The start of summer came in like a derecho, hard, fast and heading straight at me. Bunch of fishing all over, travel, a cottage rental, reunion thingy, I was a busy boy for weeks! And yet, this different little diddy of a story kinda blew on in at the tail end of all that other fun, and really, I guess it’s just kind of a neat sorta drift that built up momentum as it happened, so figure I’ll pass it along to yas.
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My friend Jordan was in the valley. A teacher, he and his family often summer at their second home here near Sharbot Lake. Hadn’t seen the big guy in a couple years and with his busy schedule wasn’t sure I would this time around either. But, we managed to make a date and before that hour would come, I tested some local waters to see what fish we could get ourselves into.

The last time he and I fished we spent a day casting from shore to lakers of 2 to 4 pounds on Netsilik and Pangnikto lakes. Catching nearly a hundred of the damn greasy greys, we were trying our best to just weed through them and maybe hook a prized Arctic char. Well, Jordan did, and I sorta did, but those numbers of lakers were just kinda silly fun in the process. At home here I’d ruled out muskie and gar fishing so that left some troutin’ to try. Poor guy I thought, comes all the way from Nunavut where all he gets is laker action and I’m gonna take him laker fishing on our tainted, pressured waters.

On a Friday morning we hit the Timmies for some morning coffee and eats, the best of the best company we didn’t stop talking for hours after finishing breakfast. With the crazy heat and the trout usually morning biters, I met Jordan early feeling that we’d probably be done the days fishing by noon to one-ish, and it did come to that. A five hour fish we laughed and played 41 lakers by lunchtime. Jordan 23 and myself 18, with a few losses. 41 of 52 to be exact. Just an incredible outing and the best laker fishing we’d both ever experienced at home.
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The 17 year old son of my lifelong friend Paul, Nathan had messaged me several months ago, randomly asking if we could go fishing. Really taken with angling, this young man over the past winter seemed to be on a raging walleye slay for the ice season at Quinte and around home here too. Love to see this! Nathan’s got the fishing bug, the enthusiasm, and his skills on the stick be growing quick.

We left his Dad to work and at 7am Nathan met me Monday morning for a fish. Showed up in his own car and needed to be off the water around the lunch hour to get to his job. Offered to pay me for the day which I thought was just the cats ass really. But this time around, cause it’s the first time, I let it slide. Good dood to offer!

Nathan and I got our 5.5 hour fish on. Showed him some tricks to get started and waited out a bit of a tough bite in the early going. Once the fish warmed up he started popping some and even hooked himself a new best and biggest he’d ever caught. Loved it! He and I both had some fun. End of the fish Nathan nabbed 5, I got 18 and we called it a morning at 23/29.
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Next morning picked up my buddy Jay, grabbed some coffees and hit the lake. Friends since we was wee kids playing with He-Man dolls and skiing with our families, Jay’s always been into hunting and fishing. Seeing this guy brings back lots of childhood memories. We used to dirt bike together, torment cows in the fields back behind his place, his Dad would take us up to the hunt camp, we went skiing in cool places like Killington, Whiteface and maybe Tremblant too, stole our parents menthols and laid around in ditches smoking ourselves sick. Later on we’d hit some of the same parties in highschool. Then he went city a long time, while I went middle of nowhere places.

In the boat the past couple years Jay has beaten up some sweet muskies and gar but never had any kind of great day laker fishing. Well, was he in for a treat.

It was stoopid good. The fish were biting everything but yet Jay for the first few hours had a hard time sticking ‘em. At one point he was like, 2 for 10, and he dropped some goodies. By this third day I felt totally dialed in. A variety of lures to choose from, it didn’t matter which, I had figured out how to present them to a point I was calling the hits. “Watch this Jay, just a flick of the wrist,” and a fish was on. “Jay, you’re gonna get hit,” and he’d get hit. In tune with the graph, the fish, the lures and the mojo, confidence was high all morning. And when you’ve got that going on, you can’t go wrong.

Jay finally turned on and tuned up! After all those misses he started actually pinning everything. He was quick to build his numbers and pick up some slack. After a longer 6.5 hours we smoked ‘em at 43/53, with Jay grabbing 16 and me 27. Reading that it’s probably crazy to believe but it’s no word of lie. We had a hard time leaving with the bite still going strong in the early afternoon and me popping an absolute tankertrootski. Put in a full 8 to 10 hour day and who knows what kind of damage could have been done..?
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The following morning my neighbor met me in the driveway near sunrise. Rob is the salt of the earth. Never saying his age, I figure he’s pushing 80 now and for an older dood he’s still fit as a fiddle. Couple summers back after a microburst or derecho downed eight trees in my yard and ravaged the neighborhood, during clean up I watched Rob fall off a tree about six feet or so, land on his back on some branches, but then just roll around, giggle and bounce right back up like nothing happened.

Every winter he looks after my driveway while I’m away, looks after my girls. Comes and plows and hardly charges me much at all for the service. Now and again, while going by on a walk, ATV or on his tractor, he’ll stop over to chat. One thing about Rob is, he’s a farmer, lived here all his life, never going away too far, and he’s only ever gone fishing he figures about five times at most in all his years..?

After grabbing the coffees there was no plan to keep our day dragging on. We fished for a short 4.5 hours and the first little bit I explained to Rob what it was he was seeing on a FishFinder and, how best to play the rod and lure. Admittedly, he didn’t quite have it. Didn’t really work the lure much like I’d do it and often I was looking at him and his rod, just to tell him when he had a fish on. But the funny thing was, he popped a first fish in about ten minutes, followed right up with another and then he never looked back. I chased him for the rest of the morning in fact. Rob 14 fish, and me schooled by a newbie catching only 9, we happily called it quits with 25/30. Rob surely had a great time catching his first trouts ever!
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Next morning went it alone, rather curious to just see how well I’d do and also search out some new spots. Left a little earlier and stayed just a touch later too.

By mid morning I had a creeper holding tight to me. The day before he was on the water and watched from afar as Rob and I cleaned up on the grease. This time, me being alone, he couldn’t help but take notice of my rod being bent over-and-over again and so he got nosey.

I’d move away, go explore a little, but soon as doing so another fish would hit and here he’d come. As he moved he’d look down at his sonar, acting like he wasn’t paying attention to me but rather his electronics. It was kind of comical actually, he hadn’t hooked a fish in at least the first 1.5 hours since coming upon me and I figured it had to have been killing him to keep watching me catch fish.

I played this guy as much as the lakers. Hooking one I’d always go opposite side of the boat and keep the lure low, unhooking the fish in the water. But shit, I had five rods rigged with different things to use. There were some moments that he kinda went a bit asshole about it though. When my back was turned paying attention to the fish on the line, a few times he charged over on his trolling motor quick, head down at the graph pretending to be all about his sonar when in reality, he was near running right up my ass. When I’d stare that stare at him he’d kinda wave a sheepish hello then back-off slow like it was his mistake, like he did it by accident. After the third time I took off far away… and low and behold, head down at his fawking sonar, his bow would turn my way and he’d start coming over. I get it though, it’s gotta be hard being totally oblivious during an easy, hot bite. If I was him, I’d probably have just backed off to give him plenty safe space then pulled out my binos and spied his shit. L.M.A.Ohhhhhh! Went 25/37 on my own… and buddy boy, well I saw him get two so I’ll give him three. Fish were all about the same, only photographed a couple.
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At home that evening I was telling Bren about everything and asked if she wanted to fish on the weekend. Muskies or lakers was the call. She wasn’t sure but eventually said, “well if I’m going fishing I want to go where you and everybody are catching them.” On one hand I was like… YES! On the other I was like, FUCK!

Don’t really care for fishing weekends on hot fishing spots. Don’t really care for it when the truth is too, that I use the weekends to recover after fishing all week. L.M.A.Ohhhhh again! Had also come to a calculation that, in just five mornings 41 + 23 + 43 + 25 + 25 = 157, and so by this point I had a little internal challenge going that, in seven days fishing; basically seven mornings actually, I wanted to try and make it to 200 lakers. To take Brenda on a nice weather weekend, face extra fishing pressure and other undesirable variables and NOT rest the spots for a planned attack the coming week, well shit, that just likely wasn’t gonna play into my favor.

Told myself and then Bren that it’d be mint if we could pop 25 day six fish, to make my day seven goal an easier 18 for that gold-star, so amazing and everything finish. On a scorching, grossly hot, burning me alive, walking on the sun, melting my face, blurring my vision, ball-chaffin’, boob sweatin’, shhhticky, shhhmelly, nauseatingly dehydroto of a morning, rather uncomfortably Bren and I managed to stick 18 lakers total. I went 11/13, she got 7/12, together going 18/25. Happy, yeah sure! Sun-stroked, yep! And wouldya just look at the grody, parasitic salmincola siscowet beard on that one fish of hers! Ewwww!!!
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Don’t recall why I didn’t fish the very next day but it likely had something to do with either bad weather or, just wanting a rest or to rest the fish. Though it was during that downtime when a surprise angler came to me asking for a fish go. Finally having a day off work, my good luck charm Leah was down for some laker action with her dad. This was good news! The last time we were out earlier in the spring, I hooked and released my biggest, valley softwater laker. A true tank!
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Leah was maybe a bit rusty and although I tried explaining to her the utter importance of our 25 fish fishin’ mission, our game plan and its key tactical plays, it seemed she was more concerned with her potential of maybe going swimming, enjoying breakfast on the road, taking in some scenery and hurrying things along so she can get back home to spend time “beading.” Me, I was like, “FFS FOCUS CHILD,” although I never actually said that. At the time we arrived the clock was set for five hours, that’d be it and we’d be done and off the water at noon. Pressure ON!!!

I popped the first laker within a minute of fishing. After ten minutes Leah was at 3 and I was at 2 for 3. Three hours, sixteen minutes later Leah and I achieved our goal of 25 for the morning and I made it to 200 lake trout in seven mornings. Bambalam did it! Time still on the clock and the bite really rocking, we just kept going.

At quitting come noon me and my little lady caught another 25 more. 11:58am I had missed one but then right at 12:00 on the button popped the 50th fish of the day. Absolute best morning of laker fishing we’d ever had, Leah and I sealed it with a fist bump, a hug and a “you’re VSP in my books.”

Leah 24/26, me 26/28… 50/54. Grand total 225 for 280 !!!!!!! HOWEY CHIT that’s alotta MORNING COFFEE GREASY BURP SHARKS!!!
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If someone would have told me that at home, in the Ottawa Valley, I could catch laker numbers equal to and even better than that of some of the best fly-in fishing lodges I would of told ‘em to shut that hole in their face. We didn’t even put in full days fishing at all. And now they’re not 20, 30 or 50 pounders or nothing but, of the 225 fish we caught there were countless trout in the 4 to 8 pound range, and the odd 9 too. It’s all relative to where you are really, and with that mindset making memories like these are really special to an old, well traveled, fish spoiled, sourpuss such as myself. A ten pounder down here comes along in as many fish as does a Slave 30 or 40, or a Bear 40 to 50. A 15 pounder here may as well be a Bear 60 pounder by same occurrence. I picked up the big one at 11.2 pounds and can tell ya right now, everyone aboard Bambalam had a shit tonne of fun reeling in these tough bottom hugger buggers on lighter gear.

That night after fishing with Leah I got to bed early and slept like a rock. Muskies were up for the next day, with a later start and a fish well into dark. The sunset, the major, a wind switch, barometer drop… I thought it all looked good for success. But then when I woke at 4:15am, thinking those muskie hours are so very long away, the humidex is supposed to be explosive lava hot in the afternoon and, Leah and I finished our laker outing at noon on a pod of “bigger” than average fish, well… the curiosity of getting back to see if those big ones were still around got the better of me. Big lakers often keep company with other big lakers.

The first fish was about seven pounds. The second was the one pictured below and the biggest of all fish caught this summer but not quite the weight of that one spring giant. The third was about eight pounds, the fifth was another six to seven pounder. For the first hour it rained awesome lakers until about a dozen had been caught, then it slowed awhile before picking up again. Over a short four hours, breaking away for home before the heat really set in, I just called it a day at 25 more fish boated a little after 11:00am, now 250 for 307 laketrout. The coffees long done, the bite again just red hot and not gonna stop, we really reeled ’em up and got’em while they’re hot!
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Don’t believe me… well, I have five witnesses.

Thanks for coming along.
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Bunk.
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