Journal: Lake Kamuchawie, Manitoba, 2014, Day 5

Apparently moose can swim.

 

Day 5 “When the Wind’s out of the East…”

            When I saw the high wispy cirrus clouds yesterday, I had a hunch storms were coming.  This morning everyone slept in a little longer.  I know I was exhausted from yesterday.

            So after French toast, we got out on the lake around 10:00, met by a drab, grey sky.  We graphed fish in the channel just south of the cabin, just south of the ancient Cree petroglyph, but I’ll be darned if we could get a hook into them.  The cold front sealed their mouths closed.

            After a late lunch, we ran our boats south through the rain along the eastern shore to a cove just southeast of Roper Island.  We had had pretty good luck a few days before, but now with the rain and the wind out of the east, we were uncomfortable, and not catching fish.  The rain even found a way around my Gor Tex rain jacket on my lower back and neck area.  Whereas the other day the fish were way back into the cove in three feet or less of water, these pike held in a staging area halfway into the cove, prompting the theory that pike move in shallow on warm, sunny days and retreat on cold, cloudy days.  Between the four of us, we managed maybe ten fish tops.  Not good fishing at all for northern Manitoba.  At one point I told Chris that this might be a good James Patterson day.  He asked me what that meant, and I told him that he’s the author of the book I was currently reading.  After the day was over, I was sticking to my statement.

            On a side note, we watched a moose swim across the lake on the way back to the cabin.  I’m sure we scared the living daylights out of the poor thing.  When we motored up close to her, she was only twenty yards from the shore and swimming for all she was worth.  As soon as she climbed the bank, she disappeared in the thick underbrush the way the fish had disappeared from us.  This was by far the most excitement we had all day.



Journal: Lake Kamuchawie, Manitoba, 2014, Day 4

So, you're saying there's no fish in this cove?

 

Day 4 “Day of the Dead

Last night just before the float plane came in, our guide took us to the cove just north of our cabin.  I had asked him about it and he tried to convince me there were no fish in it, so to prove his point, he decided to spend his last fifteen minutes with us satisfying my curiosity.  Of course the place was loaded with northern pike, including a trophy forty-four incher.

Naturally we went right back there this afternoon after chasing lake trout in the morning.  And naturally with Dick and Bryce in there this time, the place was mostly dead.  We managed a few fish, and after hitting it really hard, we moved back to Monster Cove.

Following the theme of the day, Monster Cove was pretty dead as well.  Fish that crushed whatever we offered the last few days would follow our baits to the boat and then spook at the last second, leading me to think that we were good teachers, educating the fish what not to do with negative reinforcement in the form of a hook to the mouth.

Bryce hauled in the fish of the day, a mean wolf at forty-two inches, but other than that and a few other nice ones, it was “Cast, cast, cast, change lure, repeat.”  My shoulder ached and I found myself setting my rod down more and more to rest and recuperate.  Thoughts of that oak in my backyard entered my mind.  I had hauled enough really big pike into the boat over the first four days to definitely be satisfied with my production, meaning that only boating three today wasn’t a bad thing.  Since I was operating the boat, I found myself more occupied with fighting the south wind than the fish.

The lone big moment for me came when I pulled in a thirty plus inch pike on my rainbow trout casting spoon.  I had bought the spoon way back in 1996 when my high school buddy and I went to southern Ontario.  I had enough money for three spoons that trip, the aforementioned trout spoon, a red and white Daredevil knockoff, and a five of diamonds knockoff.  The rainbow trout spoon was the only one I hadn’t had any luck on, meaning that after today’s fish, I could finally give it an honorable discharge.



Journal: Lake Kamuchawie, Manitoba, 2014, Day 3

Pike like mice flies, apparently.

 

 

Day 3 “The 'Secrets' of Tipping”

            I woke feeling great today and hoping to take full advantage our guide Rusty’s knowledge.  I really had very few complaints about him.  He was very knowledgeable about where to find the fish, gave us all sorts of suggestions on how we could fish better, and even took direction from us when we wanted to get closer to the shore to cast to something that looked “fishy.”  I say I had a “few” complaints, because he “smoked like a chimney” and “drank like a fish.” His words.  Normally I wouldn’t have a problem with this.  After all it’s his right to smoke and drink.  But, one, we had to share a boat with the chimney, and two, he drank three-fourths of Bryce’s ninety dollar case of beer, without even asking.  I suggested to Chris that Rusty had already drank his tip.

            Rusty ran Chris and me over to Secret Lake that morning.  There’s a ten minute portage through a part of the forest that was burned back in 2005, and half of the dead trees lay across the path, making a ten minute trip into twenty.  Yesterday I had leaned on one of the upright dead trees behind the cabin and accidentally felled it.  The roots were dead.  I wished the dead oak in my backyard was so easy to fell.

            Secret Lake was much smaller than Kamuchawie, maybe a mile in length at most.  Finding the channel wasn’t hard.  Finding the walleye was.  The only secret about the lake was that the fish were all small.  In the course of the morning we pulled out numerous pike south of thirty inches and only three walleye for our shoreline lunch.  Luckily Dick and Bryce had managed to catch a few lake trout to help out.

            That afternoon Rusty got us into some pike.  Using the wisdom that the north coves warm up faster than the southern ones, we fished all likely-looking places.  I had been having ninety percent of all my luck fishing in-line spinners with gold blades, so I took the opportunity to try out other lures.  The red and white Daredevil didn’t produce anything, nor did a few other weedless spoons I tried.  Then I tied on my hammered copper-colored Red Eye Wiggler, an impulse buy at ten bucks that everyone on the internet said was the only lure to have for northern pike.  I bought three.  It was much larger and heavier than my in-line spinners so I opined conventional southern wisdom, “Big bait, big fish.”

            Chris replied, “Big disappointment.”  Then we started catching fish like crazy,  southern style.

            We made our way to Monster Cove where thankfully Dick and Bryce were.  I say “thankfully” because they had had a rough few days on the water.  Their guide, Ernest, for whatever reason, didn’t like to get them in very deep into the coves where the pike were, and they had spent much of their time trolling and not catching fish.  To that point, all Ernest had contributed to our group were a few extremely racist jokes, the only time he even spoke.  I believe social convention still required Dick and Bryce to give the guy a tip.  When they did, I had the same feeling I have every time I leave Pizza Hut unsatisfied. 

            Anyways, Dick and Bryce were only halfway into the cove and had already boated three fish in the ten minutes they had been in there before us.  We motored in and Chris pulled out the fly rod and started whipping around a mouse pattern the size of my shoe.  Apparently monster pike like big rats too.  It convinced me that with these carnivorous fish, I could take off my Nikes, attach a treble hook, and catch lunch.

            The cove was big enough for three boats to cast comfortably, but Ernest still backed Dick and Bryce out when we pulled in. 

            We said goodbye to our guides that evening as they flew out and we settled into the idea that we were now alone, sixty miles of trees, water, and rock from the nearest town.  On the one hand, we didn’t have someone to give us tips on how we could fish better or to take a hook out of a toothy critter’s mouth.  On the other hand, nobody would be drinking anymore of Bryce’s beer.



Journal: Lake Kamuchawie, Manitoba, 2014, Day 2

Nice view, eh?

 

Day 2 “The Headache Returns

            In June in northern Manitoba, the sun sets around 11:00 at night and rises just a few short hours later.  In the course of “night” it never does get too dark.  Knowing that a lack of sleep is one factor that set off my migraines, I went to bed before it got dark, slept seven good, hard hours, and still woke up with a migraine.  I pounded the ibuprofen and coffee and went back to bed for a few hours while the others went out to round up some walleye for a shoreline lunch.  Thankfully, this would be the end of the five day headache.

            Being alone in a place that is truly wild, truly miles and miles away from civilization, gives a man pause to think.  I was mindful of soaking up every ounce of this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, a request from my wife in a card she gave me with the instructions, “Open when you are beginning to get homesick.”  My head righted now, I sat on the front deck, looked out at the lake, swatted a few mosquitos, and pondered how I might fulfill my eight year-old son’s request for me to “catch a tuna.”

            Rusty had told us about a seven-foot pike which had been seen just off some rocks on a point we fished, and at the time, Chris and I thought he was joking.  Later on when he brought it up again, we realized he was serious.  On a lake this big (20 miles long) and this remote, I suppose it were possible there could be a seven-foot northern pike.  Or perhaps it was Ezra’s tuna.  Either way, I had no intention or ambition to catch it.  The thirty inchers from yesterday were tough enough to boat, not to mention the trophies!

            The guys came back around 1:00 with three lake trout, one a true trophy at thirty-six inches.  The guides showed us how to bonelessly fillet our fish, and after a typical shoreline lunch (in front of our cabin, a minus for cool points) we ran back out to catch pike.  We soon figured out that any cove that ended on the north shore and had a sand bottom with weeds or grass on the edges was going to be prime pike habitat.  Throw in a few blow-down trees along the bank and you can throw a party.

            We came in at 8:00 to spaghetti and then went back out to dredge the depths for lakers, but not before Rusty enthralled us with a cultural fact.  “Hey, you ever eat moose nose?  It’s really good.  You just have to boil the snot out of it!”

 

Monster Cove

            The highlight of the day came when we again visited “Unnghh Cove.”  This time Chris brought his fly rod and while he tied on a pike fly that looked like a squid, I caught a forty-three inch pike on a #5 gold blade Aglia.  This was my largest pike of all time, but the record would soon fall.  In the meantime Chris tossed his squid imitation.  He stripped it in and left it about five feet short of the boat while he messed with the coils at his feet.  When he lifted the rod to recast, a monster pike swiped at it and missed.  Dejected, Chris said, “Awe man!” only to have the fish take another swipe at it and connect.  When Chris finally brought him to net, the monster measured forty inches.  Not to be outdone, I took the fly rod, stripped in the squid next and caught a forty-four incher.  Ten minutes, three casts, three trophy pike.  From that point on we renamed  it “Monster Cove.”



Journal: Lake Kamuchawie, Manitoba, 2014, Day 1

One of many monster pike we hauled in on day 1

'Unnghh' Cove

            We arrived at out remote outpost via the north’s verison of a pickup truck, a DeHavilland Beaver, which our pilot, Matt, said turned “fuel into noise.”  We hurried as fast as we could to gear up, awaiting our guides who also had to be flown in.  Just as with any trip with men, we all tried to hide our excitement, keep it cool, despite each knowing that we all were too giddy to even put away our socks.

            When it comes to camping with this group of men, I go from man of the house to an uneducated freeloader, which is nice, knowing that there is someone at camp who knows more about lighting a pilot light than I do, and another who can cook more than hamburger helper, or another still who plays MacGyver with 550 paracord.  My only hope is that I would be able to contribute to their betterment in some way as well.

            Rusty and Ernest, our Cree Indian guides, arrived on the next float plane.  They had extensive local knowledge of massive Kamuchawie Lake, which sits mostly in Manitoba and partly in Saskatchewan.  Dick and Bryce loaded up in a boat with Ernest while Chris and I loaded up with Rusty and we each went our separate ways.

            Uncle Dick’s fish stories were immediately put to the test.  Our guide drifted us around beautiful northern pike habitat on the north end of the lake for two hours with only a couple of fish taking an interest in our baits.  When fishing is bad, I have a tendency to look up from the water and take in the scenery.  The old joke that in Canada there is nothing but trees, rocks and water was mostly true.  Seemingly around every corner is a curious bald eagle, flying over the boat, perhaps hoping for the strange visitors to toss out a cleaned fish.

            We slowly putted through a strait with four small islands jutting out of the water, drawing images in my mind of Homer’s Clashing Rocks, popping out of the water at different places in different moments, just trying to punch a hole in their ship.  It had been such a struggle to this point to not just catch a fish, but in dealing with the obstinate oak and the ensuing headache to end all headaches, that I wouldn’t have been surprised had Charybdis herself been waiting on the other side of the reef, ready to suck us down in her whirlpool.  A few mythical monsters and some bad fishing seemed like nothing in comparison.

            Then all of a sudden, all my troubles turned into the fish story of a lifetime.  We pulled into a northern cove.  Using a #5 gold Mepps in-line spinner with a fox tail, my brother unknowingly made the famous hook-set noise, “Unnghh!”  While he fought his pike, I spotted a small pine that had fallen in the water, creating the perfect ambush spot.  I casted to it with a gold weedless spoon, and just like that, God threw me a bone.  It was my first fish of the trip.

            Chris hooked into a few more with that spinner, and I remembered that my mama hadn’t raised no fool, to quote uncle Dick.  I switched to a #6 Blue Fox in-line spinner and caught three just like that.  The late afternoon sun casted shade from the pines on the western edge of the shore, so we hammered them in the shade.  Then we hammered them in the grass line out in the sun.  Then we hammered them in the middle of the cove where there was no discernible cover.  Then it didn’t matter what we tied on.  If a cast didn’t produce a pike, we had to wonder what we were doing wrong.  At one point Chris took some grass off his hook, tossed it over the side, and a pike viciously hit it.  This naturally gave birth to thoughts about topwater lures.

            Before we knew it, we were arrogantly throwing topwater lures the size of ducks, mimicking ducks.  The bad days of fishing back home are when we count strikes, not fish.  I soon decided that there are few bad fishing days in northern Manitoba.  The whole time, our humble guide, Rusty, smiled as he unhooked our fish and couldn’t help but laugh with us when my loon imitation drew strikes that looked like surfacing humpback whales.

Journal: Lake Kamuchawie, Manitoba, 2014 Prologue

The guys departing for Kamuchawie Lake

            The week before leaving on the fishing trip of a lifetime to northern Manitoba, I decided to cut down an oak with a hand saw.  Okay, it wasn’t a whole oak, just one of its three main stems which branched out about ten feet off the ground.  Either way, the limb was a good eighteen inches in diameter, according to my mental fishing ruler which has a tendency to make eighteen inch fish out of twelve inchers.

            The oak was dying a slow death, and rather than let it fall on my children as they played on their swings, I decided to break a sweat.  It had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that I just turned thirty-nine, felt twice as old, and just heard Toby Keith sing, “I’m not as Good as I once Was” on the radio.

            I shimmied up the tree, reached as high as I could, and started a process that would take two hours and five Advil to complete.  Knowing I would be casting a thousand times a day and possibly hauling in thirty-inch lake trout and forty-inch northern pike, this seemed a good test of my shoulder’s strength.  As it turned out, my shoulder hurt for the next week and I developed a migraine that lasted five days and ended up putting me in the emergency room a mere forty-eight hours before we flew out.

            Three days into the headache, we departed.  It was indeed evident that I wasn’t as good as I once was.  Still, my pride compelled me to prove nature wrong.

            This was a family fishing trip amongst the men, and quite frankly, a surprise to me.  At Christmastime, everyone quieted down as it was my turn to open my gift.  I pulled out a white binder with a Canadian flag on the top.  As I leafed through the binder, I quickly realized that a lot of people, my brother Chris and my wife most notably, had pooled resources to pay the way for this schoolteacher who couldn’t possibly afford such a trip.  For years I had to endure countless stories and pictures of the behemoth monsters uncle Dick had pulled out of these northern waters.  Now I was about to put these stories to the test.

Firsts

I think one of the hardest things about losing a parent is all the firsts a person has to go through.  For me there have been many.  First deer season without Dad.  First time my car broke down and I couldn't call for help.  First time the plumbing broke down and I couldn't call for help.  First birthday without him.  First Christmas without him.  First time his birthday came around.  First fishing season.  First birthday.  First anniversary of our last hunt together.  First anniversary of his death.

Lots of firsts.  To tell you the truth, I had hoped the one year anniversary of Dad's death would help me put the pain behind.  Didn't happen.  I didn't really stop hurting until somewhere around the second anniversary of his death.  Then the pain just wasn't there daily.  Maybe just every other day.

Well today is Memorial Day, roughly 2 and 1/2 years after Dad has passed.  For some reason FX has decided to broadcast Frequency, one of the movies that we all used to watch together.  Well, count tonight as another first--the first time I have watched this movie without Dad around.

The plot behind the story makes it even tougher to watch: a dad dies too young and his boy finds a way to communicate with him through a ham radio and a strange frequency that connects 1969 to 1999.  Through the course of the movie the two talk catch up and even find a way to prevent the father's death so that they can grow old together.

If only.