Fish On!

Thousands of bodies lay upon the battlefield, bloody from the weeklong massacre. It was not pretty but it was necessary.

This is the scene within our truck camper after one week alone in the Canadian bush. The battle was mainly against me and the mosquitoes. They were no match for our electronic tennis racket as I swung it through the camper getting a little joy each time I heard the “pop” and watched their little bodies flutter to the floor (or table, or counter and wherever they happened to land). I was winning the war against these nasty little buggers. I am however, losing the war against the laundry and dishes that, along with my fried little nemesis are littering every nook and cranny of the camper. There will be no photographic evidence of this battlefield as if I have any hope of Barb returning to me I need her to think this is all a fictional scene……..

After dropping Barb, Forrest and Lily off at the Rapid City airport I started my 8 hour trek to "The Farm" in Douglas North Dakota. I was not sure if I was going to drive it all the way through or stop somewhere along the way. A couple hours into my trip I received a text from Barb with just two words “Flight delayed”. Bummer, I sure hope it is not delayed too long as I am hours away headed the wrong direction and they don’t have any way to get back home should the flight get canceled.

A couple hours later I received another text from Barb “Flight canceled, trying to get another flight into Denver tonight”. Long story short they did get into Denver that night, got a room at 1:00am for $313 and were back at the airport again at noon the next day trying to get on a 7pm flight into Medford Oregon. They were able to get tickets for that flight but guess what? It was delayed as well. They eventually made it to Medford over a day late and very, very exhausted.

I on the other hand motored through 8+ hours and got to the farm at about 10:30pm where I just climbed in back and went to sleep. I spent the next day hanging with the Finken/Sobieck gang. There have been lots of changes since we were last up here in the fall of ’18. The most significant being the birth of Calvin, the third boy of the Chris and Holly clan. Looks like they are setting up the farm for the next generation! In addition they acquired several hundred new acres of property, a new sprayer, a new farm truck and several new and HUGE grain bins. Farmer Bob sent me this picture shortly after one of them was installed. These bins are 48’ in diameter and will hold 50,000 bushels!  

Most of all it was just great seeing everyone, I just wished Barb was there with me…… Early the next morning I was gone before anyone was up and hit the road. According to Google Maps, the drive to Pasha Lake Ontario was 16 hours; across North Dakota, into Minnesota, crossing into Ontario and then east to Thunder Bay and eventually Pasha. Again, I did not know how far I was going to drive, depended on how tired I got......820 miles and 18 hours later I pulled into Pasha at 2:00am exhausted but I was there!

That day I did not do a whole lot, mainly just got set up and waited for my friend Bob to show up with his group. For 5 years in a row he was bring a group of 6 guests up for a company retreat. Some of them are experienced fisherman while for others it may be their first time. So I try and help out where I can. The next day we went to Onaman Lake. For those of you have not read about Onaman in the past it is known for it’s walleyes, both in numbers and size. It is also a little over a mile hike back to the lake with poles, bait, gas and gear so you get a workout to boot!

Joe, Mark and I headed out to the hotspot!

Bob and Kurt in search of the mighty walleye!

I of course have my GPS hummingbird fish finder along which has many of the hotspots marked on it from years past and it was not long before someone was shouting "Fish on!"

Mark and I with a couple of nice Onaman 'eyes

Joe fell in love over and over again!

Bob with one of many 22"'ers

One thing I like to do when fishing a spot is drop a marker buoy when we catch our first fish. Since walleye are school fish this provides us with a good reference as to where the school was at that given time. We will then fish around that buoy until the fish move on. Invariably I have to tell my boat companions the story of when my sister was fishing up here with her husband. I won’t mention her name to protect her identity but it starts with a J and ends with a Y. Anyway, we were fishing a particularly rugged area and I had dropped a buoy right where the fish were. If you right next to the buoy you were catching fish, 10 yards off and you weren’t. They would fish next to the buoy and catch a fish or two then drift off and stop catching them. I would then tell them “You need to fish next to the buoy”. They would move back over and eventually drift off again and I would repeat “You need to fish next to the buoy!” After about 5 or 6 times of this my sister turns to me and says “Why do the fish like the buoy so much?” I remember it like it was yesterday, I laughed so hard I was crying and once she realized what she said she was as well.

Pink attracts some of the larger female fish!

After telling that story to the guys in the boat they would make comments every time we dropped a buoy at a new spot; “Oh good, they will now come and hang out by the buoy” “Do you find they like one color buoy over another?”. Or my favorite “Maybe we should drop a buoy so we can start catching fish”. My sister does not know it (until now) but years later she is still providing laughs to countless guys I get to fish with. I am sure that as she reads this she will have a smile on her face and want to punch me at the same time. But hey, I am hundreds of miles away and what is she going to do?!?!?

For lunch we stopped by one of the islands and had us a nice walleye snack!

Greg filleting some fish for shore lunch

Bob cooking up some fish

Does not get any fresher than that!

Steve and Mark listening to Joe pass along words of wisdom

We actually fished Onaman several times this week with equal success. Each boat landed between 100 and 200 walleyes a day averaging between 20 and 22 inches. The biggest walleye for the week was just over 30”’s and the biggest northern almost 38"'s

Joe with a nice 24

Looks like I got caught napping again!

With their week done, Bob and his crew have left with lots of fish, some great memories and some stories to tell. Me? I am thinking about doing the dishing and a little laundry while waiting for Barb to return from California. In the meantime I have all 4 different colors of my marker buoys ready for my next trip so I can really see, which color does attract the most fish!