Into the ever-less-wild

The Cubs have essentially crapped their bed, losing 5 of 6 before beating the Dodgers yesterday. With St. Louis now 8 games ahead in the division and the Rockies 7 up for the wild card, the Cubs' postseason chances have dwindled to nearly nil. Perhaps mercifully, I was spared the agony of watching it happen, as I was fishing northern Ontario. So I'll describe the fishing rather than trying to analyze baseball games that I didn't watch.

So here's the fishing report...

Along with two family friends, I journey to a remote lake in Ontario to spend a week fishing. The terrain is very similar to that of northern Wisconsin or Minnesota - chains of glacial lakes, flowing into one another, pine trees, boggy swamps, rocky outcrops, and not much evidence of civilization. We've been going to the same lake for about a decade and, unfortunately, that evidence of civilization has grown exponentially in that time. While I do love the fishing itself, I'm lured north, in part, because I can escape from the world in way, certainly from the closely-cloistered city in which I live. While the lake has by no means been transformed in the last decade, the atmosphere has probably changed more in that span than in the previous five decades since the first fishing camp opened. Here's a list of the changes:

1. More cabins - There are now about a dozen privately owned cabins on the lake whereas there were only three or four ten years ago. A decade ago, one of those cabins sold for about $30,000 Canadian but, last year, a tiny little cabin on a small lot was on sale for $150,000. So what happened? Toronto discovered the region. While there are lakes closer to that city, they've already been built up. So Toronto residents are now willing to drive the four or so hours up to the lake. And they've brought the stratospheric increase in property values with them.

2. Cell phones - I can get a good cellphone signal on the lake now, 15 miles from a paved road and much further from anything resembling a town. Just a few years ago, that was impossible. Now, my girlfriend expects me to check in nightly whereas, I would make one exorbitantly expensive midweek call home on the owner's landline just to say something along the lines of "I'm alive, I love you, and we'll talk in 4 days." Being in such close contact removes the sense of remoteness that existed before.

3. Satellite TV (the little mini-dishes, not the huge trailer-park specials) - The availability and affordability of those small dishes has transformed the cabins. Our fishing camp changed ownership a few years ago and the new owners have, admirably, done a wonderful job renovating the cabins. What were once plywood shacks with comically sloping floors, are now comfortably furnished houses. And now we have satellite TV. Instead of shooting the shit over coffee cause there was nothing else to do, we now stare at CNN or "Sportscentre". If the Cubs hadn't been on the west coast, and thus playing too late at night to watch considering that we start fishing at dawn, I would've been able to watch several of the games. Gone are the days of a midweek trip to get a newspaper and stare at the standings, wondering where the wins and losses came from. Maybe some relish the convenience but I miss the old times. So it goes.

Still, most importantly, the fishing was as good as ever...

I decided to fish for northern pike more than in past years. In Wisconsin, I've the following method to fish for northerns - using an 18-inch leader, I've put a live minnow on larger hook, tethering the fish to the lake bed with a heavy weight below the leader, usually a dipsy swivel. I'll fish that way in about 25-35 feet of water, on a rock or gravel bottom. It's worked in 'Sconsin but I've never tried it on the Canada, as procuring minnows requires a lengthy detour either on the way up or during the week. But this year I made the side trip for the proper bait and on Monday morning, I sent my minnow plummeting to the lake bottom.

And the results? I got four strikes in the first 90 minutes and pulled up two pike. The first was a juvenile, maybe 22-24 inches and only a pound or two. The second was a good pike, measuring 32 inches and weighing 7 pounds, fat for that length. He yielded two excellent filets, enough to feed 6 people. After that first outing, the pike fishing slowed down and I only caught one more, another little guy, in about 5 or 6 hours of combined fishing. I did catch a few smallmouth bass on the pike rig, in fairly deep water. Smallmouth fight like hell so, each time I hooked one on the pike outfit, I figured I had a small to medium sized pike on the line. At least that kept things somewhat interesting after the pike stopped biting...

...the bass fishing was a mixed bag. My buddies, usually fishing in deeper water with heavier gear (I use ultra-light tackle when bass fishing) did better than me, a reversal of the usual trend. The highlight was early in the week, when I was firing a weedless plastic worm (brown) back into the vegetation in a series of small coves. In one little notch, I got an immediate strike after putting my lure within five feet of the shore. Almost immediately, I knew that I had hooked a big largemouth bass. It took me at least three or four minutes to drag him out of the cove, through the lillypads and into the boat. In the end, he wrecked my lure but, at 18 inches and 4 lbs., the catch was worth it.

Oddly, for the first time since I've begun fishing this lake, I didn't catch many smallmouth. My friends did, but the smallmouth weren't in their usual locations, at least for me. I can't figure that one out as a midweek change in the weather didn't make any difference. I suppose that was the only real disappointment.

All in all, it wasn't the best fishing but it wasn't the worst. And despite the encroachment of modernity, I'll be back on the same lake next August. And probably for years to come, until I win the lottery and can afford to charter floatplanes and hire guides, to take me onto the nameless lakes north of Yellowknife, where enormous virginal pike lurk.