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.”
No comments:
Post a Comment