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The hinterland north of the rail town Nakina, Ontario has been drawing anglers from all over the world for generations. There are no roads north of Nakina and the only means of access is either by bush plane or pack and paddle. Its lakes and rivers teem with overgrown pike, walleye and trout and it’s been a favourite jump off point of mine for a long, long time. Brace Lake Outfitters located a short flight north of Nakina has been on my radar recently and there’s an interesting history behind the camp itself. It was built in 1927 by a private group of American’s as their own personal angling playground. In its early years notable guests such as Henry Ford, Thomas Edison and Walter Firestone visited its shores. One can only imagine how much more difficult the journey was back then. It was held by the same group until 1968 when it was purchased and became a commercial operation called King’s Cabins. King’s operated until 1993 before finally giving up the ghost, the owners getting old and business wasn’t what it used to be. The camp sat vacant until 2008 when current owners Kyle and Teri Polesky purchased it. A friendly, dynamic young couple, they’ve poured their hearts and souls into the camp and the results have been astounding. They started from nothing, completely refurbishing the camp and building a brand new spectacular main lodge. Of course it’s fishing that sells and since they’ve opened their doors they’ve averaged between 160-200 pike caught per year OVER 40”! No matter where in the world you go those are some pretty amazing numbers. Walleye fishing, not surprisingly is stupid good. They’re everywhere and seemingly hit anything. This watershed stand out though because of its sheer size. Brace lake and the adjoining Meta and Ara Lakes have a combined 250 miles of shoreline to explore and fish. You could spend a lifetime fishing its waters and never really learn all of its nuances. I had four days to figure things out - talk about pressure! Did you bring your woolies? As most of these trips do, this one began with a long drive from my hometown of Hamilton, Ontario. It was sweltering hot when we left and I was wearing shorts, flip-flops and a t shirt. Big mistake. We picked up my good friend Doug Kruger in Barrie along with his wonderful young son Kosmo. They’d be joining myself and my boy Brendan on this long anticipated father-son adventure. By the time we hit Hearst I thought I was hallucinating. “What’s that white stuff Doug - is it snow”?? “Hope you brought your woolies” he said eyeing my light summer beach wear. It was crazy. By the time we reached Nakina that evening the temperature was hovering around 3 degrees celsius and a light blanket of snow covered everything. A far cry from the humid 25 celsius back home. Regardless it’s impossible to dampen the boundless enthusiasm of two young boys and we happily checked into our digs for the night: A cabin operated by Nakina Air Service right on Cordingly Lake. We could actually see our plane from the deck of our cabin which was pretty cool. Great spot and awesomely convenient! The next morning dawned clear and cold - there was actually ice in the puddles along the ground. Fortunately I did bring warm clothes with me and all of us were bundled up pretty good as we ambled over to the dock and weigh scale at 6:30am. Our flight in was scheduled for 7:15, so we set about unloading and piling everything onto the large carts that Nakina Air uses to pull onto their scales. In short order we were cleared and the dock staff began the task of loading the Otter. With controlled excitement we boarded the plane and after taxiing up the lake for a couple of minutes to warm up the plane we took off with a roar and were airborne enroute to Brace Lake. It was a beautiful clear morning and the view was almost crystalline as we skimmed north passing a myriad of sparkling blue waters. Snow was everywhere in the bush and it was evident that winter had returned albeit briefly. How that would affect the fishing time would tell, but in my experience fish can still be caught post cold front - you just need to adapt. I shot this short video of the flight in… It’s not a long flight, maybe 15 minutes. It seemed as if we just got up in the air and we were already starting our descent. Poring over the top maps at home it was cool to see the topography I’d studied so intently at home from the air. So much of the water looked good, it begged the question “where do we start?” That’s what was running through my head as we landed and taxied up the lodge. Stepping off the plane we were immediately greeted warmly by Kyle and Teri Polesky along with their infant son Novak - the next generation of outfitters. In short order Kyle hauled all of our gear over to our cabin with atv and quickly settled us in. It was an impressive facility and my immediate thought was my wife Joanne would like this place. As always there’s a next time. “You don’t need to leave the dock!” That’s what Kyle jokingly said as I asked him where’d he’d recommend we start our search for fish. “The docks are always a hotspot year round, many of our guests catch their biggest fish of the week right in front of us.” We were in the process of rigging up rods and upon hearing that both boys grabbed a spinning rod rigged with a jig and twister and raced down the sloping rock to fish from the promised land. Success was almost instant! Kyle’s words were prophetic as young Kosmo actually did catch a pretty big pike off the dock. Who knew? Even with such amazing dock action there was thousands of acres of water beckoning. I had my eye on a couple of creeks filtering into Brace that were obvious spring pike spots. Loading our boats - gleaming 18’ cedar crafts with brand new 20hp 4 stroke Merc’s - we began the hunt for fish. Right off the bat I was shocked at how stable and comfortable the big wooden boats were. Even more amazing was the speed. My kid is as light as a feather, but even so we managed a respectable 34-35 km’s an hour on my hand held gps! Zooming up the lake we were against the wind and the quiet bays located at the end were calm havens, sheltered from the brunt of the chill north winds. We fished methodically and caught fish on a variety of different baits from Husky Jerks to large soft plastics, jointed swim baits and even flashy spoons and spinnerbaits. I had 4 fish on that first day that I know were 40” plus and every single one of them got unbuttoned! An inauspicious start and I was beginning to wonder if I had angered the fish gods. Still an enormous number of small to mid sized pike were boated along with a ton of walleye (I you asked me how many I couldn’t tell you). Brendan was having the time of his life and was getting jacked up catching even the smallest of snot rockets. Kids are great. Evening we fished the mouth of the channel directly across from the lodge and caught walleye after walleye until hunger pangs drove us in. We’d kept a bunch of eater sized fish and I fried them up that night for everyone in Panko bread crumbs. Perfect end to an almost perfect first day… The search continues… The next day dawned clear and cold, it actually dropped to minus 6 overnight, but the lake was mirror smooth and the sunrise was spectacular. Arising early before anyone else I made a good strong cup of coffee then wandered about the camp snapping photos. When the sun rose the wind picked up and it didn’t abate for the entire day. Gusting at times to almost 50 km’s an hour the lake was whipped into a sea of whitecaps. I’d had some thoughts of going on a long tour to Meta and Ara lakes this day, but there was no way that was happening. The beauty of Brace though is even when it’s crazy windy you can still find protected water to fish including in the wide, slow channel snaking its way from Brace into Meta. We fished the channel hard catching a ton of fish including some pretty decent ones. One memorable moment we trolling large shallow running stickbaits across a wide shallow flat within the channel. There was a well defined deeper slot that snaked its way up the middle and I was attempting to stay on the break. A huge pike exploded on Brendan’s lure way behind the boat moving a ton of water and almost pulling the rod from his hands. Of course we went back to the bays where we’d stung but not landed the larger fish the day before. At one point I saw a massive thick bodied fish in the mid 40 inch range slowly swimming away from the boat. Slowing things right down I switched things up to unweighted plastics and tiny suspending jerk baits attempting to induce a strike. Once again it was to no avail as no huge fish came to hand. Still, by most anyone’s standards the fishing was spectacular even being restricted to calm back waters. I’ll bet me and Bren caught 100 fish that day! At one point in the late afternoon we fished in behind a windswept point in a tiny pocket that was somewhat - but not fully protected from the wind. The wind whipping around the point created almost a current break and pitching plastic jigs into the shallow water we’d get bit every time within seconds of our bait hitting the water. It was the kind of fishing people come to expect in that region. Doug and Kosmo did equally as well and both kids were having a riot - which really is all that matters. Pike-a-palooza ensues! Once again it was clear and cold overnight and the day dawned clear and bright. It seemed as though the conditions were finally favouring us as thankfully the wind died at some point overnight. As usual I rose early with coffee to snap some shots of the camp. Round about 6am I was surprised to hear the roar of a plane landing and taxiing up to the dock. It was a busy flying day and Nakina Air had come in early to pick up another group of anglers who were slated to fly out and head home. It was a glorious sunrise… With such perfect conditions and nice weather forecasted for the day I knew this was my best chance to explore Meta and Ara Lakes. To date we’d had no problems catching walleye but I have a real love for big pike and Brendan feels the same. Being there the first week of the season finding big pike is really a simple matter. They spawn in small bays almost exclusively ones with small creeks filtering in. The warmer creek water and sun warmed shallows attract pike like a magnet and they’ll often hang around these spots for a few weeks before finally dispersing into the main lake. Faced with so much water the key to success is formulating a game plan, eliminating water quickly and sticking with the program. I decided I’d blast right through Meta Lake and start my search on Ara. Of the three lakes Ara is both the largest and the deepest. Combined with the fact it’s full of soft finned forage for large predators it easily has the best big pike potential. Upon entering Ara I began a counter clockwise tour of the entire lake. I’d marked every single creek entering the lake with an X and Bren and I began a milk run hitting each one quickly. Often it was obvious there was no fish. While there was a creek flowing the bottom was too clean comprised of mostly white sand and gravel with zero weed growth. There was literally nothing to hold the fish. In other instances the creek mouths were simply too far away from the main body of the lake. A perfect spring pike bay has four common elements: An inflowing creek, protection from the main lake, dark bottom and directly adjacent to deep water. The large pike like to slip in and out of the shallow bays and often seek comfort in the deeper water nearby. This is critical! Brendan and I fished hard and never deviated from the plan and finally at 2pm we stumbled on the mother lode! Upon entering this particular bay I said to Bren “I’m not sure if there’s giants here, but I guarantee you we’ll catch fish!” It was perfect in every way. I’ve been on a lot of fly in trips over the years, many to some of the finest pike waters in the far north, and never before have I ever experienced anything quite like what ensued. Flat out this was the best day of trophy pike fishing I’ve ever had in my life! Amazing because it was really only a half day - but what a half day it was! My son and I fished from 2 to 8pm finally tearing ourselves away from the spot with regret. It was a 11/2 hour boat ride back to the lodge and I really had no desire to do it in the dark. Rough count was 15 pike over 40” with the two largest taping out at 45. Even more remarkable was somewhere in the neighbourhood of 30 pike between 35-39”! Many were long and skinny and beat up from the spawn but there were plenty of thick backed girthy specimens that almost looked like late summer fish and fought like tigers. It was sheer pandemonium in the boat with Brendan freaking out on almost every cast. The angle of the sun was perfect and the lake was crystal clear allowing us a perfect view into the water. On any given cast 5-6 pike would come swarming in after our lures, some of them scarily big! By the end of our amazing afternoon the boat was covered in pike slime and blood (my hands were shredded), and one of my favourite Legend Elite rods was in splinters. Bren dropped a huge pike as he was holding it for a picture and it thrashed angrily in the boat destroying my rod before it was subdued. Small price to pay though - it’s a day both my son and I will never forget. At this point I’ll let the videos and photo tell the story… 
 Continued....