 |
| Hardly roughing it (I even brought my French press), |
Even though I haven’t posted in a while, rest assured
that I have been fishing. In fact, on
the day I took off to pack for my five days in Canada, I nearly caught a skunk
on the Bushkill Creek, one out of place stocked brookie on an unstocked stretch
to save the morning. It is too hot to
trout fish, at least the way I like, walking and casting, walking and casting. I was glad for the leisurely break last week
to chase “green trout” and “bronze trout” in Ontario with the boys. I have been icing an elbow for a couple
weeks, the fly fisherman’s version of tennis elbow, no doubt, a repetitive motion injury. It’s hard to get sympathy from
anyone, including other fishermen, for some reason! Poor thing, you fished too much and strained
a tendon in your elbow…
 |
| Our point for the week. |
We left about 5 AM on Saturday, me in the ‘Ru by myself because
I was only staying 5 days, Joe and Kenny in my dad’s Jeep, trailering the bass
boat. They only ended up staying 6 days
not 7, but the plan was for them to stay the entire week. Honestly, even fishing two or three lakes,
five days is enough for this guy. I
start seeing the same boulders and logs and shoals in my dreams.
Saturday was a hot one, well into the 80s and
humid with no wind. We launched the boat
in the late afternoon and juggled dock lines and trailer parking and unpacking,
all the essentials out of the way so we could fish the evening bite. The cabin was the cleanest and nicest (and
cheapest) we had ever rented, so we will be back, no doubt. We decided to enjoy the cottage life for a
while and relax after a long drive. Like
a kid at a candy store, however, Kenny started casting right off the waterfront
and dock of our cabin. He tore them up
and inspired all of us to take the rod socks off and try our hands. We must have caught a dozen nice fish, three
of them very nice. I managed my first “green
trout” of the week on the fly rod with a wooly bugger, and I lost a very good
fish in the weeds too. Kenny caught at
least two picture worthy LMBs off the dock, and we hadn’t even started fishing
for real.
 |
| One of Joey's nice largemouths. |
That evening on the boat proved just as productive with
Joe landing two big largemouths, and I caught a picture worthy smallie. The square bill crankbait and the Senko did
the trick. Kenny continued to score on a
variety of soft plastics and swimbaits. Even
though we ended up ruining the bass fishery from the dock for the rest of the
week (we caught them, including a carp and some crappie, but not like the first
day), we knew it was going to be a good time based on day one’s successes.
 |
| Same night |
Sunday was just as hot as Saturday. The weather is usually so unpredictable that
I end up packing for three seasons, but this year, even the rain gear stayed in
the cabin. Kenny ended up washing out shorts in the sink to wear again. We caught nice bass in our
home lake all morning. Kenny was drop
shotting Uncle Josh leeches, and they were amazing. They stayed on the hook until you cut them
off, unlike most soft plastics.
Smallmouth, especially, like to shake soft plastics off as soon as they
can and, if not, make sure they toss them just before you lip and land
them. I went through 3 bags of senkos
while Kenny used one pork leech. I am thinking that these smaller, thinner pork strips will be fantastic for fluke fishing too. Fluke eat the tails off Gulp shads and grubs like they are a delicacy, so I could see these as a good solution. Surf guys have used pork on bucktails for years for striped bass.
 |
| Kenny with a good one. |
We
quit around 1 PM and took a trip into town for some things, enjoying the sights
and sounds of Canadian Tire and Wal-Mart, Ontario style. Honestly, Kingston has come a long way in
terms of civilization. When I started
coming to this region around 18 years old, the folks were country, but now
women are cute and cosmopolitan-looking, roads are good, WiFi is plentiful,
food easily accessible—hardly roughing it.
My wife had the forethought to sign up for a Canada plan on our
wireless, which ended up costing 2 dollars per day for unlimited voice, data,
and text, so I was not even off the grid most of the time.
 |
| No swimming for a content Joe. |
 |
| Did I mention we were roughing it? |
Ken and I ended the afternoon by taking a dive
off the rocks in front of the cabin, and filming it for our sons at home. Joe was entertained but wisely stayed on
land. The water was in the 70s, which it rarely reaches this early in the year. A plunge in the water to end a day on the water = quite refreshing.
 |
| Nice smallie. |
Monday was the toughest day by far. We caught fish, but we had to work for them
in a high south wind and oppressive heat.
We quit by noon and took nice long naps.
Afterwards, we put the boat on the trailer so we could fish the “Big
Water,” as we call it, of a nearby lake, one we have fished for 30+ years. When the timing is right, the main basin of
this lake makes my week with 50+ smallmouth days. When I think of going to Canada, it is the
good days on the Big Water that keep me coming back.
We also enjoyed the amenities at the cottage, building a fire in the fire pit and having a cocktail on the front porch after enjoying a meal at the local watering hole, The Creek, in Battersea, ON. While I envied Kenny's poutine, which reminded me of the late night cheese fries and gravy from good old Beseckers in the 'Burg, I was happy with my Greek salad and fish tacos and an ice cold Sleeman's Railside Ale. I bought no beer at the border, opting instead for a small bottle of whiskey, but I was craving a beer a couple times during the hot week, so I actually had two pints.
After seeing huge carp cruising our point for
a couple days, I decided to buy a can of sweet corn when we went to put gas in
the Jeep earlier in the day. Kenny and I both remembered to
chum the deep hole in front of the cabin a couple times that day, and when we came back from our evening on the town, we could see some big fish swimming around and tailing on our corn. As a result, we ended the evening tangling
with a carp, just for the hell of it.
 |
| Why not a carp too? |
Even
though I have caught them while fishing for other species, I have never
targeted carp, so this was a first, even if it wasn't as big as some of the other fish cruising our point (no doubt smarter, as we had many big fish refuse the baited hook). I
missed another opportunity later in the week, having thrown the rest of the
chum in the water and not having any to re-bait with after missing the hookset
on another, larger fish. Rookie mistake….
Tuesday was my day on the Big Water. After driving to the ramp and launching the
boat, we started fishing the first large shoal that appears as you enter the
main basin of the lake. Some years this
place is lights out, but even though we landed a couple fish here, it was not
great, and the NW wind was tough for Joey to contend with. When we moved to the south shore, we caught a
few larger smallmouths, but the wind kept blowing, making anything but a
spinnerbait or a crankbait next to impossible to fish correctly.
 |
| Tuesday was a windy day on the "Big Water." |
We moved to the north shore of the lake, and
we found a lot of smaller fish willing to take a shallow running crank. I had them dialed in this day and probably
caught the vast majority of the fish. Since I come each year for the days on the Big
Water, I think my pop was okay with that. We quit before 2 PM and did the boat
and trailer shuffle again, this time losing a piece of door trim on the Jeep. After launching the boat, I thought I’d be a
hero and back the trailer back into the drive while Joe brought the boat back
around to the dock. Tired, both Ken and
I forget about a couple manmade obstacles on the neighbor’s property and I
grazed one with the door while maneuvering the trailer in reverse. Joe handled it
well; I haven’t gotten the bill yet… We
ended the evening taking another swim off the dock. After a Jack Daniel’s on ice, I hit the
pillow and didn’t wake until 6 AM the next morning.
 |
| A little fattie |
 |
Joe with a shallow running crankbait bass on the Big Water.
|
 |
| Kenny down with brown. |
My last day of fishing was Wednesday (at least for bass,
as I had packed my fly stuff in case I needed a break while driving home J). Back on our home lake, it was a cold, windy
morning, and fishing was slow until we got out of the wind in a large,
productive cove. Drop shot with the leeches
and weedless jigs with thin, more finesse plastics did the trick in about 10-12
feet of water, the second drop off the bank in most cases.
Wednesday was another day where we took it easy and went back to the cottage for afternoon naps. After dinner, the wind died down, and that
evening Kenny caught his biggest smallie of the week on a shallow crank; it was
between 18 and 19 inches and fat, close to four pounds, I would bet. I had a good largemouth bite for my last night of the
trip on a jig and skinny Kut Tail worm from Yamamoto. I was tossing the nearly weedless rig right up in the snot and waiting for that one "tick" as a bass picks up the bait. A couple buried themselves in the weeds, which made my fly fisherman's elbow feel awesome, I'll tell you. After missing a good bite from a carp, and getting attacked by mosquitoes trying to get another fish to bite, I went
inside and started packing for the ride home on Thursday morning.
 |
| Kenny with a piggie in green. |
 |
And one in brown....
|
 |
| He's still got it, folks. |
It was raining on the morning I left, so the boys were in
no rush to leave, either. I made great
time into Pennsylvania, so I decided to try the Lackawanna River near Archbald, just
to kill some time. It was hot enough to
wet wade, and the fish were not very active, but I did catch one small wild brown and I lost a heartbreaker of a brown near the end of my layover. Even on my 5 weight rod, it was more than I
could handle after 6 hours in the car and an hour of walking in the humidity
and hot sun.
 |
| A short pit stop on the Lackawanna River yielded one and half.... |
I got the line caught around the reel
handle as I was letting the fish run out the slack line so that I could get him on the reel, and
he broke the tippet on the dropper while I struggled to free the line. He had taken a size 18 pheasant tail soft
hackle on 6X tippet. A bit disgusted (with
no reason to be since I was fishing on a travel day!!) I made the last leg of
my journey home in time to put the boy to bed.
The boys left later the same day after some issues with
the outboard, so I didn’t miss anything.
Despite a couple minor mishaps and skirmishes, it was a great, memorable
trip. Since Friday, I have been icing
the elbow and relaxing with the family, but I see a fishing day in the near
future, especially with the cooler temps in the forecast. A little rain would help too.
 |
| Until next year.... |
