Winter blew by on a breeze and what seemed like last autumn fell fast into spring. Back and forth from the Arctic several times, finally arriving home to settle down on the first of May, I was met with a week of cold rain, ice storm crap to clean up and a happiness to see my three beautiful women again. Of course fishing was on the mind as well.

The month of May I’ll generally log about 15+ days on the water… well, at least that’s what the records show. One of the nicest months to be outdoors, the temperatures are often right, the bugs out but not much a bother on the water and, the fish be a biting! Stretching the limbs and finding stride, crappies, trout, gar and a little walleye are often the exercise. Have zero issues being out fishing a lot, it’s earned after a six month break at work.

Season started with crappies and lakers. Two times for each did I bugger off to get those first feels for what was happening on the water. They were hit and miss. For both species I’d have a day of slaying and day of paying. First crappie afternoon about 80 to 100 came aboard and I was able to limit out. Biggest fish well over 13-inches and good numbers of 10 to 12’s, the take-home was certainly appreciated. Most of the time though, the fish were averaging small but I just happened to catch enough of them for that to not matter… I’d return with a friend a few days later and actually catch none. The fish were there, my buddy Paul caught maybe 20 to 30 himself with a hot little bait he had, but nothing worth keeping. That’s how she goes!
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Laker fishing was pretty good to me this spring. A friend Jesse and I would pick up four fish during the first outing, trolling break-lines. Had expected better but the water temps hadn’t quite reached the magic mark yet. Figuring time would warm things up just perfect, I’d return four days later, find the lake temps about right yet the fish a little slow on a north wind. The troll bite rather fruitless with just two fish caught in a couple hours and no cast bite at all, I’d switch to jigging marked fish and pop a quick six before needing to leave. There’s little I love more than video-game laker fishing, it brings out the 80’s Atari kid in me.
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Ottawa River gar; the reason you reading clicked into this report at all, started late this year. Flooding kept boats off the water until mid month and once getting a green light I began venturing out.

Late season frosts, higher wind days, lower average daytime temperatures and of course the cold high water, the gar were quite slow to show and go. Through the weeks ahead I’d see less fish swimming about than any year in memory, yet that said, smaller pockets of gar were more scattered around in somewhat different than usual spots.

Gauging gar behaviour it was quite evident this year that the fish were seeming to continue adapting to angling pressure. If you think about it, 20 years ago when new methods for fishing gar arrived in the area, a great majority of fish have now come and gone through an entire generation. Life expectancy what, 20 to maybe at most 30 years, the giants caught a decade ago have long passed on while today the 40+ inch fish in some spots been hooked time and time again. I go on to tell others that in my 15 years the fish have become smarter with each passing season. What used to be stalked gar merely swimming away from us if not wanting to bite, has now turned into entire bays full of fish making speedy retreats for the depths from the mere distant sounds of a trolling motor or lure splash. Sure, there are magical days sometimes random, others predicable, when the gar are just chomping. But should they do so, it’s becoming more rare that you’ll return on them anytime soon and find them eager to bite again.

I find it all fascinating! Find the gar absolutely precious and perfect in their response to us. Over 100 million years humans cannot be the only new predator that has come along, and through every one of those threats preceding, the gar have adapted to survive… At times this season I was simply ghosted more than ever before. Ghosted meaning, the fish merely sink low. Where they were doing this was in the murkier water. What’s cool about that, is in the past the fish would begin to swim towards the deep in order to escape. In the soupiest of murk and mire, their innate sense of direction would send them on the right path away but, they would surely not be visualizing their journey easily and especially any angler following. The gar are flying blind if you will, and in these instances would leave tell-tale signs of their whereabouts, if not just completely in plain sight. This gar’s chosen method for escape could easily fail them, and so that is why it’s intriguing to see some further adopting a new strategy for escape. “Ghosting.” More fish this season ghosted me than every before, particularly early on. I think… I wonder… if that just like “spooking,” has becoming increasingly more common-place, that ghosting is their adaptation to being preyed upon? Years to come will tell if this was just something bizarre for this season or, if gar will continue to ghost and spook more or eventually add new changes..?
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I’d get in one outing before my friend Amon would arrive from Grise Fiord, Nunavut. Now, Amon did not travel from Canada’s northernmost community just to go fishing, he was down in Ottawa with family for other reasons. Knowing this, I just had to see and treat him to some fishing. So, the evening before our gar day I slipped into the city, picked him up and brought him out to the house for the night. A big meal of jumbo shrimp, tuna steak and even fried walleye I caught for him that morning, we were full bellies to sleep with a big wake-up breakfast come morning.
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Now this is the part I love. It’s the part where I can say with confidence that on any given day of my choosing, gar will be caught! When the timing is right there’s no maybes with this fish, it’s 100% gonna happen. And when you know that the right person is joining you to experience something as cool as gar fishing for their first time, it’s really exciting for me.

Amon comes from a very different place. In my years of travel across the arctic, it’s rare to meet someone as truly wonderful as this guy is. Optimistic, kind and considerate, mannered, humble and grateful, all the best adjectives can describe Amon. Born and raised in Grise Fiord, the small hamlet of a hundred people sits on top of the earth in a very remote and hard world. The people there, relocated in the late 1950’s from communities much further south in Northern Quebec, are survivors of another one of our Governments great injustices towards our First Peoples. Promised much and yet abandoned with nothing, the sun sets in Grise Fiord October 31st and does not rise again until mid February. A hundred days of darkness at the coldest place in our country. Amon will tell me, “I’m never bored, there’s always something to do.” And so he does just that, he lives and does aplenty. Family, friends, hunting, fishing, work and of course his favorite thing Oiler’s hockey, he’s happy to just be where he is, loving who he’s with from where they have all come, and so home is truly his heart and, he’s always welcome to sharing that.

But when I say Amon fishes, well… it’s a very different thing for the most part up there in Grise. Amon confessed he’d only casted a rod once in his life, years ago. No problem, we’ll spot ‘em, I’ll hook’em you reel ‘em all in. It’ll be fun!

Team work put six nice gar in the boat. Could have casted at more but we were upgrading in size throughout the day, eventually hunting for those trophy over fifties. There were times when Amon would admit that he was shaking from the excitement of it all. I remember those feelings, from time to time in fishing they come back to me too, but on this day it felt just as good to be a part of his heightened enjoyment.
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Three more times I’d head out that week to fish. A lone shot, a day with Leah and finally a day with Chrish too. It was different! Some frosts overnight affected the fishing and the gar remained rather scattered about in small groups. Some fish we came across continued to ghost, more than usual that’s for sure, while others were quick to spook. Winds and clouds kicked up one afternoon making for trouble but… oddly, despite the unusual variables adding up, each place I visited did hold the odd bigger fish that was either willing to bite or easy enough to convince.

Alone I’d get a few overs including a very robust fish. It was a cold start, half the day my teeth were chattering and the gar made me work for ‘em, but it all paid off.
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The day with Leah five more giants came to the boat including hers and what would end up my biggest for this year. Without question she is the greatest luck in the boat, she has super woman powers of gar attraction. Although she doesn’t “love” fishing as I do, she does like it enough to make her dad very, very happy. Each and every outing with Leah I find myself at peace. She’s a wonderfully positive person who’s just happy to be, and that rubs off on me. No worries of fish, we love the company and time together and no matter what we’re making lasting memories. With that the fishing just comes easy and, strangely often results in these epic big fish, and big numbers of fish days that are kind of unexpected. You know, like… “I’m just taking my kid fishing kinda thing” and then the amazing always seems to happen for us. And when the weather was closing in, the conditions deteriorating and the gar disappearing around us, the last hour turned magical with a truly behemoth boated. Another lifetimer over 20 pounds and a true mega gar!
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The following day with Chrish we’d blow some chances but two perfect casts at two over fifty would peg ‘em and add to my tally. Not a lot of megas roaming about but there were lower fifty sightings. Hunting giants is what he and I like to do so it’s often that with the marginal gar we spot he and I will look at each other and say… “50? 49? Naah 48! Ohhh 50 maybe,” then we’re like… “pass,” and we keep on in search of bigger. There are times too (though don’t tell Chrish) that I have to hold back with him. You know, he’s a muskie machine, bombs big stuff and shit, a true warrior but me, I’m the seasoned veteran eh, the wizard. Got that touch, the finesse, the accuracy, the right stuff, eye of the tiger, magic hands, got that “it factor” right! Plus I see the fish first cause I’m like a foot taller. Yeah, any time we get together I could peg ‘em all but 100% of 60% of the time I let him have first crack. Haha!
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The next day fishing Leah and I had amazing news. Our Summer got offered a great Government salary position as a Project Co-Ordinator at the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples. Huge step forward towards a career path she’s both suited and studied for. She lives a busier life in the city now and I sure don’t see her much these days but I can tell you, there are many times alone in the boat or, while Bren or Leah are along too, that I do think of her… and miss her.

Leah out for a second round this spring she just wanted to chill, maybe reel a couple in and relax with a good book under the sun, take a swim too. The first she’d handle though, was actually a fat 49.5-incher not making the fifty club, yet some exceptions for photos can be made for those girthy girls. Longnose gar do look better with bellies, and then they’re even more stunning when Leah holds ‘em up and smiles with ‘em! She goes back with gar probably more than a decade now, still joining her dad, although she’d rather cast to crappies, walleye and pike or jig lakers. She did think it really cool this past winter when Outdoor Canada placed her and I together within it’s pages. “Dad! That’s my first time in magazine,” she’d say! We’d end this day with a mega and four fish over fifty adding to about a decade of great gar outings.
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Had hoped to make one last return for fish but the weather turned and time simply ran out. The fish coming on a little later this season and the flooding hold me back, I did a lot in a short time, managing some odd fish behaviors and a little boat worry too that messed with a couple of gar outings. Lots of summer left but gotta move on. Just seven days on the water Leah and I together put nine over fifty in the boat during our two days and the other five steadily hooked in a pile more. I think the enjoyment of it all could have been lacking had it not been for my daughter and friends, Chrish and Amon. Those were the best days on the water for sure, and so I wave goodbye to gar 2023 with nothing but good vibes!

Don’t go ghosting me now.
Thanks for stopping by here at Bunks. 🙂