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.
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