solopaddler

Me too and for the exact same reason.

304 days now buddy. In the very first pic I posted (in front of the motel) I think he looks like Belushi. He's kind of got a little Blues Brother thing going on.

Justin And Dave (I had very few pic's of these guys in my computer...perhaps they'll add a few more) Lou Sadly these are the only two pictures I have of Lou. At first we thought a bear was marauding the kitchen. In retrospect perhaps it was a bear if you know what I mean. So that's it. It was a week to remember. First and foremost we had a lot of fun and one heckuva good time. Fantastic outfitter and world class fishing were just icing on the cake. It's gonna a long wait 'till next year! Cheers, Mike

Me....continued Dan Bill Bill managed a couple of whitefish on a dry fly....very cool! Continued....

First a couple of notes: The last few weeks have been hectic. This trip occurred June 12-19th. My wife and I closed on our house June 25th. I was back for less than a week and then we moved. Beyond the usual craziness at work and now having to unpack and settle in I havn't had the time to write a truly fitting report for this trip. This report is mostly a photo essay.(I apologise in advance for the obscene number of pic's ) I wish I had the time to write something more in depth, but I don't. Regardless I hope you all enjoy. On another note I'm not including the outfitters info. (Although many if not most of you already know who it is. ) If anyone wants any detailed info please pm me and I'll respond as quickly as I can. The Trip Last September I had the great fortune of visiting the new camp while it was still under construction and had the best pike angling of my life. It seemed like every current break, backwater, slough, channel and inlet had hungry gators lurking. With such an incredible trip under my belt the June trip was greatly anticipated. Anticipation tends to get me through the otherwise mundane facets of life. I firmly believe that having something to look forward to is a necessity. No matter how bad my day is going all I have to do is calm myself and think Attawapiskat and the stress is magically gone. Joining me on this new quest for Pike were Louis, Bill and Justin (aniceguy, BillM and Justin Elia respectively on the OFC board). As well, Justin's buddy Dave and my very good, very old friend Dan who now resides in Thunder Bay with his family joined us. It truly was an outstanding group, everyone meshed well and we shared a lot of laughs. Arriving in Nakina the night before our flight we checked into the only motel in town and relaxed a bit after the lengthy drive. Only being 3 hours away Dan didn't arrive 'till later on Friday evening (lucky sod!). After saying our hellos and introducing him to the rest of the group we hit the sack early. Saturday morning would come fast.... Arriving at the Nakina Air Service base the next morning, we quickly weighed then loaded our gear into one of the Otters. For most in my group it was their first time in a float plane and the excitement was palpable as we taxied up the lake. It's always a thrill flying above the clouds over thousands of untouched lakes. In my younger days I paddled much of this country alone in my canoe and in many ways it's like coming home. I'd been told the water level was dramatically lower this year. Here's a shot of the camp from last September: Here's the way it looked this year. As you can see there was a tremendous amount of exposed sand beach where last year there was none. You can also see the large main lodge/lounge area that the outfitter is currently constructing. When the camp is finally 100% finished it's going to be amazing. After landing we quickly unpacked and settled into our new home for the next week. Dan and I lingered for a bit, unwinding and catching up while the other boys raced for the boats rods in hand. With our trip falling very close to the summer solstice we had over 19 hours of daylight to play with. Plenty of time to fish ourselves to exhaustion. More on the fishing though in just a bit... It's been said the Attawapiskat river and Beteau lake in particular is a truly magical place. After experiencing it twice I have to say that I agree. Untouched and literally teeming with fish and game, it has an ethereal quality. Here's a bunch of shots that capture the essence of the place and the experience we had: Sunrise At Camp Burning A Bucktail Over A Broad Weed Flat Sunset Ride Back To Camp Navigating The Rapids Shorelunch Old Native Camp In a very isolated back bay Dan and I saw this old pot hanging from a tree: After beaching the boat and walking through some incredibly thick brush we found the remains of an old native camp. Bald Eagle Medley Of Meat Yes we ate well on this trip, Rainbow Serenity Defined Dan Goes For A Swim On the 2nd day of our trip while navigating upstream my transducer suction cup came unbuttoned and before I could react it pulled my entire finder into the river where it sank in the tea stained water. I figured it was gone for good. Dan insisted he jump in for a look. (You have to remember this water was cold!). He quickly shed his clothes, hopped into the cold river current and amazingly found the darn thing right away. The Fishing Now on to the important stuff! As mentioned the water was incredibly low. Many of the back bays we fished last September were high and dry. The pike were still in many of the same spots but instead of fishing for them in 4-5' of water it was now 1-3' of water. These extreme shallows were already quite weed choked and could only be fished properly with a weedless lure of some type. The bread and butter lure for most of the group was the venerable old Johnson Silver Minnow, in both the 3/4 and 11/4oz sizes. Tipping it with a large twister tail or a piece cut from an 8" Reaper slowed the sink rate. This allowed us to crawl the bait slowly over and through the thick slop. The big gators were lurking and many of the strikes in the extreme shallows were heart stopping. If a pike saw your bait more often than not it'd hit, sometimes rushing the lure from 10-12' away. As the week wore on and the water temps rose the pattern changed a bit. Instead of extreme shallows we found them in broad, almost featureless weed flats in water depths of 4-8'. Anywhere we found an obvious weed clump we found the big pike. In this type water I used 2 baits. Either a 1oz inline bucktail or smallish bass sized 3/4oz spinnerbait. The really large musky sized baits didn't work as well. We did try trolling the deeper river channels with oversized diving baits like the Grandmas, but it didn't really produce for us. I also caught a good number of my larger pike on my follow up bait which was usually an 8" black Reaper rigged on a 1/4oz Esox Cobra head jig. Many times a large fish would follow to the boat but wouldn't commit. I had a fast action spinning rod and Shimano Sustain 4000 loaded with 30lb Power Pro rigged with the black Reaper. If a fish refused the flashy stuff a quick flip with the oversized plastic almost guaranteed a hook up. Once again the walleye were mostly incidental catches for me. I didn't do a whole lot of walleye fishing and many of my fish came on the larger pike lures. They're incredibly aggressive up there! When we actually did concentrate on walleye we caught them hand over fist. Best bait for us was a 4" white or chartreuse twister tail on a 1/4 or 3/8oz head. Beyond a few diving plugs that's really all you need up there. Fish Porn Between all 6 of us I have well over 600 photos to choose from. There's absolutely no way I could possibly give a blow by blow account of the action so I'm going to post a sampling of everyone's best. I will say this much though. Both the largest pike (473/4") and the largest walleye (29") were bested by yours truly. Numerous fish over 40" were caught, many in the 42-45" range. These fish were all amazingly fat and I know that a large number of our fish were well over 20lbs. Now on to the porn starting with..... Me This next shot is both Dan and myself. We put two huge pike, one 45", the other 42 in the cradle at the same time. Continued...

Nice fish guys, I'm green with envy. I spent my day unpacking, cutting grass and trimming bushes.

It's known locally as (surprise, surprise) Damascus Lake. It's actually a small reservoir known to have decent bass fishing. Not sure about public access though.

Okay then, so basically anywhere in Canada for any species LOL! Starting in the east I'd take a close look at Minipi lodge in Labrador for giant brook trout: http://www.minipilodges.com/ In Ontario we have many outstanding 5 star fly in lodges for walleye and pike. Here's just a couple I'm familiar with: http://www.esnagami.com/ http://www.leuenberger.ca/kag.htm Manitoba has God's lake and river for trophy fish of several species (walleye, pike, lakers, brook trout) http://www.godsriverlodge.com/ Also in Manitoba is Knee Lake, a trophy pike factory: http://www.northstarresort.ca/ The NWT has the legendary Plummers Lodge on Great Bear lake. Truly 5 star, lots of big lakers and fly outs for char: http://www.plummerslodges.com/ BC has many fine 5 star salmon lodges. This is one of the best: http://www.langara.com/site/?id=4

What species of fish would you prefer? How far are you willing to travel to the jump off point?

Wow, I'm blown away. Incredible.

Sweet dude that's awesome. So, did you get the camera to shoot footage of you holding Mike's fish?

The moustache, right?

Dave that's a thing of beauty! Just gorgeous.

I understand, been through it myself. Great tribute, condolences to you and your family.

Great to see you're doing well buddy. Anytime you want to head north just let me know. (That last pic is amazing)

I'm currently at work at the weather office in Hamilton. I work in the base of the control tower and the controllers almost evacuated when it happened. Personally I thought I was having a heart attack LOL! My compadre from Environment Canada was sitting beside me and he said the closest fault line is in the middle of Lake Ontario. Apparantly it's a filled with contaminated sludge from the Love Canal. Hopefully the quake didn't disturb too much of that crap (if that was indeed the epicentre).

Sounds like a great place to work Dan. Really great photos!

Your mom is an inspiration, great post.

Wow, impressive.

I'm positive that Wayne said this with a grain of salt. Personally I'm not afraid to say I agree with this statement 100%. Good luck in your future venture, I'm sure it'll be a success.

That is exactly right.

Everyone in my group of 6 caught multiple large fish. Water was/is very, very low so we had to adapt to the conditions, but we suceeded in a big way. It's going to take some time to properly put together a fitting report, but most will be blown away.

It takes a lot to truly impress me, and man you did it. That is beyond outstanding, Gierach-esque in fact.

Semantics

Actually Phil you're incorrect. The Leafs are tied with both the Kings and Blues now for the longest cup drought. 42 years and counting. They've got a ways to go to best the record. I believe the Rangers went 54 years before winning in '94.