Memories of Canada 🇨🇦

[Mitch f]

Back in the early 2000’s we would make our yearly trip to Minaki, Ontario. Rough Rock lake was kind of a trophy Musky lake but also had plenty of big walleye and Northerns, with a smattering of small schools of smallmouth now and then. 
The MO was usually catch enough walleye for shore lunch, then switch to casting for Musky in the afternoon and evening. When Casting for Muskys  we were always rewarded with tons of Northern pike, sometimes really big ones at that. 
The first couple of years we used Indian guides from a local reservation. We got to know them very well. They would typically make the shore lunch of fresh walleye for us. After a while we really got in tune to the lake and the various dangerous rocks around the lake and learned how to avoid them. We also learned the best Musky spots too. 
Looking back it was truly a magical experience. God’s Country for sure! 
I believe these pics were from 2006

[rps]

In the 1960's, my father took me to Rough Rock lake two times. Before that we had fished twice on Rainy River, and once on the English River.  On four of those trips we had the same guide, Charlie Fisher. I hooked a Muskie on Rough Rock, but I was eleven and did not land him. The last trip to Rough Rock, I skipped an invitation to go to a concert called Woodstock. I made the right choice. Great fish! Wonderful memories.

 

[Al Agnew]

I've never been a big fan of the typical Canadian types of fishing...lakes, portages, pike, walleye, lake trout...mosquitoes and other biting critters in vast numbers.  I fished a couple lakes in Algonquin Park for lake trout and smallmouth...caught a smallie that was about 18 inches and thick, probably weighed 4 pounds.  Didn't think much of it until one of the park rangers was talking to us as we were loading up the car to leave.  When I told him about that fish, he said, "You do know the record for the park is only 4 pounds and some ounces, don't ya?"  It was one of only a handful of smallies I caught (never did manage to catch a lake trout), so I wasn't too impressed with the fishing.

Maybe my most interesting Canadian trip came about because I used to do an art show up in Buckhorn, Ontario, a couple hours north of Toronto.  It was a little town out in the middle of nowhere (though that part of Ontario is pretty well populated, with quite a bit of farming country).  But it was the only big wildlife art show in Canada, and people flocked to it and bought a LOT of artwork; a couple of the Buckhorn shows were the best art shows by money I made of any I ever did.  We got to know Robert Bateman there, and in fact we spent several days in a big cabin he owned on a lake in the area one year, and fished the lake quite a bit after the show.  But I'm first and foremost a river fisherman and always have been, so I investigated the river fishing possibilities in that area, and got wind of the Burnt River.  So Mary and I and another couple got a float trip set up on a 10 mile section of the river.

It was one of the weirdest rivers I've ever floated.  It was narrow, maybe averaged 40 feet wide, flowing mostly through heavily wooded lowlands with occasional granite bluffs.  And it was dead slow, basically still water the whole way, except for three major rapids.  We ran one of them, portaged the other two.  It was supposed to be full of smallmouth and harbored some muskies.  So I was really wanting to catch a muskie, having never caught one before, but I didn't have any muskie type lures or tackle.  So I hoped my bass stuff would produce.  We floated about three miles of dead water, catching basically nothing, then came to the first rapid.  In the fast water below it I caught my first muskie, about 28 inches or so.  Mary caught two, both slightly smaller.  No smallmouth.  Another couple miles of dead water and dead fishing, and the second rapid produced a couple more of those small muskie.  Third rapid was about a mile downstream, and the same thing happened.  No smallmouth, just those little muskies, and only in the fast water.  

Near the end of the float, I decided to try for a bigger muskie.  I'd been noticing the occasional weedy, wide backwaters off the main channel that we passed, and had avoided them because they were so weedy, but maybe that's where the big muskies were.  So we paddled up into one of them.  I had rigged up a Superfluke to fish in the weeds.  And those weeds were absolutely full of smallmouth!  I caught a bunch of decent ones, 15-17 inchers.  It was the last backwater before the end of the trip, but I was sure mad that I hadn't tried any of the others we passed.

[Devan S.]

10 hours ago, Mitch f said:

Looking back it was truly a magical experience. God’s Country for sure! 

For me home is hard to beat....I've always said it was God's Country but Canada and the fishing a so gosh darn close its not funny. 

Would go back in a heart beat.

[snagged in outlet 3]

That's cool, @Mitch f!!

[ness]

What's the story on the bear?

[moguy1973]

I loved my trip to Ontario last summer to fish for walleye and pike.  Was a blast and would go back.

[Mitch f]

3 hours ago, ness said:

What's the story on the bear?

I was with my brother going through a rock chute puttering around 5 miles an hour with the boat when we heard a huge splash… I guess the bear got scared When he heard the motor coming and jumped off the rock into the water only about 20 feet from our boat  as we passed him,  he got panicked and started back toward us. I had time to snap a quick photo before the incident could’ve turned bad.

[fishinwrench]

My dad, great uncle, and I did a fly in Canadian trip when I was 12.  The seaplane pilot did a nose dive landing when he dropped us off and ruined me from ever getting on a plane again.   We caught alot of nice smallmouth and pike (biggest was 12#) but I was miserable the whole stay because of the anxiety of the flight back out....which turned out to be way less terrifying.   

The deer flys and black flys were terrible in the evenings.  I would have had a way better time if the jackass pilot hadn't felt the need to show-off his flying skills in that POS float plane.

[Deadstream]

16 minutes ago, fishinwrench said:

The deer flys and black flys were terrible in the evenings

Always. just wear a mask.......