Went Fishing

I spent last week up in Quebec on a smallish lake next to Goin Reservoir fishing with my buddy Joe M. for walleye and northern pike. The pike didn't get the message but we did catch over 200 walleye including one that tipped the scales at 6.5 pounds.

This was our 22nd or 23rd trip to the area with Oliver Broussard of Caesar's North Camps. We left the Aerie Friday afternoon at 3 and crossed the 1000 Islands bridge at the northern end of I-81. Moved east to Ottowa and then north through Mount Laurier before jumping on a dirt road (127 miles of dust) to head to Parent and finally Clova. The toatal distance was 620 miles by car. We then flew north for 20 minutes--at 100 mph--and were at our lake and our cabin by 9 AM.

We unpacked, rigged up our gear and were fishing in half an hour.

Needless to say, we had a fun week with only one afternoon of horrible weather. (Thunderstorms and hail swept in twice with just a brief two hours in between--and we even managed to get out and fish during that spell. We managed to get off the water and under shelter of the cabin both times.)

Our home for the week.

Joe in his position on the bow.

First night at the cabin we had a full moon.

Calm evening.
 

One of the many walleye that measured 20-25 inches.

Rainbow marks the location of one of the walleye spots we fished the first half of the week.

This walleye weighed in at 6.5 pounds.

The land north of the Laurentions is relatively flat and the sky is endless.

Clouds are numerous.

Montana has nothing on this "Big Sky" country.

A couple of days after the stroms, we spotted this huge plume of smoke rising from somewhere to the east of us--right where we had seen some lightening strikes. We watched two big, yellow tanker planes flying around ensuring that the fire didn't spread too far and wide. The smoke stopped before sun finally set around 9 PM.

We learned later that this fire wasn't likely to spread much. It was on an island on the Goin Reservoir.

Smoke!

Still, knowing how quickly a fire can spread when there's a bit of wind behind it, we spent Friday afternoon wondering if we might get evacuated a little early. (We were due to--and did--fly out Saturday morning at 8 AM.)