Fish tales
Caught up in Canadiana, hook, line and sinker
THE QUICKEST WAY to truly feel Canadian has always been to point the car north and keep driving until the trees thicken, the buildings thin and the signs identifying different lakes become more and more common. Once you hit Bobcaygeon and the Tragically Hip’s ode to that quaint town starts bouncing around in your head on an endless loop, you’ve arrived.
It was a couple summers ago, right there on the shores of Sturgeon Lake that the plan was put into effect. That July we launched Operation Muskie. There are endless things that make us Canadian. Being able to skate. Having eaten a Killaloe Beavertail. Double doubles on a cold winter morning. Having watched at least one episode of The Beachcombers and The Hilarious House of Frightenstein. That guy Joe from the beer commercial years back covered a bunch more.
Somewhere on that list is hauling in one of the biggest, baddest fish swimming in our country’s waters.
The muskie — Esox Masquinongy for the more scientific among us — is the largest branch of the pike family. Go on YouTube and you can see some that hit 50 or 55 inches. And fat. Hook one of those and you become a real fisherman. Correction, land one and you become a real fisherman. Haul one into your boat and you have achieved fishing utopia.
Of course, not every real angler agrees. To some, these predators are a pain in the butt. They take a while to land which is time that could better be used catching something you could eat, they have razorlike teeth that’ll rip your fingers to shreds. And they stink.
I know this because I’d caught one before. It was a few years earlier and it was entirely by accident.
Yours truly is not a fisherman. An enthusiast, sure. A city dweller who loves the solitude of drifting on the lake and hearing the waves slap against the boat accompanied by the gentle
wsssssss of a line being cast for hours on end with his cellphone safely tucked away? Absolutely. But a competent angler who knows how to find a weed line and troll alongside it without getting hopelessly tangled? No. Just because someone can spell monofilament doesn’t mean one knows what to do with it. Yet, I’d managed to land one. The lure with which I’d inadvertently hooked the monster a few summers before was destroyed in the fight that day. It now sits proudly in a shadow box in the basement, accompanied by a photo of the giant fish lying rather pathetically on the floor of the boat since I was alone and couldn’t really figure out how to take a selfie with the thing.
My teenage son, however, had never caught one. Never even seen one alive. So this became the quest. Get him a muskie. Help him have that most-Canadian of experiences.
DAY ONE we headed out onto the lake to an area I deemed promising based on some online research of what to look for. It wasn’t. We threw lures until our arms were aching but caught nothing. Eventually, we just slipped worms onto a hook and entertained ourselves by just dropping a line straight down and catching perch or panfish.
Pulling in an endless string of little stuff was amusing enough. All the while, however, I was hoping a muskie might see one of them and attack it. I’d heard of that happening, though I had no idea if that was true or simply one of the endless fishing stories out there.
DAY TWO was a repeat of Day One. Day Three and Day Four, too.
It’s at this point a writer will generally condense things and say ‘long story short.’ Except there’s no short story when trying to catch something that’s known as the fish of 10,000 casts for good reason.
Back at the cottage after dark I’d go online and try to figure out what I was doing wrong. I’d double check a map a compassionate local fisherman had given me marking his sweet spots. I’d ponder other lures or other methods of retrieving.
Was the rod too stiff ? The line too heavy? The lure diving too deep? Running too shallow? Was it the wrong colour? Do fish even care about colours? Was there divine confusion about my intent that was holding us back? We would release it back to the lake, alive, once we’d snapped a photo. Promise.
In spite of all this contemplation and angst, by the final night on the lake our plan was still an abject failure. I’d failed. I consoled myself by telling myself this wasn’t the end of the world. My boy and I had shared lots of terrific experiences together over the years.
We’d spent a sunny summer afternoon in the bleachers at Wrigley Field. We’d watched batting practice before an Indians game against the Blue Jays in Cleveland and he’d caught a ball hit by Jose Bautista. We’d been to the Little League World Series in Williamsport. We’d met Don Cherry, held an Olympic torch and touched the Stanley Cup together. Twice. We’d taken a lap on the Indianapolis Speedway, we’d seen Sidney Crosby play in Pittsburgh and we’d nabbed a puck at a Buffalo Sabres playoff game.
And we’d caught other fish together. Still have a picture of a much-younger version of him holding a huge largemouth bass and another with two hands full of walleye.
As I thought about all the things dad and son had been able to experience, I began to relax. Perhaps worrying about falling short of a goal was missing the point of being in Canada’s beautiful outdoors.
Ninety five per cent of the world could only wish to experience a place like this. Maybe seeing osprey circle overhead, hearing the plaintiff cry of a loon, watching a huge storm roll in, seeing a dusk sky so pink it looked like cotton candy, watching otters play in the water — heck, even the experience of being attacked by a billion hungry mosquitoes — was the real payoff, not some big, angry fish.
With the sun setting and the window to succeed closing quickly, the decision was made we’d cast 10 more times each then concede defeat. We’d given it our best. A creature with a brain the size of our baby fingernail had simply outsmarted us. So be it.
As I began packing up the gear between tosses — trying to drag out those 10 last-ditch efforts as long as possible — I couldn’t help but think that somewhere in the murky depths below us, a huge muskie was lurking. The next fisherman to come along who actually knew what he was doing would get a thrill. So there was that.
I can’t remember if it was on cast No. 7 or No. 8 when my boy spasmed. Then yanked the rod back hard. As he did, we both saw its tip double over and point straight down into the lake. Then start dancing.
We caught each other’s eye for a split second. Then smiled.
“Got something,” he said.
We’d given it our best. A creature with a brain the size of our baby fingernail had outsmarted us. So be it.