One of the things that made this trip spectacular were the other fisher people. By this point in our week they were all WELL aware of my lack of success at catching fish and it
One of the things that made this trip spectacular were the other fisher people. By this point in our week they were all WELL aware of my lack of success at catching fish and it really felt as though everyone was rooting for me. The Fox group came over to our table at breakfast and told us they were fishing at Betty Lake the afternoon before. They were catching so many giant fish they missed supper and fished into the night. Betty Lake has a portage so there is a one boat limit, which means you have to book it. The Fox group were encouraging us to go and book it “right now!!” because they wanted us to have success. Our table mate Rob then joined us and shared that he was trying to go to sleep the night before and was thinking about us and realized we should go to Betty Lake. So he got out of bed, went up to the lodge and booked Betty Lake for us for this afternoon. Isn’t that so nice?
We headed down to the docks and met our guide Andrew. He said he had a spot to take us this morning and we were off. We went to the middle of a bay and he told us to all start jigging off the same side of a boat. We just drifted along jigged. The whole time, Chris chanting “jig jig boom”, likely as a way to prompt Max and I to continue jigging. Then BAM!! The first fish of the day was hooked and landed. It was beautiful! For sure, the most beautiful wonderful fish caught so far. Did I mention who the gifted fisher person is who landed the beauty? It was me!!!! My first fish was a walleye. Chris and Max were so happy (and relieved).
After that, we were off to the races. It was fish-polousa! Almost every couple of minutes someone was getting a fish. Andrew was there to de-hook my fish, put the big ones on a stringer and minnow Max and I up, so Chris was finally free to fish, fish, fish. It was crazy. I bring a frantic energy to fishing because I panic a bit and after one little frenzy of catching Andrew yelled (in a fake paniced voice “Everyone just stay calm!” It was very funny!!!
I noticed Andrew was catching fish and would just fling it into the boat and grab the line. I’ve never seen that before, we always use the net. I called this fancy move “Andrew-ing It In”. Max was very excited to try. He hooked a fish and Andrew said “are you going to try and Andrew it in? NO NO don’t- it is a trophy fish!” Esganami says any walleye over 24 inches, or pike over 34 inches is a “trophy fish” and if you catch and release you can get bragging rights, a t-shirt and entered into a draw to win a free trip back next year. They do this for sustainability which is a really great plan. Max was very excited because he was dying to get a trophy fish. I was very nervously on the net, super concerned that if I lost his trophy fish I would hear about it forever. But- more good news- Max landed her! A giant 25 inch walleye. He was so proud.
I caught the only pike of the morning! Take a second to really let that sink in. I caught both a pike and a walleye in the same fishing hole? Wow. I was on FIRE!!
The fishing was really crazy. One of us was catching almost every minute. In the morning I think Chris caught 19 fish, Max caught 10 and I caught 7!!!!! (Our guide caught somewhere between 35 and 300). I bring a lot of frantic, frazzled, excited, scream-y energy to the boat so there was a lot of adrenaline when Max said he wanted a grand slam, which would be all 4 of us getting a fish on the line at the same time. And it happened! It was crazy and chaotic (of course). Chris caught a pretty big fish so I turned to give Max my pole so I could take Chris’s picture. I noticed that Andrew was de-hooking his catch. While I was getting my camera out Max said “you have one on your line mom, and one on mine!!”. Andrew yelled “Everyone breath through your mouth”. I grabbed my rod and landed my fish and Max landed his. Bananas!! Andrew suggested we all take our lines out of the water for a minute to collect ourselves. It was so great.
We kept our full allotment to take home plus 4 more for our shore lunch, which were headed off to next. Today was a group shore lunch so all the fisher people met on an island and there were three kinds of fish, onion rings, German potato salad, beans and of course M+M cookies. We finally had something to brag about and we had a great audience. Everyone was so happy for us, and especially Max who landed a trophy fish. We were not even off the boat, and everyone on the shore was already cheering for us.
After lunch we headed to the famed Betty Lake. Our breakfast mate Rob and his guide Liam were waiting for us. The engine died on the boat on the other side of the portage so we were not able to go to Betty. We had such a great morning we were all fine with it. We fished with Liam and Rob for pike. I immediately got a giant pike on my line (Andrew said it was trophy size) and the line snapped when I got it to the boat. I have no idea how to land a big fish! Rob was watching and told me to lift my poll up and then reel back down because the pole is stronger than the line. Great advice! Thought I would share this in case you are reading this blog because you want some hot fishing tips. Chris caught a couple more fish. We saw a huge dark storm blowing in so Andrew said “one more cast” and Max caught a pike! And we started the long boat ride back to the lodge with what looked like mount doom chasing us across the lake.
It took us about an hour to get back and it was pretty cold and rainy. The storm looked pretty threatening and we all got soaked.
When we got back, the guys on the dock were there to great us, as always, and had already heard about Max’s trophy and were ready to congratulate him! We had 6 minutes until dinner so it was a quick turn around. We used dinner to come down from the high level of excitement we had all day. Because of the storm we decided to stay in and not go out for the after supper fishing. Chris and Max watched jaws and I went to sleep. I asked them to remove our coats and wet clothes from the rafters above my bed because they are creepy looking in the dark. Maybe it was the tense sound effects from jaws that stressed me out, but when Max got up an hour later to remove them he freaked me out and I started screaming, which in turn freaked Max out (he was in the middle of jaws) and he started screaming and flailing backwards and landed on Chris (who sat calmly and stoically having been through this so many time before) and we all got pretty loud for a bit. This did not deter us in anyway from having a good sleep though. Fishing is exhausting!
Donated to the lake- Who cares, I caught 7 fish!! CATHY!!!!! CAUGHT 7 FISH!!!!
