Halley-Canada Day 3 (2nd Day Fishing)

Monday, September 7, 2009

Morning came a bit early. I slept in most likely due to the drinking of Wiser (Canadian Rye Whisky) with TR - that would NOT be called Wiser Drinking however. Dad and TR woke me up before heading out to get coffee on the Lodge east deck.

 

Another postcard sunrise on the deck was witnessed.

George (Halley) took off in his float plane before breakfast with a couple guys to spend the day repairing a burned-down Out Post cabin. My new fascination is with float planes landing, taking off, and taxi across the lake.

Breakfast offered up French Toast, warm syrup, and ham.

On the lake 10 minutes before 8…raced the father-son boat to the first fishing spot. Today we fished Gone Lake.

Between each of us, the morning Walleye fishing yielded two, 27″ Walleye and one, 26″. The Halley’s Camp fishing guidelines state that if a 27″ Walleye, or larger, is caught…that is considered a Trophy Fish. For landing such a beast, the angler gets a Camp ball cap, certificate, and will be listed on next year’s “trophy list”. Dad and TR got ball caps….

Now I don’t mean this to sound like sour minnows, but a bit of suspicious happenings happened within minutes of each other. Dad took nearly 20 minutes to land the first 27″ Walleye of the trip (OK, so I exaggerate a bit – it was more like 90 seconds or so). Exclamations are made, pictures are taken and the fish is put back into the water exhausted – and think of the fish’s exhaustion in this way: me hiking up to Gilpin Lake in Colorado in my current state of roundness. This fish was fat; this fish was tired; this fish was still hungry. Within 2 minutes TR landed a 27″ Walleye, at the very same fishing hole, and it was landed within 10 seconds. TR’s catch kind of like floated to the surface and I swear on my Canadian fishing license, mouthed the words for all of us to see: “not again”. To this day, till my last fishing lure is snagged, I am convinced TR caught the same damn fish Dad did minutes before…and because it was the exact same length as Dad’s, TR got a Trophy cap just like Dad’s. It’s a head shaker, and I might be somewhat bitter about the whole incident.

Soon after (and in another fishing spot), I caught my 26″ Walleye. Mac stated my 26″ fish was a very fat Walleye (remember this as it will be an important statement later on in our trip). BTW, I think I landed my fish in 40 minutes.

Dad and TR were “in the books”, and so the return, much-deserved ribbing started. Mac joined in as well as he thought I was much too hard on TR’s luck the day before. Any guesses on who the receiving angler was for all this day’s grief? Yup, it was my day to be down on the fishing luck. I was out fished by Dad and TR this day.

While measuring a Walleye on the boat scale, Mac took a sharp fin to his right thumb. It bent his thumbnail and shove it back under the cuticle. Mac exercised admirable verbal restraint on the occurence – we knew, and really wouldn’t have cared if he just let ripe a few expletives at Wally. I think that was TR’s fish doing the nasty deed….

We again caught our Shore Lunch by mid-morning. Around 11:30, we headed to a primitively designated lunch site. But first…we needed firewood.

I think it’s safe to say, neither of we three fisherman had ever robbed wood from a beaver hut before this day. So we did just that. Let it be known, beavers cut an almost perfect size limb/trunk for shore lunch fires.

Mac filleted the Walleye on his boat oar since no other place at the lunch spot offered better accommodations. The rest of us started the beaver-log fire.

Lunch was “Franks” Walleye – a breaded mixture with Franks Hot Wing Sauce added in (it was delicious). Potatoes and onions, and molasses beans again complimented the walleye fillets.

Bald Eagles were flying this day but we were unable to get them close to the boat with dead fish, nor would they let us get close to them perched in their dead trees along the water. We did enjoy the playful aerial fight over water of two juvenile bald eagles – that was fun to watch even though it was a brief scuffle.

Weather was sunny and breezy.

Afternoon fishing included casting for Pike. We had the best luck of the week this day. With Pike, lures are tied to steel leaders that are tied to your fishing line. Dad had a strike that nearly doubled over his pole only long enough for all of us to say “whoa Dad”. Then the line snapped. Peter the Pike reached up beyond the steel leader and bit through Dad’s line – Dad lost a huge fish and about $6 worth of lure.

I caught the only small mouth bass of the trip casting for Pike. That was a fun fight – he was about 11″ in length.

I shocked Mac with one Pike strike and follow about 20 feet from the boat. I yelled at Peter the Pike to “get in this boat” – he didn’t but it was with an excited voice that I did the asking.

Dad caught the wrong fish in the afternoon….

 

We finished the day fishing for Walleye and headed back to camp around 4:30. Great day of fishing and happenings on the lake/river. Dad took angler honors, TR was runner-up. I took pictures.

Sharon served up ham, scalloped potatoes, crescent rolls, apple sauce, and cobbler for dinner. Yup, yup, yup – it was belt-loosening time. And then the Trophy Angler hats and certificates were passed out – good thing some good natured person brought his camera.

We relaxed for much of the evening in the Lodge lounge watching 3 quarters of the Miami-Florida State game (great college football game).

We and the mosquitos walked back to the cabin around 10pm to the light of a beautiful 3/4 moon. Lights out!