Going

Going

to the

bush, eh?

I finally got a chance to get some fishing in, and, while I hate to see people suffer while I’m having a good time, I will tell you that while it was about 100 degrees here, I was sleeping under a sheet and an army blanket with the windows wide open.

My nephew, Mark, and I were enjoying some tremendous fishing in Shining Tree, Ontario, at Three Bears Camp. This was my eighteenth trip to Canada, and my fifteenth stay at Three Bears Camp. What can I tell you? If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

My good friend, Brandon Baker, runs the camp, with the help of Kelly Hayward, and they make you feel right at home. We had a two bedroom cabin on Shining Tree Lake, and enjoyed all the comforts. We fished seven days, sometimes for 7 or 8 hours a day, and probably caught, conservatively, 175 to 200 fish.

We missed the lunkers this time, but caught some northern pike in the 3, 4 and 5 pound range, which are great fighters. It was all catch and release, except for one or two for supper, and five or six fillets to bring home. I don’t keep game fish that I’m not going to eat, and I surely don’t kill them to feed to the cat.

We fished eight different lakes, caught mostly northern pike, one nice walleye, and a couple of smallmouth bass. We did four portages, which put us in lakes that aren’t fished by everybody with a 4x4 pickup truck, and only saw other fishermen in one lake, which was Shining Tree Lake, where we stayed.

It is a long drive, about 830 miles one way, and about half way home, for the last several years, I say this was probably my last year. Then, spring rolls around, and the blood warms a bit, and I start finding ways to justify the long drive, once again. I’m pretty good at that.

It’s a long way into the bush, as our Canadian neighbors say, and pretty isolated. If something important in your body stops working, car you break a major bone, they usually fly you out in a helicopter. But, with the natural beauty all around you, no cell