Top pike anglers make own lunker lure

The blank lure

Luminescent eye is painted

Finished product -- a delicious little walleye

Tom Cieplik, the young man whose one-week catch of monster northern pike made everybody's jaws drop on this blog a couple of seasons ago and his father Carl may be on to something. And knowing the Cieplik clan, it's probably on to something big.
Tom just sent me this e-mail:

"Dan,

Last year we hooked many walleye, and our lines became heavier a number of times while reeling them in. Trophy Northern pike made a meal of our walleye nearly 10 times last year. This is by far the most that it has happened to us since coming to Bow Narrows Camp. Loving to cast for big pike, and without a walleye pattern lure, my dad and I took on a winter project of creating our own walleye. This is what we came up with. Look forward to giving this a try this year.

(Added glow and the dark paint to the eyes and tip of the tail)

Tom Cieplik" 

Here's some links to a few of the Ciepliks' other contributions to the blog:

Holy cow!
10-minute fishing video
Trip video
Spro lure
It just gets better

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Bull moose 'rises' from the lake

Dan and Sharon Sharp, mentioned in the last posting, also got this great photo of a bull moose in velvet when at camp last summer.
The thing I like most about the shot is that it seems to have been taken with such a long zoom lens that it shows the curvature of the Earth! Doesn't it look as though the lake is higher between the camera and the moose?
Thanks, Dan and Sharon.
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Many anglers bringing self-inflating PFDs

Dan and Sharon Sharp got some nice walleye, such as this 24-incher, when they were at camp in June. They are wearing their own self-inflating PFDs which are proving to be a hit with more and more boaters

It was wonderful last summer to see so many of our guests bringing their own PFDs or life vests.
I believe wearing a PFD (personal floatation device) when you are in a boat should be as common and natural as putting on your pants in the morning.
If you are wearing a PFD, nothing bad can happen to you on the water. It's as simple as that.
I see that most people are opting for the automatic-inflating PFD. These inflate with a CO2 cartridge when they are submerged. Some of them actually qualify as a life jacket. The difference being that a life jacket will keep a person's face out of the water even if they are unconscious. Life vests do not do that. They keep you afloat but you need to keep your head erect.
It's almost never an issue. Just about all drowning victims were conscious. But they didn't come to the surface when they reflexively inhaled a bunch of water from the shock of unexpectedly being thrown into the water such as when the boat strikes an object.
A life vest or a life jacket will immediately bring a person to the surface. It's better of course if it will do that even if they are unconscious but if a person will wear a life vest and not a life jacket, which are more cumbersome except for the auto-inflate types, then wear a life vest! If they would wear a camo one rather than an orange one (a better safety colour), then wear the camo one! Do whatever it takes to get in the habit of always wearing a PFD.
I always wear one. Mine is a standard life vest but I like it particularly because it has mesh over the shoulders, something like a kayaker vest although it is made for sportsmen, not paddlers. Mine is brown, not orange, because I like to wear it while duck hunting in the fall.
I fear some anglers think a PFD is a needless expense. For one thing, they aren't expensive. I got mine on sale from Cabelas for $20. Even full price it would only be something like $40. The self-inflating ones now routinely go on sale for about $100.
They come in every size and the various models will fit any body shape or idiosyncrasy. I personally don't prefer the self-inflating ones because I don't like things rubbing against my neck.
Everybody's different but we all sink just the same. And if you haven't been wearing a PFD in the past because you never needed one, consider this: the northwoods is full of stories about people such as life-long trappers who ended up drowning. In all likelihood you will need your PFD just once.
If you don't bring your own PFD to camp, note that we provide life vests to all our guests. These are the standard type. Make sure we find one for you that fits your size. We have them from small to XXL and also have some children's models.
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Lots of timber wolves already

My trail cameras have already gotten a bunch of photos of timber wolves here at our home in Nolalu. That's unusual as we don't typically see wolves until mid-winter. The cameras also have captured plenty of whitetail deer too and that, of course, is the big draw for the wolves.
Nolalu is about 300 miles southeast of Red Lake and is near Thunder Bay on the north side of Lake Superior.
At our tourism summit conference in November camp operators were talking about the huge packs of wolves they have witnessed. Some have seen packs of up to 50. Those are incredible numbers. My cameras have only gotten up to three wolves in a group and that is more natural -- packs of three to five.
The best guess on the extraordinary groups is that they are actually many packs that have foregone their usual territorial instincts due to the extra-high numbers of deer.
In normal circumstances, pickings are few and a pack of five wolves will drive away any other wolves from its territory.
We all expected deer numbers to plummet after last winter's deep snowfall but whitetails are incredibly resilient. It will probably take successive deep snow winters to lower the herd.
Meanwhile, the deer are spreading a parasite that is harmless to them but fatal to moose. The meningeal brain worm has wreaked havoc with moose in Minnesota and Northwestern Ontario. In fact it has just about wiped them out from the U.S. border all the way to the south end of Red Lake Road. Lots of deer there now but few moose.
Fortunately, in Red Lake deer are still a rarity. It is one of the last areas with a healthy moose population.
Climate change is mostly the reason for the deer influx. The northern Ontario winters used to be too harsh for deer. Only the long-legged moose could make it through. That's just not the case these days.

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First deposits get first dibs on boat schedule

It takes 35-45 minutes one way for each 9-10 people. Photo by Lonnie Boyer

I forgot to mention in the last posting that we will continue with our policy of scheduling arrivals and departures on the Lickety Split, our trip boat, when you make your deposit.
Arrival times in Red Lake on Saturdays and Sundays are 9 a.m., 10:30 a.m. and 2 p.m. Departure times from camp on Fridays and Saturdays are: 6:30 a.m. and 8 a.m. All of these times are approximates and are dependent on weather and lake conditions.
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We did it again; now we're back

Mountains along the Strait of Georgia

Trumpeter swans on coast in front of our B&B

Cow and calf moose cross Hwy 3 near Princeton, B.C.

Ferry to Powell River, B.C. crosses strait

For the second consecutive year, Brenda and I took a cross-continent driving trip in late-November. We just got back yesterday evening. We were visiting our son and grandsons on Vancouver Island.
And, once again, Mother Nature was kind to us. We made the entire 8,000-km round-trip without ever being stopped by a snowstorm. Whew!
This time we drove west to British Columbia via the Trans-Canada Highway which navigates through the high Rocky Mountains via the Kicking Horse Pass and Rogers Pass. We came east through the southern B.C. Route 3 highway that has the very highest pass - Kootenay -- at 1775 meters.
This latter route was a bit slower but was extremely beautiful and we saw a load of wildlife along it such as moose, elk and mule deer. On the more northern Trans-Canada route we also had a very large bighorn sheep step right over the guardrail in front of us. It was on a hairpin turn where we were only driving 40 km-h but on the snow-packed road we still slid to within a couple of feet of the big sheep before stopping.
Now it's time to get back to business. Let me catch-you-up on what has been happening.
Brenda was elected president of Nature and Outdoor Tourism Ontario, a province-wide organization that serves all of the outdoor tourism industry in Ontario. That happened in early November at the first annual Northern Ontario Tourism Summit in Thunder Bay. This summit combined the efforts of NOTO and Tourism Northern Ontario, a group that encompasses government, marketing organizations and tourism operators.
In Bow Narrows Camp business, it's time to contact everybody with existing reservations to secure those bookings with deposits. I will start sending letters to everyone immediately. You don't need to wait for a letter, however. You can call us at our winter number: 807-475-7246 with a credit card for the deposit. We require $100 per person to hold reservations. This is completely refundable upon 60 days notice of cancellation.
Our rates will be unchanged for 2015.
American guests should realize substantial savings this year due to the favourable exchange rate on U.S. currency. It is currently trading at more than 10 cents higher than the Canadian loonie. Our rates are in Canadian so when you pay with a U.S. credit card you will actually be charged 10 per cent less. If you send us a check, it will be worth 10 per cent more, i.e. a $100 deposit becomes $110 Canadian if the exchange rate is 10 per cent.
As in the past, you can also send us your HST rebate check that you got from last year's trip as part of your deposit. Just make sure you sign the back. Many of our guests do this because their banks charge them an outrageous fee to cash the Canadian government check.
One more thing, exchange rates change daily and experience has shown there is no accurate way of predicting the future. A lot of our guests will likely pay for next summer's trip this winter while they know for sure they will get a great exchange rate. You are welcome to do that. If for some reason you need to cancel, we will refund the entire amount unless the cancellation comes less than 60 days of the trip in which we will refund everything but the $100 deposit fee.
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A fishing camp faux pas

These are finely-tuned instruments

At Bow Narrows Camp we clean all our guests fish for them. We've done this for more than 40 years.
Three times a day our outside worker and frequently myself come together at the fish cleaning shack where our guests have put their fish in blue plastic tubs in a system that we have pretty much perfected over the decades. We know from how the fish are placed in the tubs whose fish they are and whether we should clean and package them to go home or take them to the guests' cabins to eat in camp.
I got to thinking this summer about how many fish I've cleaned in my life. For about eight years I was the sole fish cleaner and that was back in the days when the limits were six walleye, six northern pike and five lake trout per person. It was also in an era when virtually everybody gauged the success of their trip on whether they took home "the limit." Needless to say, a lot of fish needed to be cleaned.
Since then limits and standards have changed. Now, if you have the full limit license you can keep four walleye and four northern pike. On Red Lake, no lake trout can be kept at all while this species rebuilds their population. However, most anglers today opt for the conservation fishing license which allows them two walleye and two northern pike to take home. So there are fewer fish to clean than in the old days. But since anglers also keep some fish to eat at camp before putting some in the freezer to take home, we still clean lots of fish.
My best guess is that I personally have cleaned at least 200,000 fish and probably far more.
The entire reason we began cleaning our guests' fish in the first place is because I learned how to take out the Y-bones from northern pike. It was a technique showed to me by one of our moose guides -- Jimmy Duck -- who had himself been shown by an American fisherman at another camp.
It's a slick method which results in two fillets per fish that are 100 per cent boneless.
But the technique is as much of an art as it is a science. I have shown it to hundreds of sportsmen and women and the only ones who have ever been able to duplicate it were our own outside workers. That's because you need to clean about 10 fish within a day or two with me by your side giving you instructions, watching your knife the whole time and alerting you when you start to make mistakes. There is very little margin for error or you end up with fillets that look like lace curtains.
To accomplish the task you not only need to know where to make incisions but how to angle your knife. You need to understand fish physiology and, oh yeah, the Y-bones are invisible to you.
One other thing, what you do with your non-knife hand is as important as the one holding the blade. It needs to support the fillet in a particular way that makes the cuts you make with your knife take out the bones, but not the meat surrounding them.
As you might guess, it takes a very sharp knife to accomplish this. I always use two knives, one for filleting and another for skinning. The reason is skinning dulls a blade quickly and doesn't require a razor-sharp one in the first place. Our outside workers always use two knives as well.
This means you not only need to learn how to Y-bone a pike but you also need to learn how to properly sharpen a knife. It's a process that takes about half an hour per blade, if the knife is seriously dull. Once sharp you can keep it that way by touching up the edge every few fish. So we never let our knives get very dull. In our three-times-a-day ritual, we have about one hour maximum each session to clean everyone's fish. If it takes longer than that then we aren't completing our other daily tasks like picking up the garbage, cutting firewood, filling up the gas tanks, mowing the lawn, filling the generator with fuel, etc., etc.
This is where the faux pas comes in. Every once in awhile we descend upon the fish house planning for a rapid fish cleaning session only to find someone else has used our knives. Not only did they use the filleting blade for skinning but they also didn't place one of the cleaning boards beneath it and cut right against the metal cleaning table. Our razor sharp edges now wouldn't cut warm butter and we are now going to spend two hours in the fish house, one hour sharpening our two knives and the next cleaning fish.
In my mind, this is a cultural gaffe as great as wearing your buddy's underwear.
If you lived next door to Eric Clapton would you wander into his house and play his guitar, maybe re-tune it? It's the same thing.
Our knives may not look like much but they are finely-tuned instruments and we are highly skilled artists.
People who want to clean their own fish or who decide at midnight to clean some fish for a snack are welcome to do it. Just use your own knife, that's all.
Incidentally, fish brought into the fish house after our 5:30-6:30 p.m. fish cleaning time are put on ice until the next morning. This sometimes causes concern among our anglers who think the fish might spoil, hence their taking our knives and cleaning the fish themselves.
I can absolutely guarantee that the fish will be in excellent shape when we clean them the next morning. I say this because I've seen it happen hundreds of thousands of times.
Sometimes anglers, fearing the fish will spoil, keep them on a stringer overnight at the boat or hang our burlap keep sacks in the water. Now the fish really will be spoiled.
Just do what we advise: put the fish in the tub in the fish house in the evening. The last thing I do before I go to bed each night is to cover all the fish in the tubs with wet burlap bags and a milk jug of ice. They will be exactly identical in condition the next morning.
I don't claim to be an expert on anything else but when it comes to cleaning fish, more specifically -- northern pike and walleye -- I have never met anyone who knows more about it.
You would need to have cleaned hundreds of thousands of them since you were six years old to understand what I'm talking about.
Remember the first moon landing? It was in 1969 and my dad came to get me so I could watch it on TV. I was in the fish cleaning shack at the time and probably ended up cleaning 50 or more fish that day, just like I did every day. I was 16 years old at the time and already had been cleaning fish for 10 years.
By my estimate I had already cleaned as many fish by 1969 as most anglers clean in their lifetimes, at least pike and walleye.  And that was 45 years ago and I've been at it ever since.
I've cleaned fish when I was so tired I fell asleep standing up. I've cleaned them with mosquitoes eating me alive. I've cleaned them in the dark and in below-freezing temperatures. It only takes me a minute or so per fish. At least, it does when I don't have to spend an hour sharpening my knives!


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The one thing most fishermen forget to pack

My pocket kit I always carry in my hunting vest

Today's angler is certainly well-outfitted.
He has multiple rods and reels. He has the latest fish/depth finder. His tackle box is stuffed with every lure on the market.
So what could he possibly have forgotten?
It becomes apparent the first time he gets nicked by the razor-sharp teeth of a northern pike, or jabbed with the dorsal fin of a walleye or poked with a hook or cut with a piece of line.
He has nothing to stop the bleeding!
It seems no one carries a first-aid kit any more.
And to make matters worse, a great many of boomer-age anglers are also on blood thinners. They bleed easily and a lot from the most minor gash.
Actually, what is needed isn't the entire first-aid kit, just a bunch of bandages and a tube of antiseptic cream. These take up very little room packed in a ziploc and stored in the bottom of a tacklebox.
If you forgot the antiseptic, head to shore and find a balsam fir. (See the First-aid tree).
Virtually every fisherman is going to suffer some nicks and lacerations out there. For one thing, your hands are soft just from dipping them in the lake so often. If you patch up these wounds on the spot they never get sore and bothersome.
It's also a good idea to have one full-fledged first-aid kit back in the cabin for the entire group in case there is a more serious injury.


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Old camp phone and number bite dust

For over 40 years our phone number at camp was 807-727-2730 but that has now come to an end with a final breakdown of this type of phone system.
Bell had offered and then maintained the remote microwave telephone network that several camps and individuals used in the Red Lake region. It was always a party line but over the years the system was refined so that you could not hear others' conversations; you just got a busy signal when you went to use the phone. It replaced the old walkie-talkie or CB-type of radio phone we had used in the 1960s.
Motorola made the equipment and we had several large boxes of electronics in a building we called the radio shack. The equipment has been obsolete for about a decade. We were told a few years ago that if anything ever broke again, that would be the end. Well, it broke some time in September or early October.
Fortunately, we have another telephone system at camp -- a cell phone that picks up a signal from Red Lake via an external antenna and then boosts that signal with an amplifier. It is considerably simpler than the old microwave system and has worked extremely well since we started using it a few years ago.
That phone number is 807-727-0439 and is our only summer phone number now.
However, if you want to remember only one phone number for us, remember our winter number: 807-475-7246.
It will always reach us any time since we forward calls from that number to wherever we are, including camp.
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Last year's freeze-up caught on trail camera

The scene as we left camp in the Lickety Split, Oct. 17

Moose gets a drink from point in early November

Still some open water the day before freeze-up, Nov. 19

Ice extends all the way across narrows, Nov. 20,  and never melted until May

My brother-in-law, Ron Wink, left his trail camera set at camp last fall (2013) and it recorded nearly half of the winter before its batteries went dead in late January. In particular, it witnessed the actual freeze-up of the narrows in front of camp.
Ron had set the camera to take a photo every five minutes during daylight hours.
The sequence began when we left Oct. 17. Not much changed for a couple of weeks except for some snows that came and went. Eventually the snow just stayed.
Also ice formed and melted along the shoreline several times. Finally, in mid-November, it stayed along the shore all day and started edging toward the center. On Nov. 20, the ice reached all the way across the narrows and never melted again.
The camera also recorded temperatures and it was remarkable to see it was -40 C (or F, both scales come together at -40) in early December. That is extremely cold for so early in the winter.
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Beavers and 'valuable lessons'

Now the beavers are cutting down our birches

My current attempt at living in harmony with North America's largest rodent -- the beaver -- is just the latest chapter in a very thick book. It's a psychological thriller full of twists and unexpected turns. Over the years we have invested hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars into this relationship with mixed results, at best.
It started with fencing our trees. Beavers had cut down virtually every quaking aspen tree within 100 feet of the water at the west end of Red Lake except for those growing in the yard at camp. Eventually, these trees around our cabins were just too great a temptation and they started disappearing at night. We put our superior human intelligence to work and placed wire fencing around every aspen near the lakeshore. We reasoned that if the beavers got out of the water and discovered the trees could not be cut down, they would not bother going farther back into the bush where we had not fenced trees. It worked!
Also, to save money, we had cut the fencing so it made a barrier that extended just two feet off the ground. When you look at beaver tree stumps, they are roughly the same height -- the height of a beaver -- and are less than two feet high. Again, our plan worked ... for awhile.
After several years, beavers somehow learned to cut above the two-foot fencing. I don't know if they were standing on each others shoulders or maybe dragging a log to the trees to stand on, but trees started vanishing in the night again. So, there was nothing else to do but take off the two-foot fencing and replace it with three-and-four-foot fencing, a process that was even-more expensive and time-consuming than before. But at least our efforts weren't in vain, at least not for several years.
I got up one morning only to find beaver stumps where trees had been, right beside the cabins! Some beaver had gone right past the fenced trees at the water to see if all the trees were protected and discovered they were not. This had to be stopped immediately or we would need to fence hundreds of trees all around the camp.
It was then that I started thinking about how beavers learn. For years they had been swimming right past the fenced trees and assumed all the trees in camp were protected. This knowledge seemed to have been passed on to new generations of beavers. Then, some smarty-pants, not listening to the advice of his elders, went inland anyway and discovered the whole story was a myth. If he taught the rest of the beavers what he learned, we were in big trouble. But what if he had a bad experience and related that to the others? We needed to teach this adventurous beaver a valuable lesson and then he would pass that message on -- stay away from this place.
I came up with the idea of electric shock. It works with domestic animals after all. Think electric fencing. Once pigs and cattle have been shocked by the fence, you can take the fence down and they still won't cross where it had been, at least so I've been told.
The beaver had left a half-cut tree near Cabin 10 and I reasoned he would be back to finish the job the next night. A 12-volt battery, I guessed, would do the job. That's what the electric fencers used.
I fashioned a grate of heavy fencing all around the tree for the beaver to stand upon and wrapped finer chicken wire around the trunk, right where the beaver would bite. I set the battery down by the tree and fastened one pole to the grate, the other to the trunk. The beaver would complete the connection, get zapped but not killed and would head off to Beaverland with the knowledge this was a bad place to cut down trees.
It took me a couple of hours to lay the trap and since it was supper time, I went into the lodge to eat.
Afterwards I moseyed on down to the cabin hoping to actually see the trap in action -- a zapped beaver fleeing to the safety of the lake and probably slapping his tail repeatedly to warn off the rest of the clan.
Instead, I found the battery flipped upside down with both poles touching the metal fencing. It was sparking furiously and this had set the dry grass in the entire yard on fire. Oh yeah, the tree was gone.

But a valuable lesson had been taught.
I learned never to do this again.

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Assistants 'volunteer' to help with tree clean-up

About half of the chore of cutting down trees in the yard is dealing with the branches. They all need to be picked up and hauled to burning piles. It's a tedious task. If only I had helpers to do it. Hey! The favourite food of beavers is quaking aspen, the same species of trees I am cutting. I just cut down the trees and give the big rodents time to haul away the branches. In fact, I give them a hand by cutting the branches loose from the trunk.
My trail camera shows beavers passing by every few minutes each night. There are obviously a number of them at work. Even the kits are getting in on the action. The camera showed a kit hauling off a few tiny branches at first and then progressively taking bigger ones.
The adult beavers can carry small logs that are several inches in diameter.
The trick is going to be to allow the beavers to take the branches but not the cut-up pieces of firewood. In the past we've had them steal wood right out of firewood stacks. This year I'm stacking the wood "in-the-round" which means it will be much heavier than split pieces. That, plus the fact it will be wedged by the weight of all the pieces above will, I hope, prevent all of next fall's firewood being dragged into the lake. Each round piece of these large green poplars probably weighs 20 pounds. I'll also stack it as far away from the lake as possible.
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What fish species spawn in the fall?

Lake trout, as mentioned in some of the last postings, spawn in the fall.  This seems odd to some  anglers and the reason is almost all of the species they normally seek are spring spawners such as walleye, northern pike and bass.
However, lake trout are not alone in their autumn ritual here on Red Lake. Other fish, most of them not targeted by fishermen much are: whitefish, tulibee and ling. All of these fall-spawning species are the deep-water fish in Red Lake.
Their reproductive strategy is in marked contrast to the spring spawners whose survival seems based on eggs developing rapidly and the young fry quickly seeking shelter from predators, all in a matter of a few weeks. The fall spawners' eggs can take months to develop and the young fish are very slow to grow. However, there also are fewer predators in the shallows under the ice. Most of the predatory fish will be in somewhat deeper water where it is warmer.
Lake trout eggs, dropped among boulders right at the shoreline, can be totally covered by ice when winter comes. Incredibly, even in these ice-bound shallow areas, there is liquid water between the cracks at the bottom of the rocks. The little trout are alive but imprisoned there until the ice melts in the spring. They then plummet to near the bottom of the lake, below the predators which are usually higher up near the thermocline.
Lake trout spawn around Oct. 1, whitefish and tulibee spawn just as the ice is forming and ling can spawn under the ice. All of these fishes' eggs just fall to the bottom. The parents don't build a nest as do some stream trout and bass.
It may seem more primitive than the warm-water fish but it is just another example of the diversity of Nature.
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Summer is over and maybe fall too

Lodge this morning

Cabin 7 and Cork

Looking across narrows

Cabin 3 and boats pulled out of water for the winter

 Boathouse. Just the Lickety Split and two fishing boats left in lake

Here's the scene this morning at camp. A couple of inches of snow have fallen and more is expected today. The temperature is only predicted to rise a couple of degrees above freezing and the long-term outlook isn't much better.
There is no one in camp this morning other than Brenda, Cork and I but the trouters are due back today after taking the weekend off. They would still like to catch a couple dozen more fish for the spawning project. It could be tough sledding (pun intended). It is no fun to be in a boat when it is snowing or after a snowfall.
Unfortunately, that is exactly what I will be doing in a few minutes. We are out of firewood and that means I will be taking one of the fishing boats down the lake and cutting down standing dead jackpine trees. I will buck them into 48-inch lengths, pile them crosswise in the boat until the load is above the gunwales and slowly motor back to camp. There I'll haul the lengths up the hill, make a neat stack in the yard and cut each into three, 16-inch pieces. These I'll split and using the wheelbarrow, haul them to the cabins that will still be used this fall and to the lodge. If there was no snow I would use the golf cart and wagon but these are useless with snow on the ground.
In bitter conditions like this we have two woodstoves burning in the lodge and can melt right through a woodpile in no time flat.
Our family arrives this weekend for a week of moose hunting. We will have three cabins plus the lodge to heat during that time. Brenda and I will be here for a week or two more, closing up. I also have Cabin 4's roof to finish. About one-third of it has been shingled.
I also have a bunch of dangerous trees to cut down, especially around Cabin 9. I got a start on this last weekend but have a bunch more to take down. These are huge, heavy, quaking aspens that easily weigh a ton each. I hate to cut them down but they are so big now and so old that they are tipping over. They are also full of pileated woodpecker holes and some of them are breaking off in high winds where the holes have been made. It's just been lucky that none has hit the cabin. These will provide firewood for next year and probably a year or two after that. I think each tree contains about a cord of wood. We use about five cords a season at camp.
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A stroll with Cork along the camp's waterfront

Click on this photo to see it in panorama.

Red osier dogwood and wild roses make a good frame for Cork's portrait

Fall colours as seen in front of Cabin 10

Cabin 10 shoreline. How many cabins have 3.6 billion-year-old fossils in front of them? See Stromatolites

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Lake trout spawning project one of best in years

Jeff King carries trout from pens to Eagle Falls' pontoon boat

Toby Braithewaite strips eggs into bowl held by Tori Toews and Nadine Thebeau assists

Pam Dietrich tags each fish before it is released

Ministry of Natural Resources fish and wildlife personnel are all but finished with the 2014 lake trout spawning project and have had great success in gathering plenty of eggs for the hatchery.
For about two weeks now two three-person crews have been netting the lake and gathering lake trout which were kept in underwater pens off our main dock at camp. Twice the trout were stripped of eggs and milt and released back to the water. The final tally of fertilized eggs wasn't known today but it seems it would be in excess of 200,000.
Depending on egg mortality that should mean perhaps 100,000 trout fingerlings will be reared by the Dorion, Ont., fish hatchery and will be planted back into Red Lake in 18 months.
I believe this is the 12th year of the project and was one of the best in egg collecting. It seems the fish and wildlife crews captured the trout at exactly the right moment when they were ready to spawn.
It should be noted that three camps helped with the project this year. For starters, trout caught two years ago were released this spring when the MNR crews and hatchery truck drove right down to the lake at Black Bear Lodge. Those fingerlings were released by the MNR, assisted by staff and guests from Black Bear Lodge and Bow Narrows Camp, in the Potato Island basin.
For several years now the MNR has used Eagle Falls Lodge's pontoon boat as sort of a giant MASH tent to strip the eggs. It has proved ideal.
Bow Narrows has been providing meals and accommodations to the fish and wildlife crews from the beginning of the project.
The spawning program was begun 12 years ago when the trout population plummeted and it was discovered there were almost no young trout in the lake. The reason for the lack of reproduction is still a mystery; however, natural regeneration has begun again in some areas and boosted by the stocking program, the trout population is beginning to build again.
Our anglers are catching more and more trout each year now. All trout must be released immediately. Other regulations require anglers to use single barbless hooks and not to use live or dead bait.

Pontoon boat tied to our dock with underwater pens at right

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