The trip of a lifetime and now we are back

[Big Cliff]

As many of you know I have been planning this trip for quite a while now. I want to thank Mike and so many of you in helping me research and organizing the trip.

 

We chose Mattice Outfitters and in particular Vick Lake for many reasons, in reading their write up:

 

“Vick Lake is one of the newest single cabin private lakes”, “At Vick Lake we have a new 2 bedroom cabin”, “New Lund boats, New Mercury motors”.” Hot and cold running water” “Hand crafted pine furnishings “ There were other reasons but some of these were key in helping us finalize our decision but we’ll get back to those later.

 

So let’s get down to the trip:

 

After months of thought, planning and advice I had created a detailed menu, planned all the food requirements, prepackaged everything in light weight disposable containers. I had created two boxes where I started assembling everything needed from my end and as I placed each item in one of the boxes I indicated on the list which box it was in so I could be sure nothing was forgotten. Actually it worked out very well.

 

My son and I had reviewed and edited our list of who was going to bring what so that we didn’t have unnecessary duplication, we had it covered! The menu was all approved, “my son has ulcerative colitis so things like beans, spices, corn…. Aren’t the best things for him”, no problem, we planned around that.

 

June 22 took forever to come, that morning I was up at 2:00, showered and dressed and started loading the car by 3:30. I reviewed the list and menu, checked all the weather reports, looked over the map….. anything to kill time. By 8:00 am I couldn’t wait any longer, kissed Sue and headed out the door. (I wasn’t picking my son up in French River until 4:30 that afternoon but I didn’t want to be late LOL) I had prepackaged, vac packed and frozen all our meats and they were packed in the cooler with a layer of ice surrounding them. All the dry goods were packed in plastic bins but I had left the purchase of the vegetables for just prior to picking my son up.

 

We knew we had about 14 hours of driving ahead of us and planned on stopping for a nice dinner on the way so we figured we would be in Armstrong Station about 8 or 9 the morning of the 23. We weren’t scheduled to fly out until the 24, but I wanted some time for us to relax so I had rented a guest cabin for us for the night of the 23.

The trip up was relatively uneventful, we hit rain (lots of rain) fog, saw countless wild life, moose, bears, foxes but we made good time and arrived pretty much as we had planned.

 

We checked in at the air base, paid the balance owing on our trip and got directions to the guest cabin, (turned out it was down the highway a bit and the directions to it were somewhat confusing) it took us about ½ an hour to find it after trying a few side roads but we eventually did. Now if you have never been to Armstrong Station it’s a beautiful but rather basic place, there is one gas station, two restaurants, and not much else. We had asked at the air base about the best place to eat and were told both were about the same but that some people seemed to prefer the one on the back street.

 

We were hungry, by now it was getting close to lunch time so we headed into town. Gayle’s was the first place we saw, it was right on the main street so we decided to get some lunch. I should have known when we walked in it was a bad choice but after being up for almost 30 hours apart from napping in the car….

The cook came out wearing a dirty shirt with a not so clean bandana on his head, they had about three choices of pop, and there was no one else in the place. Two burgers and fries cost almost $30.00 and they weren’t very good. Oh well!

 

We ate and headed back to the guest cabin, it was quite nice, small and basic but clean, by now we were both exhausted so we decided to get some sleep. Naps over, a quick shower, and feeling somewhat refreshed we headed back into town for some supper. This time we decided to try to find the “other” restaurant; much better choice! Food was great, service fantastic, nice clean and prices were reasonable.

 

The morning of the 24^th, we had been told to be at the air base at 9:00 am, up early, everything ready, we headed back into town for breakfast then off to the air base. We had been told our flight was booked for 9:00 am. We got there about 15 minutes early and were told they were behind schedule by about two hours so have a coffee and wait. Finally about 12:00 we loaded up the plane and headed out.

 

Our pilot, Oliver was wonderful, a nice young man about 20, this was his first year with Mattice but he had spent a year doing similar work in Kenora the previous year. The scenery was beautiful, nothing but lakes and trees for as far as you could see in any direction. It was about an hour flying time and Oliver kept us at about 2500’ so we could see plenty of detail. For about the first half hour we would see the odd logging road but after that we didn’t even see an ATV trail. Remote is what we wanted, remote is what we got!

 

It was a little after 1:00 when we got to the camp, there was a couple there with their two grandsons. As we were unloading our gear I had a chance to have a quick chat with them, he kindly indicated on our lake map where there were some rocks that didn’t show up on the map and a few spots where they had caught fish. They also mentioned that the cabin was infested with mice, they had caught 15 of them in two days (note to self, add mouse traps to the next list of things to bring).

 

Our gear unloaded, theirs loaded, a very quick tour of the cabin and Oliver was off. We hauled our gear up to the cabin, grabbed our rods and we were off. I’ll start with the good stuff:

 

The fishing was nuts, I’ve never seen anything like it in my life, as we were pulling away from the dock I flipped my jig into the water and almost instantly it was fish on! For the 4 ½ days we were there that didn’t change, double headed after double header, I don’t think there was a span of more than 5 minutes that one of us didn’t have a hit or a fish and it didn’t seem to matter what we put in the water although those jigs I got from Bruce tipped with a white or yellow twister tail seemed to be the best choice. By the end of the second day both of us had sore arms from fighting fish, what an incredible feeling!

 

Most of the walleye were in the 2 to 4 lb range and fought like fish twice their size, they were nice solid fat fish and very clean looking. The pike were all over the place too and they seemed to range in size from 2-5 lbs although we did have one monster grab a 3 lb walleye right off our stringer at the dock. We didn’t get to measure him but he wouldn’t even come close to fitting in our net.

 

After we got back to the cabin on our first day I got the brochure out, I was wondering if I had read it wrong or something or had I confused it with another facility: “one of the newest single cabin private lakes”? “At Vick Lake we have a new 2 bedroom cabin” it was obvious that this was anything but new, in fact I found out later that Don had bought this from another outfitter about 16 years ago.

“New Lund boats, New Mercury motors” well actually the folding seats looked fairly new and there were three Mercury motors there, a 2003, a 2004, and a 2005. I guess they were new once but that isn’t quite what the brochure said.

 

The boats were pulled up on shore not on ramps as shown in the pictures, I’m 71 and it was quite a struggle for my son and I to get the boat into the water and once we did we found out that the motor ran but not well.

 

My son is a marine mechanic and diagnosed the problem within a couple of minutes “mid range lean cough” solution pull the carb and clean it but without tools we just had to live with it. When I mentioned it to the handy man during our camp check he changed the fuel line from one of the other boats and told us to try that.

 

“Hot and cold running water”: Ok my fault here, I ASSUMED that meant indoor plumbing, it didn’t! Not that we mind using an outhouse but it isn’t what we were expecting. The brochure did say shower and didn’t say toilet or bathroom so my bad.

 

“Fish fryer”, carboned up and coated everything with thick oily soot that transferred to everything it touched. When I mentioned it to the handy man during our camp check he told me they knew it was a problem but they thought it was the propane causing it.

 

BBQ; a wreck, heat shields all rotted burners in bad shape…. They replaced it the day we flew out.

 

Shower: leaked from between the walls and it was evident it had been for quite some time, the wood at the base of the wall was black from water damage. The handy man did pull the tap assy. Apart but that wasn’t where the leak was. We ended up taking the carpet out because it was better to step out of the shower onto a wet wood floor instead of a wet carpet.

 

Hand crafted pine furnishings: Well, the chairs closely resembled plastic lawn chairs, two of which buckled when I sat on them dumping me onto the floor (mind you I do weigh 230 lbs). I can assure you though there was no wood in them LOL.

 

When we got back to the air base on our return I was going to try to sit down with Don and discuss some of the above but he seemed “pre occupied”, and in fact I ended up going looking for him to say good by. I got the feeling he was almost trying to avoid me and at that point I just wanted to get going, we still had a long drive ahead of us.

 

In summary, I wouldn’t trade the time spent with my son for anything, the fishing was fantastic and we ate like kings. In spite of all the issues we had a wonderful time (we always do when we are together).

 

Would I do it all over again? Yes but probably not with Mattice, I honestly thought I was booking and paying for a “deluxe trip” based on their brochure and the cost, I feel like that was very misleading.

 

I did learn a lot of other things:

 

Don’t program your GPS for shortest route, we ended up going in Black Sturgeon Lake road for 50 km before we found out it was washed out and we had to turn around and back track adding almost 2 hours to our trip and almost leaving us stuck in a huge mud hole 12 km from the nearest road!

 

Plan on two meals a day plus snacks, not 3 meals a day plus snacks. Breakfast/brunch and supper.

 

1 bag of ice can yield about 3 liters of water

 

Many areas of the Trans Canada Highway do not have cell coverage and a lot of gas stations close up at night so plan your fuel stops carefully, don’t let yourself run short (we were ok and I had an extra 20L of gas in a can just in case).

 

Don’t believe everything you read in a brochure or the reviews on a website, talk to people that have actually been there!

 

Tipping the pilot is VERY much appreciated!

 

 

Thanks to Governator for the link I have added some photos from our trip, I hope it works.

http://imgur.com/a/bfwRD

Edited July 1, 2017 by Big Cliff

[Pikeslayer]

Welcome back Mr. Big!!!

A good honest report. Hopefully you have saved many here a major disappointment in the making.

 

Time spent with our boys is priceless

Edited July 1, 2017 by pikeslayer

[Old Ironmaker]

I am so happy that the fishing was 5 Star. Accommodation's seem to be starless. Remind me not to book there Big Guy. Imagine if the fishing was as bad as the shack. That outfitter should be ashamed of his misleading marketing. And thank you for an honest assessment. Word of mouth was always a good way to loose a business, now with this digital age and Social Media the word will spread throughout the fishing world quickly. I think I have been in worse places but we paid 100 bucks a week including a tinny but we knew what we were getting. Jumped out of the top bunk and went straight through the floor!

 

Do you feel you over paid for the trip Cliff?

 

The key is though you got to spend some priceless time with your son, and the fishing was a bonus.

 

Welcome home Cliff.

Edited July 1, 2017 by Old Ironmaker

[ketchenany]

Welcome back, the fishing seemed fantastic!

 

Those advertising guys can write up a storm, they see a pine tree and turn it into funiture! Hot and cold running water you do the running and make the water hot . . .

[farsider]

Thanks for taking the time to give an honest account of your trip. You will no doubt save someone else with your assessment. Kudos!

 

Sounds like you and your Son will have many long memories to reminisce about. Priceless!

 

Glad the fishing was so outstanding.

 

Cheers,

 

Mark

[NANUK]

Thanks for sharing your first hand experience and a honest and detailed report,

We are booked with Cochrane air for this year but Mattice is also on our list of considerations for future trips. As much as we love good fishing and willing to tolerate some discomfort for exceptional fishing, I have no problem in saying that we are all getting older and appreciate some basic comfort as well,

We will now keep your experience in mind when making a decision.

[woodenboater]

While time spent with your son is without question, priority 1, I'd be steamed at the apparent disconnect between their brochure/ website, and reality.

 

This will indeed comeback to haunt them as I'm sure word is out. Fortunately the fish were on fire which would help take the mind off everything else.

 

Thanks for the TR and glad everything, worked out, more or less

 

 

have a happy Canada Day !

Edited July 2, 2017 by woodenboater

[Old Ironmaker]

With all those wonderful viddels I guess one would only need to eat twice a day Big Cliff. Plus snacks!! When do you want to go again, I'll buy the eats and you do the cheffin'.

 

I would add one thing to the packing list though, one of those multi tools if tinkering of the motor is needed.

 

That place looks like a palace compared to some of the dives we have stayed in on our fishing trips.

Edited July 1, 2017 by Old Ironmaker

[bigugli]

Glad to hear the fishing was great. Glad the jigs you got worked well. Sorry to hear the accomodations were sub par. Very thankful for the honest report.

[Mister G]

Hey Uncle Cliff, overall it looks like you had a fine time with your son....... NICE

 

I know what you mean by being deceived when it comes to accommodations and so forth.......we got stung at Gogama Lodge back around 2005.......the cabin....errrrr SHACK was filthy and the outhouse only had 3 walls and no door on it. Behind the shack it looked like the village dump site.....ewwwww. But we caught lots of walleyes, pike and bass so that made up for it.......would I go back to Gogama Lodge......NO WAY JOSE........we found Ivanhoe Lodge a few years later to be as advertised and wonderful to deal with.

[can u fish]

Thanks for the honest and detailed report Cliff at least you and your son got to spend some quality time together and had some decent walleye fishing just wondering Cliff do you plan on taking anymore fly in trips in the near future anyway thanks again i am counting down the days for our annual Fly in trip September 8th will be Flying out of Foleyet with Air Ivanhoe this year great outfitter this will be our 5th trip with them.

 

Cheers Mitch

[Terry]

good report

sounds like great fishing

i like honest reports i got some crap from some members for giving honest flyin reports

I thought i was doing a good thing letting people know i had to work on the outboards to keep them running

the water line was broken in 2 spots and had to repair it the shower head was gone

we ran out of propane

the one place advertised many double digit walleye caught yearly, but while waiting for the plane i saw photo albums of each camp

after look through it i realized there was not a photo of a fish bigger then 6.5 lbs i guess 6.5 is 2 digits

the 2 guys loading the plane really really insulted us in french, not knowing my buddy spoke french and knew what they said

 

i still think people are interested in the truth

[woodenboater]

 

i still think people are interested in the truth

 

 

^^^ this

[Joeytier]

Sounds like they are lucky they had an easy going group...You'd think that much misinformation is going to catch up with them sooner rather than later.

[captpierre]

Well done Cliff.

Trip of a lifetime.

More to remember with the spartan accommodations ?

You'll be spoiled now by fishing up there compared to down here.

Ain't nothin going to compare.

Thanks for the honest report.

[Fisherman]

Nice info for prospective users.

[GRINGO LOCO]

I am quite surprised as Mattice has a solid reputation. I have been considering a trip with them since I read Mike Borgers trip to Whitewater Lake with Mattice two years ago. He praised their fishing and facilities. This report removes them from consideration.

I fly almost every year with the outfitter next door to Mattice called Thunderhook and fly from the same lake. We go to Smoothrock

and their facilities are top notch with indoor plumbing, toilets, showers and full time electricity. The boats are 16 foot Lunds with 20hp four stroke push button starters. You can attach your fishfinder directly to the battery. They provide all the bedding and change your towells every other day. The fishing is outstanding and like Vick Lake it is possible to catch 100 walleyes yourself on a good day.

We catch a few big Northerns every trip. The price is within $100 of Mattice prices. They are usually booked 100% each year because just about all come back the next year. The camp has several attendants that exchange your full tanks every day and for a wilderness trip it is quite comfortable.

 

 

[gordy28]

Thanks for a great report

We are actually looking at Mattice for a trip next year and similar to Gringo surprised about th cabin as across 4 or 5 forums I have never seen anything but raves about Mattice as an outfitter. I will say you are one of ththe first I have seen about Vick. Perhaps it's not a well used cabin

Anyway glad you enjoyed and thanks for the honest report

I know for us being the only guys on the lake is in a word priceless

Cheer

Gordy

[Big Cliff]

Thanks for all the comments and replies. I'll try to answer most of the questions here rather than individually:

 

As many have observed, time spent with our children no matter what we are doing is priceless, the older we get the more we seem to realize that it is a limited commodity so make the best you can out of every moment.

 

It wasn't the quality of the accommodations or the facilities that bothered me, I've camped and tented most of my life. It wasn't misleading advertising, they outright lied in their description of what we were getting for our money. I wanted this trip to be a very special one because I don't know if my son and I will ever get another opportunity to get away like this.

 

I paid $3661.20 for what was supposed to be a 5 day trip for two people in a new camp with new equipment...... none of which was true! There were a number of other issues... mattresses filthy and stained (we ended up putting garbage bags over ours before we would even put our sleeping bags on them) but I digress.

 

I read all the reviews I could find on Mattice and as has been pointed out most are glowing (however most are on their website), I very much doubt you'd see this one there. Some of the reports I read are by professionals who are paid or receive free trips for writing their reports, perhaps they get special treatment. (I got some interesting feed back from Auston Elliott, the outfitters son about how that works but I won't post that publicly)

 

Would I do another fly-in, absolutely although not with Mattice, I don't mind rustic or basic (although I think my days of tenting are over LOL) Also I would be asking a lot more questions before I plunk my money down, I don't mind paying for what I get but I like to get what I pay for.

 

I am already thinking towards next year and am trying to decide what I'd like to do, I'm sort of thinking I'd like to go for Arctic char or something like that. I'm not a big trophy guy, I'd prefer to catch numbers rather than size. Oh well, lots of time to decide LOL.

 

As for an honest report: I'm not trying to get back at Mattice or anything, what's done is done! Many of the members here are my friends, some may be planning their "trip of a lifetime". I'd like to think that the information I have provided might make their trip a little more enjoyable.

[T-Bone]

Nice read. As a VP of Marketing I had to see their web site and how they were promoting the Vick Lake outpost so I checked it out. First...if they grossly misrepresent that outpost I'd bet ALL their descriptions and claims are grossly exaggerated. Second, there are laws about using descriptors like "new" to describe what is being offered. I'd bet anyone with business counsel experience would confirm those descriptions are misleading and should be changed or face an injunction. Third, I'd tell the outfitter you want some of your money back. Spending that much only to find you've been totally mislead is disgraceful. Remind him it's easy and costs nothing to let the world know of his misrepresentation...and bad PR for a business that counts almost solely on it for marketing would likely make you an offer. Then again maybe they don't care now...they have your money and know you're never coming back.

[Moosebunk]

I'm with Terry on this! An honest angler's experience is greatly appreciated.

 

Not sure how this one even got sold to you Cliff despite the luxurious brochure. To get to Armstrong station you have to pass by a million quality walleye and pike lakes... and time and driving equals money and energy. The price tag for your trip doesn't include that... but still, at $1800+PP here's just one example of a quality walleye fishery at almost half the price and 2/3's the drive... http://www.onamanlake.com/index.html Had fished this lake for an afternoon and evening while other boats were out there, but it never felt crammed, always plenty space to get lost on your own and walleye (as Tyler Dunn from here has also experienced) was incredible. Bigger average sized fish than usual too. Numerous other great walleye lakes would have been available out of Cochrane, Hearst and Nakina for less money as well.

 

Have had some bad experiences on trips as well. Not every trip can be the best ever, most amazing, super epic, perfect experience. In fact, almost always is there something that could have been improved upon. Judging from your write up though, their cons weighed equal or greater than the pros, and at that price and distance, you could have done much better in finding at the very least, a more balanced trip or, one with fishing just as great but accommodations much nicer.

 

It seems like you feel you got screwed... and that sucks because fly-in fishing trips are generally great experiences.

[Ron]

epic time with your son Cliff! Fishing was merely a bonus! It seems as thought the fishing was second to none you have ever experienced.

 

Good on yas!

[Beans]

Welcome back my friend, sorry the trip was not all you dreamed it would be.

 

Your eats looked great and nice that you spent time with your son.

[bigcreekdad]

Cliff

 

So glad you had great fishing with your boy. I've got twin sons now 34. I started taking them on trips to Canada 25 years ago. They are my favorite memories.

 

Hope you and your son get to take many more....just hope you can find better accommodations.

 

I'm with others on this...the cabin and boats as advertised are nothing short of misleading. This is a much followed board...Mattice will hear about this I'll bet. They should apologize, and make some financial restitution.

 

Frankly, if I was them, I'd beg you to come for free next year to a great outpost (assuming they have them) to clear the air.

 

John

[Mister G]

Frankly, if I was them, I'd beg you to come for free next year to a great outpost (assuming they have them) to clear the air.

 

John

NOT gonna happen...........However, it would be nice to hear from the fellow who recommended the lodge to get the other side of the story on how he was treat and how his accommodations were compared to how they were described........................................