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Accessing it This was meant to be the” year of the fly in” to celebrate Kev’s 50th, but things didn’t pan out so we were road trippin’ – like the old days when we did the T-bay runs together in the truck. We had some unanticipated delays due to lighting issues . My mechanic across the street obligingly provided us with 2 replacement fuses au gratis, and we were off – an hour behind schedule before we started. We hit weekend traffic on the 400 between Major Mac and 26 – on Friday - at 2:00? Our target for day 1 of travel had been Hearst, but with the sun setting and moose potential on the next stretch, we decided to bunk up at the left hand turn on 11. Had supper at “La’s Chinese Restaurant”. A great guy, with good eats and cold beer. His fortune cookies are priceless. I still have mine in my wallet “” a tub and a rub will change your day”. It started to rain as we hit the sack, Chinese food and Canadian beers settling in our bellies. 6 hours later it was still drizzling and overcast. We fueled, coffee’d and evacuated, and headed west. It rained. Not continuously, but every 30 minutes or so; sometimes heavy, sometimes not; often a deluge. I’m thinking – didn’t the weather do this to me on my trip with G? Can I not get ANY slack here. We pass through towns on the map, and “places-not-on- a- map” I vaguely remember from 20 + years ago. They may have added a house or two. It’s good to travel again. Stretches of trees that last for miles, whole or burned brief but depressing snatches of clear-cutting. Logs piled higher than houses . Visions, dreams and energies, abandoned, decrepit and ignored After a few hours, road 801 shows up; little more than a truck exit sign on one side of the road, and a small green road ID sign on the other. This is it – 14 hours of drive to get here. Now – 45 ks of logging / access road. That rain? It was here too. Lots. And Lots. Kev was driving “ Dude you gotta slow down – this boat’ n’ this road ... WHAM!” Pothole from hell. We look out back. NOT liking what I see. A strap broke the boat bounced and we are off centre, bad. A bunk has flipped. Chinese fire engine time. Knew I had all those tools and jacks for a reason ! After a 30 minute task we reset and I take the wheel. If something else is going sidesways let it be my fault. 45 ks is a long way at 20 – 30 k. But the views made it easier. Finally we arrived. As we pulled into a camp an angler came out of the woods, rod in hand, yellow grub on the line – no fish.... A quick 360 and a check in. Down the path to scope the water. Serious blow out. Not so much chocolate milk, as tea with 4 milks and no sugars racing down the waterway. Hmmmmm. Looks like she could be a tough go the next few days. We walk back to the cottage. There’s 4 guys next door who look like they been here before . Brief intros and yup, they have been coming here for THIRTY years. After some chats (and discovering one of the brothers was from Kitchener of all places) we headed to our shack to unpack The residents say it will be Tuesday before the river is fishable, and the groups here last week -well, between wind and rain, they got almost 0 fishing in. Perspective. Forecast says it will clear. Exploring it. Day 1 on the water – The river is blown and its late afternoon by the time we get settled in unpacked and the boat rigged. We ran the river and disturbed about 10 bald eagles . We reached the river mouth, not knowing what to expect despite looking on Google earth for hours .We check out a couple spots for a few hours with not much to show for it other than a couple small pike. Given the weather, we’re not surprised. Found an awesome weed bed that will play a prominent role in our daily explorations, and later produce some of the richest fruits of our week long hunting. We head up river as dusk approaches and settle in for some more prep and house warming. Day 2– Search and Identify Its 4 degrees outside. Gee, we packed for that We wake up, none too early after last night’s cabin warming, and make more lure adjustments (single barbless only ). Intense work for first thing in he morning. Makes for brusied fingernails and piles of treble hooks in the plano boxes. Why rush, given the river and NE winds. The questions buzz through our minds with our morning coffees - What do these waters hold, where do these fish go at dawn, 10, noon, 2:00 etc. The ride to the river is 10 miles, and THEN you run to the fishing grounds – so we have brekkie (I don’t as a rule) and pack a lunch. We crossed the shallows, through the walleye hole. Turned the corner, and there she was.......................... mythical and revered lake Nipigon. By week’s end I would be one of her ardent fans We came for northern’s – each of us with the desire to boat a 40+ incher. Brookies are the other target, and of course walleyes are always welcome. So our initial day starts about 5 miles from the river mouth along a gravel / rock shore. After a couple fruitless hours of fishing we find a bay and Kev gets a hit. Nothing for the record books, but we got our first one; we troll back over the spot and I get a hit. This one is no pike, no walleye, you can tell by the fight. A couple minutes later I am rewarded with a beaut. 22” of lake Nip speck. Next troll down, Kev gets one slightly smaller. Those are our rewards the first day – along with the amazing scenery. We head home with waypoint and an idea as to colours, speeds and the type of locations. 3 brookies and a whack of pike. A mayfly hatch has just happened - I guess they are augustflies in Nipigon; the water surface is covered in their live and dead bodies. – 2nd road trip for me this year with a hatch in process while I am there. Day 3 – An exercise in frustration. There’s something different in the air today. The winds are coming from a different direction, the clouds are less heavy. On the recommendation of the lifers next door, we decide to run down to another lake 8 ks down the road. Meant to be a killer walleye spot. A tricky boat launch, some awesome sunrise shots, and a lot of time on the water produce disappointingly little. Others had better luck than us, but given what was available in Nip and the river, I would not repeat this adventure. I got a white stripe, Kev got a couple pike. Skunking after travelling over 1200ks is bitter, smelly and a source of vast disappointment. Forgetting to put your sunscreen on at the same time just makes it burn all the more. Those who stayed on Nipigon were rewarded: tales of large tailed fish being caught began to trickle in from the other cabins. Day 4 - Building on the lessons learned; The Wolf Pack comes to the buffet The day dawns warmer. A pattern begins that will stay with us for the rest of the trip. One of us will be out catching the other each morning. We can be running the same thing or different presentation, be on the inside or outside of the boat. One will be hot in the morning while the other is “Net Man”. Then the slow down period of early afternoon for both of us, and the other one of us will start to bang them off; then we will start getting equal action. By the end of the day, we both have memorable moments to speak of. The day we are about to experience will be one burned in our minds for a long time. The winds are still making for a bit of a bouncy ride on the lake. With all the rock faces and islands, the wind and waves don’t come from any one direction: the winds swirl and the waves feel like liquid hands wrapping around the boat, trying to corkscrew it on a constantly changing plane: thank you double console for that wind and water break. We pick up on the shoreline where we left off – it is meant to switch from Pike to Brookie water after a period. Kev is mesmerised by the brookies, and wants to best my 22 incher. Again we troll for hours. No brookies today (in the boat any way, I am sure I lost one halfway through the day). We identify a few more patterns. Trolling in 10 foot of water that becomes 3 feet instantaneously all the while with the wind blowing us toward shore is a source of constant vigilance. When you hook a fish you immediately turn away from shore. You are alone out here. Really alone. You can be 20 miles from the camp and not see another boat all day, or the next....... The VHF probably won’t reach much given line of sight limitations. Cell phones? Heck they weren’t working on highway 11. We talk about that from time to time. We watch boulders bigger than our boat that shoot up to just about prop height as we troll in 9 – 12 FOW. We bang off some more pike. After a frustrating day of fighting winds and catching pike of amazing strength and alacrity, but not of the size we wanted, we decide to head back to the weed beds we have found off the islands at the rivers mouth. We troll around the first with quantity coming out to play, but little quality. We cruise the gap between the two and I thread the needle between a very small rock pile with trees on it and the main island. I toss my lure and WHAM, the St Croix turns into a taught sprung semi-circling, wildly dancing as the line screams out, reels in screams again. Kevin tosses his spoon and receives a similar greeting. For an hour it was insane. Every cast brought a big fat hungry and incredibly energetic pike to the boat. They were even nailing spoons on the surface that were covered with weeds. We each got a couple of bruisers – me getting my PB lengthwise and Kev getting his PB weight wise. These fish are outstanding in girth, and their colours. After an hour it started to slow down and the size of the fish began to diminish. We sat down to catch our breaths, laugh and high five. No 40’s were found, but that was an unmatched session in our fishing careers. A brave and wounded soldier (untested before this day - we wore his battle scars well, but lost his weapon on the very next fish the next day, in the net) We went to grab a few walleye for supper and headed in, finally having cracked some of the code and getting a reward for our efforts. . Day 5 – Brookie and Laker hunting. 10 miles of river; 8 miles of lake. This lake is deep, and has amazing rises. In just over a mile or two we went over two humps that come up to 80 FOW, surrounded by 200, 300 and 400 depths. Laker hunting grounds for the afternoon. This morning is rock strewn shorelines on distant islands. Vigilance is the word of the day. We find no brookies, and no lakers despite our best efforts. We head back to some known productive spots and get our fill. The most memorable part of this day is scenery – above the water and below the water. I toss a spinner in the river and am rewarded with a nice walleye. Then the mossies come out to feast and we high tail it to the cabin Day 6 Pike Pike Walleye Walleye, golden beauty, Fat beast Today is my turn to be the morning man. Kev is Netty. We are looking for walleye under 18 inches to keep – we both have our one allowable over 18 incher. I am nailing them every 20 minutes, and all nice sizes. Mixed in are some pike. Then I get another beauty 22 inch brookie, and we stop for a shore lunch... The wind is strong again today and we decide to have day to revist our first days haunts and then we head back to the river mouth. I cruise a weedbed three times, in both directions. Each time I get a nice walter – Kev, zip. His frustration is floating over the boat like a cloud of black flies. We round a point my rod slams back and I see a never before witnessed sight – this guy must have hit it at an angle going the other direction because he comes fully out of the water and does a belly roll. After a decent fight I bring him aboard. My heaviest ever, and what a bruiser – I can’t get my hands around it. As I sit down and take the helm again I am saying a prayer in my head – come on fish – its Kev’s turn. A couple minutes later “THAT”S a fish!” and Kev lands his PB 27.5 golden beaut Woo hooo – and thank you lady Nipigon for answering my prayer. He then nails two more decent pike in the 30 inch range, and then another “ That’s a FISH”. And reels in this beast of a 36” – matching my fish for length. We visit the walleye hole, bang off a few more and some jumbo perch and then call her a night. More smiles, high fives and lots of fish for a good feed Upon returning to the lodge the river has returned to its normal conditions – and looks prime. Guys who stayed on the river were killing the walleye - 50 fish day with some trophies in the mix apparently. One claims to have landed a 39” pike but we don’t get to see it. Day 7 – They find us, and leave us flapping in the water. Last chance for the big girls we came to find. The old timers said if you are hunting for the beasts of the lake – use big lures (think Muskie) and at least 12 inch wire leaders. We didn’t have either. But we had 6 inch lures and 9 inch wire leaders. We troll some. Lots and lots of pike in the 30 inch range again – to the point where its like catching a snot rocket down here – land him, release him, re-set. Kevin stands up ‘ Holy s....” That was a 7 inch spoon, and a leader. Snag? No – Pike _ I saw him swirl open his mouth and inhale the whole thing!. Hmm guess we found the hunting grounds. 10 minutes later I look at my rod – no tension. Pull it in – all gone. I suffered the same fate. We ended our day more or less on that note. The Lady Nipigon teasing us with our desired quarry, and teaching us how little we know of her ways. I view it as an invitation to come back, and I will be.. A few shots of note as a final sign off. And a quick note of thanks to the guy from the garage in Jellicoe, who helped out when others could have but wouldn’t. Restored my faith and made the trip home stress free and possible.