2004 June 17 Thursday - Day 9

Today’s weather was absolutely horrible. It was very cold, windy and rainy all day. Not a driving rain; just enough to make everyone miserable. The weather was so bad that they grounded planes from taking off and landing on the lake.

Kathy and I opted to fish at North Trout lake again, since that’s where the other guys were catching huge 42-inch lunger Northerns a few days ago. They said they were catching them at the mouth of the river, which was near the entry point, because they were feeding on large sucker minnows in the river. However, when we got to the lake, the wind was so rough that we couldn’t control the boat on that side of the lake.

We decided to boat to the other side of the lake where it was calmer. We found a small bay at the North end of the lake, and started casting with Rapala plugs. Pretty soon, we were hauling in Northern after Northern. There were no big lunkers. Most of them were around 61-69cm (24-27 inches) in size, which made for a good fight. The fun thing was that we caught so many of them. We must have caught fifteen to twenty of these fish in an hour and a half. Kathy caught most of them, and she had a ball.

I think she changed her mind about Northern fishing being boring.

After a brief lunch (sandwiches) we decided to try our luck at Lake Trout. We didn’t do much good though. I caught a nice sized one, and a smaller one.

At about 4:00pm, we were cold and miserable, so we decided to go back to South Trout and try there, with the option of boating back to the lodge.

Now I’ll describe some of the people here, now that I know them better.

The caretakers (but not owners) of the camp are Clint and Lori. Clint is a tall man, with a large frame. He seems like a serious but big teddy bear, but word has it that he has a bad temper at times. Lori is Clint’s wife. She’s very nice and helpful, and a wonderful cook. The couple are very down-to-Earth, well organized, serious about their work. Very professional and also very friendly.

The other guide (besides Jim) who has spent the most time with us is Russ. He’s a mid-sized man with red hair, a friendly smile, and an outgoing personality. He would do anything to help you. He would give you the shirt off his back if he thought you were cold. He was always cleaning our fish, giving us advice, telling us where to fish. He even let us borrow his propane stove when the guide Jim took us out for shore lunch a few days ago. Nice guy. I also get the impression that he could easily tip the bottle a bit too much, and has the potential for being an alcoholic if he had access to a lot of booze. I don’t know that for sure because he’s always been very sober, friendly, even jolly at times.

The next guide, Pat, is an independent soul. He’s kind of like a modern hippie. He has somewhat long hair, tattoos, and an attitude that defies the law. He’d make a good Harley rider. He has his trusty dog, Guinness, a mutt that’s mostly Border Collie. He said he won’t take a job unless he can have Guinness at his side. Like Guinness, everyone is Pat’s friend. He talks about getting kicked out of the United States and sent back to Canada because he got caught with some marijuana a long time ago. He’s a very fun guy.

I already talked about Jim, the guide to took us out fishing. Nice guy.

There’s another guide, Kevin, who supposedly used to own Way North Lodge a few years ago, but he sold it and now just does guiding. We don’t see much of Kevin, so I don’t know much about him.

The next guy is Dusty, a young man who is very down to Earth and likable. His job is to haul guests like us back and forth to Favourable Lake, driving some of the boats, driving the ATVs, pulling boats on trailers, and driving the Argo, which is a weird amphibious vehicle they use to pull trailers full of people around through the muddy roads.

Then there’s Becky, a pretty young woman with long black-hair and intense eyes. She acts as waitress, room cleaner, and helps Lori in the kitchen. Becky is supposedly Dusty’s girlfriend.

Everyone here has been wonderful: friendly and outgoing and very helpful and accommodating. The people here are very hard workers too. They’re up very early, probably at 5:30am or so, and they’re up until 11:30pm or so, and in between that time, there’s almost no rest. If they don’t have people to guide, they’re off in the forest gathering wood for the wood stoves, filling gas tanks with gasoline, maintaining the vehicles, shuffling guests around, helping guests with luggage, and so forth. They work constantly. And they’re very organized. They run this camp like a well-oiled engine.

I can see why so many people return here every summer. The fishing is good, the food is excellent, and the people are friends: they treat you like a best friend.