Okay so I know it took me a couple of days to get around to this, but I’m lazy so sue me.

Yes folks this past weekend I was able to once again venture north along side my uncle to the historic Moose Camp near Shining Tree for one last fishing trip. I know the year is still young, but I’m low on time off, my uncle is going to be immobile shortly due to pending rotator cuff surgery, and really the summer is half over so its going to be hard to find the time for another trip. But take heart. I plan to attend the bird-hunting trip to the camp in September and if all works out well the Moose trip to Manitouwadge, Ontario in October so I will be guaranteed at least two more OA.com posts on the year.

Anyways back to the matter at hand. We packed up early Friday morning for the long haul north. Now as Rick will no doubt confirm the trip up is usually a long and grueling one accompanied by multiple Tim Horton’s stops and a drawn out lunch at a shabby little dinner in the middle of nowhere, but we were determined to make this tip in 6hrs rather than the standard 8hrs. So after a quick coffee at the Tim’s on Essa Rd in Barrie we were off. The weather was good and our hopes were high for an excellent trip. We made good time all the way to Chelmsford (3 hour drive, the half way point just outside of Sudbury) where we gased up, did our grocery shopping and grabs a quick sandwich. From there it another quick haul all the way to the access point on the logging roads in. Really the drive was rather uneventful. No moose, no bears, and really nothing to see besides the great forests of the north, but we had managed to make the trip in the desired time and reach the camp by about 2pm. We quickly opened up the camp and got everything set up before heading back up the access road to the main highway and Lower Opik Lake. On the way out we spotted a large black bear, but he didn’t sit around long enough to snap a shot. Now this was the lake that we fished in the spring that produced a lot of Pickerel so we had high hopes of pulling out some good fish. It was a little windy out and It was my fish attempt at driving the boat so things were a little interesting off the top, but we managed to make our way up the lake to where we were catching all the fish before. Now I’m not sure what the habits of pickerel are, but after fishing for 3 hours I had managed 2 decent pike, 2 bass and a half dozen small pike, but no pickerel! My uncle had faired no better landing only a half dozen small pike. Through further research I have learned that pickerel are in the shallows during the spring, but move to deeper water to hide in the cool shadows of rocks in the summer (DARN!). Oh well. We made our way back to the camp, but not with the fish we had hoped. On the drive back into the camp we spotted our second bear. This one was much smaller than the first, but equally camera shy.

Day two we were up early for the trip down the river to our favourite spot, Welcome Lake. This lake is great for many reasons including a wide variety of fish (and lots of them), an amazing trip down a river to get in, it’s very quiet and secluded, and on top of it all it’s a beautiful lake. The morning was quite cool and a little windy was we navigated the deadheads (sunken logs) on our way down the river. We got to the lake and decided to fish the mouth of the river, which has been a gold mine for bass the last couple of trips. In fact my uncle had been up there at the beginning of the week with a friend and landed close to 80 bass in that one spot. The water is very clear in the lake and usually you can see the bass swimming around in the shallows, but not today. We fished for an hour or so at the mouth and only managed to land 3 small bass and 1 small pike. I managed to lose 3 bass. For some reason they really weren’t biting hard and they kept tossing my hook before I could get them into the boat. After that we trolled around the sunken islands on our way to Lunch Island (that’s what we call it, I’m sure you can figure out way).

At this point I had managed 1 decent size pike off the sunken islands and my uncle had landed another decent bass, but it was a far cry from our usual haul out of Welcome. We pulled into the island to grab some lunch. On the menu was bass cooked on the open fire and beans along with some flat bread. Sure it doesn’t sound like much, but fresh fish is amazing and really is all we were interested in. The rest of the afternoon was no better. My uncle managed another good size bass and half a dozen little throwbacks, and I was almost entirely shut out. We decided to call it a day and head back to camp. Back at camp we attempted to fish Clarkson Lake near the camp. It’s sort of like our own private lake as the only access point to it is through our camp. We hooked up the trolling motor to a small boat down at the dock and made our way out to find some pickerel, but not 5 minutes from the dock we ran out of juice in the battery and had to paddle back to shore.

Day three took us back to Welcome in an attempt to better our results from the second day. Once again we tried all the usual spots with very little luck. The wind was still very high and we were starting to think we would never find a fish. In a desperate attempt we decided to make our way into some protected islands down at the other end of the lake. Normally we never fish down that way, but really we had nothing to lose. We trolled the sides of the islands out of the wind and it wasn’t long before we were getting hits. It seems all the bass had moved out the river and were now hiding in the rocky shorelines. In the span of an hour we hit a dozen decent bass (1lbs +) 2-dozen little dinks, and my uncle hooked one decent pike (3lbs). We had managed to find enough for a good lunch (kept 4) for lunch and made our way to the island to cook them up. Lunch was pretty much the same as the day before. After lunch we hit the shoreline across from the island in hopes that the bass were there as well. Sure enough as soon as we set out our lines the bass were hitting. We landed another 2-dozen or so decent bass on the shores and a whole bunch of little guys. After that we headed back out to the sunken islands for one last trip around.

We hooked a few more bass, enough to fill out our stringer with a couple good size ones to bring home. Now no fishing story would be complete without the tale of the one that got away. As I mentioned before my uncle had been up earlier that week. On that trip he managed to hook into a good size pickerel on those sunken islands, but lost it due to not having a net. Back to our trip now, on one of our last passes around the islands his road snapped back with what was no doubt a large fish. He managed to fight it all the way to the boat once again. We caught a quick glimpse of it before it tossed the hook and was gone. We still aren’t sure if it was a bass or a pickerel, but whatever it was, it was big.

Anyways that marked the end of another great trip to the north. Overall everything was good. The bugs were bad, but that’s to be expected at this time of year. We didn’t see any moose, but the bears made up for that and in the end we managed to get into some good fish. Next is the grouse-hunt in the fall. We did see a lot of rabbits this trip so I think my chances will be high for shooting one this year. Can’t wait for that one!

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