Picture by OFGNe Drake
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Once again a beautiful sunrise greeted us this day. A guy could easily get used to this kind of morning, every morning. I walked down to the dock before breakfast – last day fishing don’t cha know, I need a decent picture of the guide boats tethered up awaiting their daily duty.
Being the last to the east deck for pre-breakfast coffee, I found Dad and TR in an animated conversation with 4 new guys that had arrived at camp the night before (just in time for dinner…I failed to mention George took his float 
plane to get them at Minaki the night before and when he/they returned, everyone was already in the lodge eating dinner. He rattled the entire lodge with a low, fly-by buzzing that signaled his staff to drop their forks and come greet the new arriving guests).
I am convinced that no matter where you go, it’s a small world. Seven degrees of separation, or is it the Kevin Bacon game, seems to always be a part of my travels, professional life, and personal experiences.
The guests that arrived the night before – I don’t remember their names nor did I write them down – were all from north central Kansas. 
In fact, one of the guys was the general manager of the Farmers Coop in Hays (Dad and TR’s home town). The other men were from Larned, Oberlin, and Wakeeney – all within an hour’s drive of Hays. The Hays guy and one other (the Wakeeney guy I think) worked for Midland Marketing…the other two were agriculture chemical salesmen. Does anyone else travel halfway across the country only to meet someone you might have been behind at the Wendy’s drive-thru window a few days ago? What a way to start the morning – talking home, and about people we knew and had in common (the Hays guy even knew my father-in-law). The breakfast bell was rung and we continued 
our conversations walking into the dining hall. What a bizarre morning conversation and coincidence.
Even though Sharon was headed to Winnipeg today with her mother, the ladies offered up a breakfast that was huge. Big plate-size pancakes, warm maple syrup, link sausage, banana bread, juice and milk, and of course coffee (those of us liking cream in our coffee used canned evaporated milk all week long – that was just another thing new for me).
The banana bread is a quick example story on how well we were cared for at Halley’s. The evening before I ventured back to the kitchen with a cup in hand looking for a pot of coffee. Sharon insisted on making a fresh pot so I stood around visiting with her, Florida, and a little bit with Tara. I noticed on the counter were half a dozen bananas turning black. 
I said off the cuff “oh these are just about ready for banana bread”…then got my coffee and walked back to the dining table. End of story? Nope. That silly Sharon made me a loaf of banana bread (Florida came up to me and whispered that in my ear before breakfast) that evening. My breakfast of 4 pieces of banana bread and one pancake found a spot on my plate and then in my belly.
This was our last day of fishing – we were headed for home tomorrow. The 3/4 moon was still out in the western sky, the rising sun was already bright in the east. We told Mac we wanted to try the Sturgeon River again this morning since we were run off it yesterday with the thunderstorm. We also wanted to watch the bald eagles again…this time soaring through the brisk, clear morning sky. So we loaded up and off we went.
The Sturgeon River was beautiful in the morning light. The smooth black water, pine and spruce trees down to the water edge, and the brightness of a rising sun made for a wonderful boat ride to find fish…and bald eagles.
Yesterday’s weather or the morning’s cool temperatures must have had the bald eagles nested. We didn’t see one eagle whatsoever. And the fishing was off. Even Dad’s luck was not needing photographed. Mac patiently tried to find us some fish at a few other spots, but finally said “lets go elsewhere”.
We pulled in our lines, Mac took off down river and into the main lake. We were headed back to “old reliable” – the place Mac took us first on our Day 1 of fishing on the south side of One Man Lake.
After a 20 minute boat ride, we arrived at the reef. Dad was the first one in 
the water and his catches never stopped. “Old Reliable” lived up to its name. We probably fished for 45 minutes and caught at least 50 Walleye between the 3 of us.
Mac was soon ready for shore lunch. He had collected 5-6 Walleye from our “old reliable” catch and we headed into Tourist Lake to cook lunch. And what would lunch be without first finding, then robbing wood from another 
beaver hut along the shoreline.
We robbed the beaver hut of several limbs, then made our way another couple hundred yards to a camp site with oak shade trees, huge domed rocks coming out of the lake, and a metal fire ring to cook lunch from. Life is good and so are shore lunches.
Mac was trying us – about the time be landed on shore, he realized his fillet knife was left back at the Camp. His task now was to use the pocket knife of TR (or was it Dad’s) to fillet the Walleye. It wasn’t as sharp as his fillet knife, but he made it work. His fillet table was between 2 shade trees. Fisherman 3 started the fire while Mac cleaned fish. Along with the usual sides, Mac once again cooked our favorite “style” of Walleye – the breaded hot wing favor of “Frank’s”.
Shore lunch was cooked amongst Oak trees this day. I called it “Oak Grove” as these were the first oak trees I had seen/noticed the entire trip. Ground squirrels were gathering and eating acorns – and tossed a few down at us during lunch prep. 
Damn squirrels weren’t any more polite than the gulls. It was fun none the less.
Lunch was delicious, again. I could eat Frank’s Walleye for several more days if only someone would make me do it. Being this our last day, we wanted to get back on the water so we hustled up and ate quickly. We headed back into the upper reaches of Tourist Lake.
Tourist Lake obviously gets its name from the scenery and fishing. It is a tourist trap in that regard. These waters were the clearest we had seen on the trip. Shady shorelines, “bump” islands out in the middle of the water, 
and submerged timber made for prime fishing, or so it would seem.
As we had done each day fishing, our afternoon started out seeking the elusive Pike. We casted for half the afternoon in several different locations. We had some luck, but finally accepted the fact the Pike were taking their own vacation this week. The one’s we did catch, were a lot of fun.
TR was casting a wiggly top-water jig trying to catch the big Pike. He self-admittedly needed some practice. He traded lures with Mac and Mac gave TR’s wiggly lure a try after about an hour of on-the-job trainng (practice). With it, Mac knew how to work the lure and had several showy strikes – good gosh it’s fun to watch Pike follow your lure to the boat…and when they hit, catching Pike rivals any other fresh water fishing fun.
I caught an 11″ Small-mouth Bass (aka “Smallies”) casting into the weeds and reeds. Still using TR’s Mr. Wiggly, Mac caught a trophy smallie (16″) – now that was fun to watch.
We spent the last hour on the last day jiggin’ for Walleye. I traded places with TR so he would have a little bit of fun catching fish today. He moved to my 
spot near the back of the boat…I countered the weight in the boat by sitting in his spot in the bow. It really didn’t matter where we sat that last hour, we all knew we had to go home tomorrow, and not all of our hearts were ready to leave. We had a fun day, we had an incredible week at Halley’s.
We fished until the minnows were down to four. Mac says to us, everyone bait up, we will drop our bait with a count down, and see who catches the first last fish and who catches the last last fish. 3, 2, 1 down the jigs dropped into the water. I picked up the camera to video this contest and captured the last three fish caught on the trip. I still smile when I watch the video. First Mac catches a fish, then Dad, and then TR, in standup form and while helping direct Dad’s pole to Mac with one hand, he sets the hook with the other. He was in my seat in the boat catching that fish I might add. What a great moment captured.
We caught a ridiculous mess (amount) of fish on this day and on this trip. Since I never did get the Trophy fish landed, or the hat and certificate to go along with it…I’m finally, and only briefly am going to brag on my three 23″ Walleye catches for 
the day. TR’s luck fishing improved greatly when I gave up my seat in the boat (and my luck diminished quickly in his seat I might add). And then there was Dad. He caught fish every day and all day long. He was automatic. He wins the Most Fish Caught prize…whatever that might be. Your prize could be lost in the mail Dad – sorry.
We were done and reluctantly pulled in our fishing gear. Slowly we put Canada in our tackle boxes. We prepped for a long, and bouncy boat ride back to the Camp.
Boating out of Tourist Lake was not that bad. It was when we hit the open waters of One Man Lake when the back-jarring, tailbone-bruising ride began. The windy weather conditions of the day had the lake all churned up. We had a 35 minute boat ride back to Camp. Fortunately, once we were out of Tourist Lake, the wind was at our back and the ride smoothed out a bit.
The afternoon only gave us 2 bald eagle sightings (listen to me…I say “only”). That pair was seen on the ride back to Camp and the eagles merely waved at us from the trees as we speed-boated by.
Back at Camp, we three made our way back to the cabin. We started our evening long argument on who owed who money for various costs of the trip. That was entertaining mental math conversations to say the least.
Dinner was served: spare ribs, potato wedges, homemade cole slaw, and peach cobbler…oh my! With Sharon being gone, George became the head cook. He cooks very well, and serves up generous portions!
After dinner we settle our vacation stay tab with Tara and headed back to the cabin. We needed to pack luggage for an early morning float plane flight…and we still needed to finish up a few bottles of spirited beverages. We argued some more about money and who was 
owing who. But mostly we reflected on a fun trip and were astonished with the number of fish caught, and the number of fish “missed”. We spoke throughout the 4 days on the number of chub and shiner minnows we used – it had to be at least 600 of them. We all lost a few lures on the rocky bottom of the lake. But none of us really cared. We had a blast and we wanted to come back.
Dad, I’m certain, had a grand delayed birthday/Christmas present. He made mention of this trip being a top 5 life experience for him. TR and I could only smile with that comment – it gave me a lump in my throat so I couldn’t have spoken even if I had thought of something to say.
Lights went out around 11:00. I bet not one of us fell asleep without first thinking back on our fishing.
