2024 Canada Fishing

 Day 2

On the second day of fish camp, it started much the same as the first.  Breakfast is served in the dining hall at 7:30am sharp, so we were sitting by 7:25 waiting to give our eggs-to-order request.  With bellies full, we headed to the dock for our day on the water.

At the dock we met our new guides for the next couple of days, Tyler and Caleb. Tyler is a 23 year old in his 3rd year of guiding.  Caleb is a 20 year old weekend guide who is the nephew of Jules, our guide from our first day.  Dad and Tom left the dock with Tyler, and Jim and I headed out with Caleb. We headed in a different direction than Day 1...instead of south and west, we went a bit north and west on this incredibly expansive body of water. Our target species for the morning was once again walleye, and the guides and lake did not disappoint. We  caught well over 60 fish in just a couple hours. Most of them small, but managed to keep 10 eaters for shore lunch.

Our shore lunch location was a bit different on this day. Usually the guides find a spot on one of the lake's many rocky islands. Most of these locations have remnants of shore lunches past...small rock fire rings with charred logs in the center, or a stray beer bottle among the trampled moss on the rocks.  But this day we went to Caleb's grandpa's cabin.  Caleb is in the third generation of Gibbons family from the Lake of the Woods area.  Grandpa's cabin is one of three small one or two room escapes that the family owns for fishing and hunting getaways each year.

It was the perfect spot for our shore lunch. A cleaning station for the fish, firepit for cooking, boat dock for combat naps, and picnic table for eating.  Lunch was a ditto of Day 1...the traditional Grassy Narrows meal of bacon, potato and onion, and of-course the fish, followed by a couple cookies. Shore lunch is always a highlight of these trips.

Caleb's Grandpa's Cabin

Then it was back to the water for the afternoon. Our goal in the afternoon was to find either northern pike or smallmouth bass. Jim and I, with Caleb's guiding, found the smalleys!  We boated over 25 bass in a couple hours of time, as well as a handful of walleye. Smallmouth are a blast to catch...catching them is like playing tug of war with your dog.  But in this case the tug toy is at the end of your fishing line, the fish of-course is your dog, and that "dog" is shaking its head back and forth and doing everything it can to get that tug from you.  Smalleys will get completely airborne during thefight, which we experienced on several occasions.  The highlight moment was when I caught a 3.5 pounder and Caleb caught another nearly as big on the very next cast.  

And while it was a fun afternoon for Jim and I, Dad and Tom struggled to find fish with Tyler as their guide. They caught a few...but nothing noteworthy.  Overall another great day on the water with a bunch of great guys.  

Caleb's Muskie Bait

Jim's big Smalley

Jerry and Caleb's 3+ pounders