Walleyes Gone Wild! A Father And Son Fly In Trip With Hearst Air

[solopaddler]

 

Recently I was looking to bring my 6 year old son Brendan on a trip, just the two of us. While the kid's already a veteran of these types of trips, never before have we gone alone. I thought it was long overdue as the lad has already fostered a fierce passion for the sport and from experience it's a perfect way to bond.

So the question was where to go? Within the last year I've flown twice with Hearst Air. Once to the Sutton river late last August, truly the experience of a lifetime, and again in May when my group flew into their new outpost camp on the Attawapiskat river. Both trips were flawless with the overriding theme being the friendliness and professionalism of Hearst Air Service.

What makes Hearst even more of an attractive option, the drive from southern Ontario straight up highway 11 is relatively painless and short. With only 4 nights available for this trip Hearst is at my driving limit. Any further and a shorter trip just isn't worth the long haul.

So what constitutes the perfect destination when bringing along a 6 year old boy? In an ideal world a smaller lake that's easy to figure out that teems with fish. Non stop action is what it's all about.

Second, the camp has got to be clean and neat and the equipment top notch.

Third, and this is many times a stretch even on a fly in, my son LOVES fishing by himself off the dock. Ideally we'd fly to a location where he could do that with success.

Talking with Melanie at Hearst Air she suggested their Sunshine lake outpost would fit all the criteria. It's their smallest outpost lake, but as she said is full of fish with the bonus being a surprising number of larger pike. Hearst Air has gained the reputation of being a first class outfitter over the years and for good reason. They never take shortcuts. It was an easy decision for me to book Sunshine for our trip, and the planning and anticipation began!

Arriving at the airbase we had a slight weather related delay, but that was short lived. With the word from Melanie that things were a go we quickly unloaded our gear. In no time at all it was weighed and packed in the plane with military precision, these guys are efficient and good!

Because it was just the two of us I'd packed a little differently than I normally do, wanting the trip to be extra special for the kid. Stuff I would normally never bring like cases of bottled water and his favorite pop. I know for a fact I was more than a little overweight, but no one blinked an eye, it all went on the plane with no extra charge. One of many reasons why I'm so high on this particular outfitter.



My boy was practically vibrating with excitement when the pilot snapped this pic on the plane's pontoon prior to boarding.

 

 

It's about a 35-40 min flight into Sunshine from the airbase and I shot this cool video of our landing as we approached. As you'll see near the end of the video, regardless of excitement, the drone of a float plane has a soothing quality when it comes to young kids.

 

The second we tied off at the dock Bren scrambled out of the plane asking if he could check out the cabin.

The pilot and I quickly unloaded and I took stock of the scene. It really was a pretty spot set back in a grove of cedars with neatly trimmed grass out in front. Best of all the dock looked incredible.

A narrow spit of sand led out into the lake with a boardwalk on top. That terminated at a big granite rock with a brand new floating dock tied off in front. It was an obvious piece of structure and one that I'd have fished regardless.





The pilot spent a few minutes going over the ins and outs of the camp and was soon gone, leaving us to our own devices (and a whole lot of fish!) Not surprisingly Brendan begged me to rig up a rod for him and while I unpacked he ran down to the dock. It didn't take long....

The dock would quickly become his favorite spot. Beyond the ease of catching fish I think he liked it because he was a little more independent than in the boat with dad.

That said it didn't take me long to ready the boat and we began the enslaught. Enslaught truly is the only way to describe the fishing we had. It was non stop action, catching walleye after walleye. None were huge but that didn't matter, Bren was having the time of his life!

Yes there were some key spots that produced crazy numbers, but the fact of the matter is we caught fish all over this small lake. Didn't really matter what we used either, the fish weren't fussy.

 

 

 

 

I even caught one or two myself.

 

 

As mentioned the camp itself was a gem. Once on the water during a rare clear break I snapped a quick pic to show you guys the setting.

 

 

It was a long but memorable first day. Around 8pm I poured a drink and fired up the barbeque, while Brendan, God bless him, refused to give up.

I watched from the deck while the kid continued to fish away happily. Every few minutes he'd come running up excitedly with another fish that he couldn't unhook. Does it get any better than that?

 

It would quickly get redundant if I posted pictures of every single fish we caught over the course of the next few days, so here's the highlights.

The easiest and most productive way to catch Sunshine lake walleye is with a simple jig, a 3 or 4 inch twister tail and a chunk of worm. Either sitting on them and vertically jigging, drifting with the wind or slowly trolling, it all worked.

When we tired of jigging we'd throw on a crankbait and troll with equal success. There's a large population of perch in this lake and perch colored cranks, especially a #7 Shad Rap was lethal.

As mentioned there's lots of pike in Sunshine lake. The south and west shorelines were shallower and reedy in tight, quickly dropping into 10-12' of water just offshore. These areas were rife with smaller pike.

Casting weedless spoons as well as smaller sized spinnerbaits and bucktails the action was steady.

 

Here's a few more vids of the action. Crankbaits as noted, were deadly and put a ton of fish in the boat!

We used Berkley Gulp minnows at times with great results, although I don't really know whether that's actually relevant or not. I'm pretty sure we could've used shoelaces or beer caps with equal success.

In this clip Brendan struggles a bit with the unhooking part, but gets the job done in his own way.

 

As usual anytime we were back at camp Brendan fished relentlessly from the dock. I could have taken a thousand pic's and video clips of his antics, but here's just one.








We enjoyed a couple of meals of walleye and for the first time I had him fillet his own fish (with some help). He breaded the fish himslf then helped dad get the fire lit. I honestly think he had more fun doing that than anything else!

Nothing beats freshly caught walleye over an open fire. Of all the things he's been bragging about to his mom and sister, catching, cleaning and cooking his own fish was the biggest highlight.


Of course it wasn't all about the fishing. Blessed with mostly sunny weather we spent a fair bit of time at the lakes only beach cooling off.

Best part was we had a constant breeze which really kept the bugs down. It was as close to paradise on earth as I believe it's possible to get.

Another highlight was Brendan's very first time on the tiller by himself with no help from dad. We were trolling at the time and probably caught a dozen fish in the short time he was at the helm. As he said "Daddy, I'm a better fisherman than you I think!"

He also loved fishing from shore whenever the opportunity presented itself. As mentioned I think he felt a little more independent when he wasn't in the boat with dad. Pretty much everywhere we tried from shore we caught fish, although none of the spots produced as well as the dock.

Twice we had campfires, roasting marshmallows and discussing important things like why fish like to eat leeches.

"Even if I was a fish I wouldn't eat them daddy, they're gross!"

Whether there's a bear watching him when he goes to the outhouse. He was convinced there was and subsequently refused to go to the bathroom for two straight days.

And where does the sun go at night?. That was a big one that he couldn't wrap his head around. HAHA!

One morning I awoke early at 6:45 and made coffee. It was the only really peaceful sunrise we had while at Sunshine as most of the time the winds were blowing like crazy.

As I sauntered out onto the porch coffee in hand, Brendan burst past me racing down to the dock to begin fishing again. While he didn't catch a fish on cue, it's still a beautiful scene nonetheless.

As I've said there's a healthy population of pike in Sunshine lake as well as some larger specimens to boot. We put in our time trying hard for a bigger pike and twice I had high 30's possibly even 40" class fish on.

Just before I shot this video clip of Brendan a very large pike came unbuttoned right at boatside, so the big girls are indeed lurking in the weedy fringes.

An interesting phenomenon was the abundance of loons. I've seen large concentrations of them before, but usually it's in September as they begin to gather enmasse before migrating south. A couple of times I counted over 20 of them clustered together, and they were really vocal!

 

 

On our last evening the winds subsided and we were treated to a picture perfect sunset providing a glorious capper to our trip.

 

 

All in all it was a trip for the ages, and one that I know Brendan will remember for a long time.

The amazing fishing aside there were a number of important firsts on this trip and my son did me proud!

Speaking of fishing I'm not normally into actual numbers, but in this case I'll make an exception for Brendan.

He took it upon himself to try and keep count using paper and pencil, and according to him we landed more than a years worth of fish in 31/2 days of fishing. 368 to be exact.

Sunshine more than lived up to its billing!


The camp itself was absolutely spotless, clean and fresh. I shot this short video tour and not unexpectedly my kid burst inside halfway through with a jigless rod. A pike had bitten him off while I was filming. Perfect.

Finally a big thanks to Melanie Veilleux of Hearst Air. She's been an absolute pleasure to deal with over the last few trips!

On a related note if any of you guys do decide to book with Hearst, please remember that Melanie is partial to dark chocolate...


I've done a great many fly in trips over the years, and flown with countless outfitters. Some are good, some are bad, some are great, and some are just ugly.


Hearst Air falls into the category of great, I honestly can't say enough good things about them!



Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed!



Cheers, Mike

Edited July 26, 2013 by Mike Borger

[bare foot wader]

another awesome report!! looks like one heck of a time

 

that is a very impressive looking camp too

[jimmer]

Great report Mike. You're truly living the dream!

[bigcreekdad]

You are a special Dad.

[BillM]

Soon the kid is going to be taking over the driving duties full time!!! Then you can just sit back and relax! Great report man!

[beerman]

AWESOME!

[Lunkerhunter]

Hey Mike, i have a daughter less than 1 year old and this report truly gives me inspiration to make sure i do things like this with her as she grows older.

 

Your report are always top notch and i really look forward to reading them. that seemed to be an experience both you and your son will never forget.

 

thanks for taking the time to share it with us.

[DRIFTER_016]

Looks like great fun buddy!!!

[adempsey]

Awesome looking trip. Thanks for sharing it with us! I really appreciate all the great photos and videos of the outpost as well. Most outfitters just can't seem to get that part right. Keep it up for all us less fortunates!

[davey buoy]

Mike,great report,kinda remindes me of when I was young and my gramps use to take me away 3 times a year fishing.No fly ins.He would always say he would never fly with a member of the family incase something went wrong.Mind you that was 40 odd years ago.Great to see your son getting the itch big time !!!!

[Moosebunk]

I still think bears are watching when I pee in the woods.

 

Great report Pops. Way to spoil the kid in a fish factory.

 

Another thumb way up for Hearst. Solid outfitter.

[bronzeback]

Fantastic Mike. You get my vote for Dad of the year. Thanks for sharing.

[TJQ]

Fantastic report Mike. Those early trips are very special.

[donovac]

I remember my older brother talking about trips he had with our Dad. He'll never forget.

 

Great report.

[misfish]

SUPERB REPORT MIKE

 

PRICELESS.

Edited July 25, 2013 by Misfish

[solopaddler]

Thanks for the kind words guys, really glad you liked!

 

Regarding my post, and this is mostly directed at TJ, there's a couple of minor spelling things I wanted to edit. The last time I tried to edit a big post last month I lost everything and had to start from scratch. I want to edit it, but I'm terrified to try LOL!

Any idea if that glitch has been fixed?

 

 

 

 

Soon the kid is going to be taking over the driving duties full time!!! Then you can just sit back and relax! Great report man!

 

Buddy I can only wish. He's only 6, 10 years is a long time...

[Big Cliff]

This is probably one of the best "fishing" related posts I have ever read! Any kid would be proud to have you for his dad. Any dad would be proud to have a kid like Brendan for a son.

 

Good for both of you and If I was booking a fly in trip my first call would be to Hearst Air.

[gordy28]

Awesome post - looks like a great trip and great bonding time

Reminds me of being a kid and being out with my Dad and Grandfather - I love fishing off the dock or under the bridge...

The detail that you (and lots of others on the site) go into is great - and really helps for others looking to do a trip.

Plus its a great way to enjoy a late afternoon coffee

Cheers

Gordty

 

[Ainsley]

Great report. My son just had his first birthday two weeks ago and I cannot wait until he is old enough to go on trips like this.

[craigdritchie]

That was really great ... good job, Dad. Those are memories he will have for the rest of his life.

 

I'll wager you had fun too

[ketchenany]

timestamp="1374782336"]Fantastic Mike. You get my vote for Dad of the year. Thanks for sharing.

 

 

X2

[Whopper]

Bravo Mike

Fantastic report and thanks for sharing

[jim]

LUCKY KID!!

[Ralph Field]

another awesome report!! looks like one heck of a time

 

that is a very impressive looking camp too

I can't say it any better !

[spinnerdoc]

The shots of Brendan by the docks fishing are quite a sight Mike. This must have been an amazing trip for both of you

Thanks for sharing