It’s December 2016 and I’m looking back on a great year on the water, but also a backlog of adventures to post about. One of which is my annual Father / Son/ Friends fishing trip that is pushing 3 decades of history. This year we decided to try a different location, to mix things up. For my brother Chris and I, we fish many different bodies of water over the course of a season, but for most of the guys, this trip is the only fishing trip they go on for the entire year, so if you don’t try different bodies of water, it limits your experience. I’ve written already my scouting trip to the French River, along with my visit there for my Couples Weekend. Well the French River became the destination for this years guys adventure, and an adventure it was! We were headed to Totem Point Lodge located in Wolseley Bay, a massive body of water that stretches from Lake Nipissing to Georgian Bay.
Our party of six began our weekend on a Friday in late September, and we were in store for some great weather, with moderate temperatures, low winds and no rain. By all accounts, ideal fishing conditions, if fishing was your primary goal for the trip that is. We probably spend equal parts card playing, eating and fishing, and sometimes in that order. When you have been doing this type of trip as long as we have (and I know some of you readers you have even longer traditions), the weekend is more about 6 guys reconnecting, sharing stories, and having a lot of laughs. Friday afternoon saw the four of us who arrived first fishing fairly close to the lodge. Typically, this group likes to troll, which is a great way to see the sights and get caught up on each others lives, but not so great when you don’t know the water, and the depth is often over 50ft! Still, we stuck to the shores, hit a few of the shallower bays, and managed to put a few fish in the boat for us to chat about. An evening of food an cards ensued as the last two of our group arrived.
Our plan for the Saturday (which would be our only full day together), was to spend as much time on the water as possible, and enjoy the highlight of our trip, the shore lunch. We enjoyed a great breakfast and headed to the docks. We stocked up on some crawlers to help with some jigging, and then headed out in pairs, with the plan to work our way up to the end of the run, the Five Finger Rapids, where we knew there was both a great shore lunch spot and some good fishing holes. Since we were all in separate boats, we decided to have a bit of fun with video. I’m a fan of the show Uncut Angling, particularly a series of episodes they did called 39 hours. If you haven’t seen them, do yourself a favour and check the site out. To summarize though, each boat pair had to film a short video describing what they had caught (if anything) every two hours. At the end of the day we’d all gather around and watch the videos, and learn who caught the biggest fish of each species.
After about 4 hours of fishing, we found ourselves at our shore lunch destination. This was the 3rd time I’ve used this particular spot, so I made quick work of setting up, building a fire, and getting the potatoes cooking. We’d brought fish with us from a previous trip, so we saved a lot of time by not having to clean the morning catch (trust me, it would have been a meagre meal at best). One member of our group, Brian, is a skilled photographer, and did a time lapse video of the shore lunch which is a fabulous watch. I’ll post that video later, and link it for you to watch. We saved the videos for later, but we did talk about our luck. We’d all boated some nice small mouth bass, mostly in the areas were the river narrowed creating some great current areas. A number of crappie and rock bass had made it into the boat, but we had not boated a pike or a walleye, which surprised us all.
UPDATE: Here is the shore lunch video, in 60 seconds!
Fed and watered, we headed out, doing the journey in reverse order. We’d troll, we’d jig, we’d find a nice spot to cast, all the while not missing the opportunity to enjoy the spectacular scenery and the the great fellowship. We normally would have dinner and then do an evening fish, but since our journey was so far (over 15 km each way), we decided to stay out well past dinner and then head in for a late meal.
As the sun came down we had one last flurry of activity (said tongue in cheek) picking up a few small pike casting jigs to some weediness. With the sun going down, those without lights on their boat had already headed in, and the rest of us soon followed, our stomachs telling us to call it quits. The temperature had dropped substantially, so there were no arguments when offered the prospects of a hot meal. Arriving back in our cabin, we broke out the phones and had many a laugh as we watched each other videos. We had 9 videos in all, and none of them are safe for public display, but they all had huge comedic value as we waxed poetically about our efforts and the rewards.
A late night led to a late breakfast, but we headed out for one more run. We again decided to stick close to the docks so we’d be able to pack up and pull the boats when the time came. We spent quite a bit of time casting some rock structure and some late season healthy weed beds. We picked off a few fish, but I had a BIG pike rise up and take a swipe at a jerk bait, but my excitement got the better of me and I set the hook before the fish had fully engulfed it. I stung her though, so despite my efforts I could not get the fish to commit again. Thus, I was again left with motivation to get out there again one day to land that fish. An hour later we were packed up, shook hands and were on our way to our respective homes, till next year. Watch for an upcoming post where I’ll lay out my plans for 2017 and as always don’t forget, to sign up and have my most recent post sent right to you!