Bass Fishing

Bass Fishing

Season Opener - 2003

If I was a church going man, this would be my temple, and I would worship every day.

This little piece of heaven is nestled in amongst 50 plus similar dots of water as seen from the sky below Calabogie in Eastern Ontario.

To get here we left the main road, followed a Hydro Line maintenance road, turned onto a dirt trail, threw the truck into 4 wheel made a left, left, right then maybe another left, poked through some bushes and parked at a perfect campsite in the middle of nowhere on the edge of reality.

Considering there are 10s of thousands of acres of Crown land surrounding this lake, the camp site looks well groomed and very used.

The heavy pine needle shed is largely responsible for the minimal grass growth. Everyone that uses this site seems to have left some useful items behind for others, we left a reasonable pile of firewood.

There is a work counter and table for cleaning fish and the tarp awning is a permanent fixture.

Here again is the "Bone-Breaker" flashing a reasonable sized bass for this area.

This is Canada, not Georgia or California, so if you land a 5lb or more bass you're doing alright. The shorter growing season and colder water definitely influence our species up here.

The Bass Spawn occurs typically in early to mid May, so our season opens on the 3rd Weekend in June to ensure that the spawn is not disrupted.

Who else but yours truly, with an atypical Bass.

There where 4 (four) of us from the hunt Camp on this trip, in two boats. Rather than embarrass the other boat, I'll just say that our boat caught 22 fish in total, more Pike than Bass and one Pickerel that came up to the side of the boat, and spit the lure back at us in disgust and disappeared into the stained water.

The 2 bass in these pictures were kept for breakfast, as well as 5 Pike, three of which I prepared in the smoker and munched on for a week afterwards.

Here is the tourney winning boat, patiently waiting by shore as we re-stock on beverages and the like before making another assault on the water.

Fishing is something that either you get it or you don't. Though not an uncommon skill, the satisfaction of knowing that I will eat regardless of the circumstances where many won't, brings a sense of satisfaction that is priceless to me.

This picture caught a reflective moment after everyone was out of beer or simply had enough.

I opted to absorb as much of the night and lose my thoughts among the embers into the wee hours of the morning. No radio, TV, computer or even a book to distract me, just what ever caused a ripple on the surface of my brain.

If I can fit a few of these trips in per year I count myself as lucky.

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