There are a handful of places that have touched my heart like Pasha Lake does. Buckley Lodge, owned by our friends Mike and Mary Jo, Prairie Smoke Ranch owned by Dan and Jeanie who we visited last week, The Farm and our oasis in South Dakota. If I were to die today, these are the places I would like my ashes scattered. Places that are forever in my heart and hold special memories.
Our Pasha Lake adventures all started in 2005 when an
employee of mine (Chad) came to me and said “I’ve got some good news and I’ve
got some bad news”. Preparing for the worst, I listened to what he had to say.
“I am quitting, Michelle and I bought a hunting and fishing resort in
Ontario. “What’s the bad news?” I said.
That was 2005. Since then Barb and I have been up to Pasha
Lake Cabins every year, sometimes 3 or 4 times a year (I guess we did miss 2016
when we went to Alaska). Our first year or two on the road we spent the entire
summer up here fishing and just hanging out making memories that will last a
lifetime.
We have become great friends with Chad and Michelle and have
made other good friends. But, as they say, all good things must come to an end.
Chad and Michelle sold Pasha Lake Cabins this past January. They did not want
me to say anything at the time as they wanted the transition to go as smoothly
as possible for the new owners. Enough time has now passed that I think it is
safe to talk about it. As we drove up here this year, it broke my heart to
drive past that familiar sign between kilometer 4 and 5 on the 801 knowing neither
Chad nor Michelle were there. I could not help but think back on some of our fondest memories, here are a few pictures of those times.
 |
| Mark, showing me where the fish are. |
 |
| Daisy and I chill'in |
 |
Hiking into a remote lake Two Bob's out on the water |
 |
| Michelle and Chad at Fish Fry |
We are staying in our camper, no electricity, no water
source and no place to dump our waste water. No guests to chat with, nothing to
do but relax and fish. A totally new concept for us. It should be an interesting few weeks.
But it got interesting even before we got here. Since
leaving The Farm, Barb and I have been driving separately. Dakota and I in the
truck, camper and trailer. Barb and Zoey in the Jeep. We really did not need to
but, since Barb stayed home with Forrest and family before coming to the farm,
we had two vehicles and there was just not a convenient place to leave the Jeep
so she followed me through Minnesota, all the way up here. The border crossing
was a breeze. I pulled up to the checkpoint expecting the worst. After all, I
had the truck, the camper and a 16’ trailer in tow. Surely they would want to
search me. Nope, after a few questions he handed me back my passport and said
“Have a great day!”. Barb, right behind me was not as lucky. I pulled over a
few hundred yards up the road and waited for her. And waited, and waited. I
finally got out to see what was going on only to see her walking Zoey alongside
the Customs building. Yup, she got pulled over for inspection. And inspect her
they did. They probed her like a test subject getting lifted into an alien
craft. Everything out of the jeep, looking under the seats, opening suitcases,
under the hood, even scanning things for powder (or drug?) residue. When she
finally met up with me 30 minutes later she said they did not like the storage
containers on top of the luggage rack. To be fair, they are gun cases, so I do
not blame them for searching her. Those containers were on the jeep when we
bought it and have only contained fishing equipment but they wanted to search
her nonetheless. She walked a little funny for the next couple of days but they
did not find any contraband.
 |
| Those cases don't look suspicious at all, do they? |
That night we stopped by an LCBO (liquor store) and Canadian
Tire to stock up on supplies. We spent the night in Thunder Bay at the marina.
The next morning we drove to our favorite Canadian destination, Tim Hortons! We
had a breakfast of Tim Bits while I posted the last blog using their internet.
Thank you Tim!
From there we headed to the city of Nipigon, through
Beardmore and eventually past Pasha Lake Cabins to our new Ontario destination.
Although we have been to this cabin before, we have never parked our rig there
so we had no idea where to set up. Chad and Michelle were not going to be there
for a few more days so we were on our own. With the help of a chainsaw, we
found the perfect spot!
 |
| All set up on Paint! |
Holy mosquitoes Batman, they were everywhere. I kid you not,
every time we opened the door to go in or out anywhere from 20-50 mosquitos
would enter the camper. This has to be in the top 2 or 3 worst mosquito years
up here. Luckily, Barb has The Executioner with us. We have had that thing
going on 7 years now and would be lost without it. Seriously, if you are going
to travel in mosquito country, get an Executioner. There is not much more
satisfying than the sound and smell of those nasty little buggers getting zap.
Seriously, you can smell them when they go up in flames.
But we are here to fish, not complain about the bugs. Not
having access to the boats Pasha has on several of the area lakes did pose a
little wrinkle in our plans but we are full of ingenuity and soon had a canoe
strapped to the top of the side by side and were off! Off to a remote 60 acre
lake that we knew were packed with tasty walleyes just waiting for a minnow to
be dangled in front of them.
Who would catch the first fish of our 2023 Canadian fishing
adventure and bestow upon themselves bragging rights for the year? Who will
catch the biggest fish of the day? Will I once again out-fish Barb in an
embarrassing way? So many questions yet to be answered. For those of you who
have canoed, you know it is all about balance and coordination. Barb and I are
like a well-oiled machine when it comes anticipating each other’s moves. Even
with our insyncness (yup, another new word), it was a little challenging fishing
out of a canoe so there are only a couple of pictures.
It was not long before Barb stated the two words I had been
dreading. No, not “I’m pregnant”, it was worse, much worse…. “Fish on!” she
exclaimed. Landing a plump 18”er. Dang, there goes first fish bragging rights.
Soon after, she said those words again. Another 18”er for the stringer. Enough
of this, I maneuvered my end of the canoe along the weedline putting her and
the front end of the canoe out in no man’s land (or no fishland). I caught the
next 3 bringing our total to 5. She then caught another one which got off as I
was trying to land it for her. “Really Honey, it was an accident, it just
slipped off the hook.”
By the end of the day, we had 7 on the stringer and a few
released. She may have bragging rights with the first fish (or two), but so
far, I have bragging rights with the most and biggest at 23”. We were off to a
good start on Day 1 of our adventure!
The next day, we drove over to Pasha Lake to buy some minnows
and meet the new owners. A nice young couple with two small children. Victoria
and Kenny kind of reminded me of Chad and Michelle 17 years ago. Young and
eager to start their new business. Chad arrived later that day, he is staying
in his trailer at Pasha Lake as he is helping them the first week or two of the
season to help them get off to a good start. That day and the next, it was rainy
and we did not get out. What did get out was more mosquitoes! We could not keep
them out of the camper. Even with the doors and windows closed we could not
keep them out.
Barb had had enough and was ready to pack it in. Seriously,
I don’t think we would have made it another day. We went over to Pasha to visit
with Chad. It is more open over here and with a breeze the mosquitoes were not as
bad. We were telling Chad that we were probably leaving in the morning when Victoria
said “We can make room for you over here”. And just like that, our summer
vacation was saved. We have everything moved over in an hour or so.
 |
| Our new spot |
Our next fishing adventure was on Northwind Lake using one
of Pasha’s boats, probably our favorite lake. We drove directly to our honey
hole and fished it for about an hour. Of course, no sooner had we put our jigs
in the water and Barb says “fish on”
again picking up the first fish of the day but I followed suit rather quickly
adding another one to the stringer. We went back and forth on the fish count
until it happened. I got cold, and she got hot. I could not catch a fish to
save my life, and she kept saying “Fish on” “Fish on”. Those words were really
getting on my nerves. It was not fast and furious but she was catching one
every 20 minutes or so.
We moved over to fish the side of a little island when…. “Fish
on”, she hooked into a nice one. 23 ½”er, the biggest fish so far now belongs
to her. We released it and started fishing again. Not 5 minutes later she hooks
into another one. And this time the rod does not move, line is just slowly
spooling off the reel. She finally gets it alongside the boat and I don’t think
it will fit into the net. It did, but just barely. A hefty 28 ¼”er! I can
pretty much kiss the biggest fish of the trip goodbye, that one will be hard to
beat! I had had enough and switched jigs to the same color she was using. Now,
I will start catching fish again!
So there ends our first week up here. A lot has changed and a lot has stayed the same as Barb is still out fishing me. I think I would have rather heard her say “I’m pregnant” instead of dealing with all this humiliation!
