outdoor Canada Magazines 2005 #1 Pike Lake in Canada. http://www.kesagami.com/contents.htm Don't say I never did anything for ya.

Now, had that been me I'd be grinning from ear to ear in most of those pics. But that's me. Couple old pros like yourselves appear to take it as just another day at the office. Must be the "Fury" in your fishing. Two thumbs up doods. Great report. Great success on the pike. I too am a big fan of the inlines for pike, and hope to show ya's in the coming weeks with a couple pike of my own.

Catch and Release mostly. But do keep about 100 fish per year for the family. Walleye, trout, pike... it's not nice to discriminate so they all see the table.

Superb Sandy.... and Adam. Tough conditions out there and you picked up some really great fish. Sharing any secret baits that put the monsters in your boat???

Nice big goldfish CCM. WTG.

He summed up what I think too. Can't even think of the name of the stuff I use for light applications. Picked it up in the fly fishing shop at BPS. WindRiver maybe..? Anyways, stuff is fantastic. Only one kind out there that's better, but that's nearly double the price.

Pike and eyes. No real choice otherwise.

Okuma Epixor has really disappointed me. Lasted 1 week trib fishing nooks then quickly fell apart. Shimano Symmetre has really impressed me. Fish everything big with this, including using it on the ice. Always smooth and durable too. Quantum PTi is so far fantastic. Have an ultralight and no complaints. Abu C3 (new reel, old design) is so far disappointing me. Any tension on the line seems to make it harder to reel. Excluding the tension of a fish tugging. All these reels are around $100 give or take.

Have a fantastic Summer Wayne.

Point #1. Make sure where you're going is LOADED with fish and it's 99% garunteed you'll be SLAYING those BOHEMUTHS. then, To Point #2. Make sure the person you're fishing with is someone you can fish with in any and every way. then, The Fly-In Outfitter you have chosen won't even really even matter. You'll be having too much fun to care that you're sleeping in a bears den on a mattress of bat scat and eating pounds of maggots through your nose in an exhausted slumber after a day of the best fishing of your life. And always remember you have an instant fix to all things bad. I call it Scotch, but others have their preferences.

Looking forward to the next Mighty Ducks feature film in about 2 decades. The movie, a Disney Pixar film, based on a true story, will retell the road to victory for a bunch of have-not Californians from the ghettos of Anaheim. How they overcame a thousand and one odds and were slum gritty, but cleaned themselves up, only to play real gritty in the end. A team of bums, drunks, dwarves and Invincibles (like Vinny Papale of the Philly Eagles, or Rudy from that other football movie) turned highly conditioned intellectuals which studied the game tapes of past Lord Stanley winning teams such as the foul weathered Hurricanes and Lightning of other southern nasty climes and "8-Mile" streets. A bearded McCauley Culkin is rumored to play the part of Neidermayer, and, that kid that says "I see dead people" in the 6th Sense is working on beefin' up his forearms to have enough elbow to play the Prongz. It'll be a tearjerker with a happy ending for sure. Blossom of NBC's past awesome hit "Blossom" has successfully made it through her sex change and will be playing the role of a nasty little rich kid from the city of Federal Taxes that all Senators fans had a role in punishing the rest of the nation of Canada with. Blossom's character name in the movie will be "Alfie," but the writers will have retired his number 11 for 666 instead and he'll wear a helmet with horns, carry a pitch-forked hockey stick, and have hoove liked skates.

Ohhhhh brother. I got 5 days in there at the end of the month and you just gave me about a 3 week woody until then. Sure hope Rob is still in there come then. Told him I want a day and a couple pints with him. Good fella. Did he swear you to secrecy on his big pike spots or what??? Great report TJ. It's hard not to love anything coming out of that lake, it's a gem, and there's a reason why they advertise it as an experience.

Managed 3 outings this week. Monday my buddy Gary joined me up on Wavy Creek for searuns. The morning high tide put us inside the river about 11am. Four other boats were trolling the waters but nobody was having much luck. I was sure of a couple hits while trolling a 1/4 oz white bucktail upriver. The jig just bumped along on bottom when finally a small brookie at about a foot took the offerring. The fish had more color to it than the searuns seem too. Wasn’t sure but maybe it was a resident. Anyways, the bite shut down. Now the runs are pretty much done, and so ends another year of brookie fishing. Figured this years window may have been about 12 days and I was a little late to start because of obligations to seek walleye over the long weekend. Next year it won’t happen that way. Tuesday morning I took off early to fish what I call the lower Moose River. The lower being the first 10km’s upriver of town as far as the mouth of the French, or tip of Bushy Island. On route up a lone beluga gave me a wink as it surfaced about 50 ft off the bow at 11 o’clock. The whale was on it’s way back to sea on the end of an outgoing tide. Trying just above Bushy first I picked off a pair of small eyes. Here’s the one bigger little fish Finishing there a group of elementary school kids came up in 6 boats and all the kids lined up side by side along the tip of Bushy Island and fished. The teachers erected a large prospector tent and a huge teepee and got a fire going while a number of kids watched on as well. I took some time trolling out in front of them, far enough away so to not bother. Thought, what a great day outing for the kids. All about the outdoors. Went over to the mouth of the French and deemed it unfishable for the time. Decided to venture up to the first rapids up the French. On route the rain started and when I reached the rapids a boat of 3 locals was there having no luck. I tried too, but nada. By 1:00pm turned for home, and just when coming out the French I see a lone cow moose wading the rivers shallows and taking cover on an alder covered island once learning I was getting close. Saturday. Knowing the lower wasn’t productive yet, the searuns done, it was figured the only shot at fish was to make a full day of it, beat the crap out of the motor and head way up the Moose. Dr. Rob Gabor was chomping at the bit all week to wet a line with me, so we planned to make a full day of it. 7:30 in the am while readying the boat a neighbor walks by and reports they must have opened the dam. Trees, logs, grass, debris is floating everywhere down river. This was not what we needed. Launching the boat, water levels are notably about 7-8 feet higher, the water is chocolate milk, and if there was livestock around here I’m sure it would have been mooooing all the way while being swept to the Bay. I tell Rob we’ll be lucky to catch a thing. But, on route, because the waters are so high, we fly up river. No rapids and shallows to drag through we make great time. I decide then we’ll head to the Cheepas River 32 km upriver from home, which is above the mouth of the Abitibi where all this water is coming from. What a great choice. Easily get in the Cheepas as even it’s mouth is flooded out a little because of the raised levels, Rob and I stop at the first spot and are immediately rewarded with an eye. They keep coming too. Jigs take a backseat to inlines, which, take a backseat to splitshotting, which is second to running a minnow under a float. Rob on his float takes what could have been a fantastic walleye but this spawned out female with a really big head was the most anorexic bodied eye I have ever seen caught. She was right on the recovery and exhausted quick. But heck, Rob is loving this. We keep right on them until just after lunch but then the bite slows. I pick up good numbers myself and some quality Cheepas River eyes. The fish on this river are good and healthy. Sooo, Rob and I put the motor in shallow drive and navigate the skinny water and rock gardens to head 4km up to another spot I know. Once there, we’re right into them again. Not as many eyes but lots of snot rockets. Spinners and minnows under a float work great up there too. Rob gets himself a pike he believes he’ll keep for the table. By 5pm, after about 7 hours of fishing, Rob and I have done well putting about 35 fish in the boat. We head to shore so I can cook up some fahitas and learn quick that we are now in blackfly season. Ride home I burned the gas out of one tank and the motor stalls. Switch tanks then snap the pull cord in the middle of the river. Easy fix, I come to realize the recoil isn’t working, but luckily with just very short pulls the motor get’s going and I make it home in time to see my favorite team lay the beats to the cheap shotting Ducks. Nice to finally have the walleye back. One full month we waited for them to get their butts off the spawn, the females this year must have been looking for a lot of extra foreplay.

You said it Clamp-It. My second favorite team for sure. One Swede I loved to watch back when I was a kid, Mats Naslund. But, Carbonneau, Gainey, Robinson, Lafleur, Muller, Roy, .......who can argue with all the other greats that have played for the greatest Dynasty in any sport. Go HABS Go.

It's hard I think for Leafs fans to get behind a winning team that put their own team to shame all season long. Thing with the Leafs is they're generally a have not team. In that, they have not done much of anything in 40 years. The fans get used to the losing ways and disappointment, and find it difficult to root for the Sens team this year which was a good reason they did not succeed once again. There will be those that differ of course. Lots of other excuses and opinions. They will be really good ones. Many have had decades of practice. Hope that helps clarify things Blaque.

WTG Bass and crew. I'm racking my brain trying to think of 18km long lakes, that are drive too, remote, and 200km north of Cochrane. Heck man, you could have been in my backyard. Good job on those pike. Some brutes.

I used to fish about once every 2 weeks. Then I got a job and a girlfriend and two kids... now, life is pretty much this through the year.... about 150 days of work. about 150 days with the family. about 65-75 days fishing. Math is a little off, but it's give or take.