Photo by Jack Buswell
Each one of our Lake of the Woods fishing trips generates a fishing story or two. This is what happens when seven guys fish ten hours a day for six straight days. Our most recent outing generated more than the usual number of good stories, but the best ones did not happen to me and are not mine to tell. One incident, however, is mine, and it deserves mention – not because it was extraordinary (it wasn’t), but because it demonstrates how one small twist to normal fishing can materialize into a fishing tale.
One of the reasons my friends and I have camped at the same backcountry site for 10+ years is that we now have several favorite fishing spots. A half dozen underwater ledges reliably produce walleyes, one particular hump is almost always good for smallmouth bass, and there is Pelican Bay for days we want to fish for northern pike. Pelican Bay is a pseudonym. Even though almost no one reads my blog, I am reluctant to publicly reveal the actual names of any of our favorite fishing spots. My fishing buddies and I actually do call the place Pelican Bay, because the first time we ever boated there a dozen white pelicans stood on shore where a small creek flowed into the lake. We’ve not seen pelicans there since, but the name has stuck.
The shallow bay has enough islands and lagoons that we can fish the area for the better part of a day, but we almost always start out at the inlet where we first saw the pelicans. Jack and I boated right up to the mouth of the creek, and I immediately had a follow up. Follow ups are when a fish trails a lure, comes close enough to the boat to be seen, but then does not strike. Sometimes a fish follows the lure for most of a cast, but then veers off as the lure nears the boat.
I casted in the direction that the fish had gone and had a second follow up. It was a different fish, slightly smaller than the first, but it too swam away when it noticed the boat. Jack and I each made a dozen more casts in the immediate area, but could not attract a fish.
We then motored off to fish other water, but an hour later Jack suggested that we go back to the original spot to see if we could catch the one that got away. On my second cast, I had another follow up. When I turned away from the water to tell Jack that I’d missed a fish for a third time, the fish struck. I must have left my lure dangling in the water, and the fish had circled around to attack it. A reel makes a wonderful whining sound when a big fish engages the reel’s drag. Fishermen often refer to it as “singing.” I had my back turned when my pole started singing.
I slowly brought the fish to the boat, and Jack netted it for me. It was a northern pike, which I already knew as I’d seen the fish once or twice before. The fish went well over 30 inches, not a lunker as far as northerns go, but a good sized fish. Years ago Jack and I hauled big fish completely into the boat to measure them, but now we net fish and try to leave the net suspended in the water. The larger the fish the more it needs the buoyancy of the water to support its weight, so if we can remove the hook without lifting big fish into the boat, we do so. Twisting and turning in the net, a fish is impossible to measure, so the best we can do is estimate (and possibly exaggerate) its size.
That is my 2025 Canadian fish story. If the northern pike had struck my lure normally, I wouldn’t mention it. Because it hit when I wasn’t paying attention, it has become part of my personal fishing lore.
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