solopaddler

Was informed earlier today by OOD that Jim Derro has won the fly in trip contest. Congrat's Jim! Not sure if Jim is a member here or not, but regardless I'll be touching base with him soon. Big thanks to OFC for allowing me to pin this, it was greatly appreciated!

I'm sure you can't. Should be a fun trip next week bud.

Wrong, not even close.

If we'd have actually had to shoot the bear I'm sure we'd have found out. Needless to say there is a story here and nobody will be hearing it LOL!

We caught two fish in a shallow bay (one was on the video I posted). The other 4 were caught dragging an air injected nightcrawler and a Lindy sinker in deep water. I also made some custom worm harnesses for brook trout with hammered #2 copper blades. I ran those behind 11/2-2oz bottom bouncers all over deep structure. Really thought that'd work, but it didn't. There was virtually no sign of life in the lake, no minnows in the shallows, no fish rising, no bugs.... Pretty typical scenario for such cold water.

I’ve spent much of my adult life in pursuit of brook trout, either paddling and portaging into back lakes, exploring rivers in the far north by canoe, or oftentimes flying into small outpost camps. The north shore of Superior, specifically the area centered around Wawa and White River has been a favoured destination. It’s rugged country with high rolling hills and sparkling natural trout lakes that rarely get fished. My dad and uncle started taking me on trips to this region as a really young boy and they instilled a real love for it in me. I’ve flown into numerous trout lakes in that area over the years, in fact most of them. The notable exception being Air Dale’s Missing Lake outpost camp. Missing Lake is a small spring fed gem close to the southern boundary of Pukaskwa National Park. It’s staggeringly beautiful, as pretty a landscape as any you’ll see in Ontario and a trip there is worth it for that reason alone. I just returned last week from a trip to Missing Lake. I had the chance to fish it for a few days with my young son Brendan which made things even more special. It was only a 4 day trip and for the first time ever we were stuck at the airbase in Wawa for almost two full days because of weather. We were supposed to fly in early Wed morning and ultimately flew in at 6pm on Thursday. Frustrating, but what can you do? We spent many hours on the beach in Wawa waiting for the weather to clear. Brendan did enjoy it though. He made me buy him a native head dress and he played for hours on the beach with it. (I was attacked numerous times HAHA!) When we finally made it in we had just enough time to unpack, settle in, light a fire and cook some dinner before settling in for the night. Fishing would have to wait for the next day. There was still tons of snow in the bush and even some mushy ice on the lake in a couple of back bays. We were there not long after ice out and water temps hovered between 41 and 43 degrees. That made for VERY tough fishing! Missing is a deep lake with one basin reaching over 80’. It hadn’t turned over yet and the vast majority of the fish were still deep and simply not feeding. In 11/2 days of fishing we managed to eke out 6 quality fish which personally I thought was a miracle. There are some dandies in the lake though, at one point a huge fish easily in the 5lb class rushed in at my sons lure then turned at the last second. I saw it as clear as day. We marked a ton of fish down deep in 30 plus feet of water adjacent to various structure. There’s no doubt in my mind that this lake would fish much differently a bit later in the spring or perhaps in September. For that reason alone I’ll be going back! I put together a short video of our trip, hope you guys enjoy! And here’s a few more photos of the excursion. All in all even though we were set back by the weather and tough conditions, anytime I can spend time with my boy, just the two of us, that makes the trip a huge success. We had a blast and there’s no doubt we’ll be back again.

Had nothing to do with the polar bear. It's a great story but not for public consumption.

The draw is on June 2nd, this is your last chance to enter a really great contest! Good luck to all, I'll be contacting the contest winner myself next week after the magazine informs them they've won.

Without getting into any details, the Sutton River pops to mind.

Great stuff Edwin!

Agreed, but the nature of the river calls for streamers I think.

That sounds amazing! Would love to do that trip with my wife.

God's River is a huge powerful river bud, I would be fishing it with an 8 weight for sure. These kinds of streamers are so big and bushy you need a powerful stick to cast them. Also you're going to need to get yourt fly down fast in that current so a fast sink tip is needed. An even better system is a regular WF8WT floating line used in conjunction with a sinking leader. Perfect for your application is the Versileader's made by RIO. 12' length with a sink rate of 7 IPS is exactly what you need. You run a short section (maybe 2') of heavy tippet off the end of the versileader to your fly. 10lb Maxima Ultragreen is perfect. Do you have the sex dungeon in white? They like white.

I also have a pair of Keen hiking boots for bushwhacking. For fishing in a boat or where there's little walking involved I have a pair of insulated Bogs rubber boots. I probably wear those 70% of the time.

Flies that is. Big thanks to young Christopher K on the board for tying me up a large batch of big meaty zoo cougar streamer flies. I have a couple of trips on tap this year for big river brook trout and the fish in those big northern rivers love these flies! He tied them in 3 colours for me, white, olive and tan and did a superlative job. Thanks again Chris I'm sure I'll put them to good use!

Great stuff Simon! Sure didn't take the loons very long to arrive.

I know from experience zebra mussels will slice through braid like crazy. I'm guessing you're still fishing on the bottom? You might want to try fishing with a float. Assuming you have it set at the right depth, problem solved.

Pack them in a container with worm bedding, preferably the Frabil brand or something similar that's made out of shredded newsprint. (Not the Magic worm bedding, it's just as messy as dirt) Make sure they're in a large enough container and not overcrowded. I use a small cooler to store my worms in on fly in trips. Keep them in the shade and as Dave said if need be drape a sopping wet towel over the container. Evaporation works. Bring smaller boxes for use in the boat and only take what you need each day from the big container. I've been on countless fly ins and never once have I had to refrigerate worms or keep them on ice. And that includes many trips in the middle of summer when it's boiling hot and humid.

http://www.countrybait.com/Who_Fishing_Bait_Nightcrawlers.html

Actually in many cases you can tell by looking at the fish, or at least make an educated guess. If the original poster had done nothing other than post a pic of the fish I'd have thought "nice splke".

Beauty fish, congrat's! I'll say splake as well.

Years back I was deep in the interior of Pukaskwa National Park camped on a small brook trout lake with my girlfriend at the time. We were lying on a beach with the canoe pulled up right beside us on our left. All I could hear was waves and wind, but just as things were about to get "interesting" she says she hears something. "No you don't" says I. She stands up and says "There's a bear walking right at us!" "No there isn't" I say laughing. At that point she kicked me as hard as she could in the ribs. I stand up and there's a small black bear about 20' away frozen looking at us. "Don't move" I whisper, "I want to get my camera!". It was 20' to my left near the firepit. As I'm reaching for the camera she grabs a can of bear spray which I didn't even know she had and unloads it in a panic directly at my head. My screams of agony ultimately scared away the bear. Worst part was she refused to camp there anymore so we had to pack up and leave and we had just got there. Women!

Don't think I told you about this one Chris.

Looks like a great trip, and I'm glad that my recommendation ultimately paid off for you guys!

Soaking the logs with naptha gas makes the process even more efficient.