Kickin' it at home in the Moose it was same old, same old. Summer holidays long past, the days were getting shorter, nights a little colder and my Pocahontas had only one job on my honey-do list... fix the hole in the roof.
Squared off the twiggles at the top and using some bear hide sewed on a big loose flap to work like a fluke that lets smoke escape the chimney once we fire up the old wood pit inside.
House winterized, I took the kiddies for a stroll in da bush along the river. Was a perfect end of summer day.
A week later old man winter was upon us. The fishing went straight to Hizell as the sudden plummetting temps seemed to allow the walleye freedom to roam out of their summer holding pools. I made an attempt to locate fish on the lower river near home September 23rd. Five dink eyes and 12 fallfish was the days tally. The river was not in good shape.
On route home a new face was parked on the sandbar at Bushy Island. This fat, old common seal was slow as molasses to try and escape my coming to shore for some photos. Trick I learned this summer is to drive my canoe straight at them. They won't often go for water that way, but instead just flop left or right in the sand on the beach. This guy did just that.
Although he let me get close and hang out for about 20 minutes, he had to be the most inhospitable old bassterd I'd ever been around. Hiss, grunt, stamp his hind flippers, spit... he sure was getting worked up for nothing. When I backed off he'd settle, when I edged in close though he'd get mad.
Before leaving I tested the old buggah pretty good. I walked away and behind him a little, stopped, then sprinted at the old Blubber Butt. As he belly flopped forward off the beach I was able to pinch his butt before his escape. First time touching a wild seal... it took some time to get up the balls for it, they are pretty big ya know... the seals I mean.
The next 3 weeks around the teepee were pretty tough. Bren unexpectedly left town to be with her family in the north for an extended time and I was busy with the kids and work back home in the Moose. It was not until October 11th that a short window allowed me a day out fishing again.
Day was mint. Beautiful fall weather I played tag with another boat heading upriver. The two of us taking turns picking our way through the shallow rapids, rock gardens and river sections. The Moose this year is terribly low, shallower than I have ever seen.
To finally arrive at my first pike spot took about 3 hours, normally the trip up to Cheepas would be under two. My old motor suffered a real beating on route, dredging through sand and stone and smacking off the odd hidden rock, but it was still running when I made it to my destination.
Being that it was 3 hours there and 2 back going downriver, unfortunately I only got about 4 hours fishing in, and some of that was shallow driving back and forth between spots and cooking lunch. The fishing was slow... surprisingly slow, as conditions were prime. Green weed cabbage still in some spots, cool enough water for fish to be real shallow, and a nice calm and sunny afternoon I would have expected better. I casted shoreline weed, offshore weed, and also trolled and casted openwater deep spots, by the end of it all 7 pike and a walleye were the days catch.
But, this one pike that smoked a Williams Wabler came over the gunnel. As I removed the Believer from it's yap it measured in an amazing 48 inches. Eat your heart out Pyzer.
Seriously though, don't let the camera angle fool ya. The length could have been off a 1/4 inch either way, but this fish surely did hit my Riplin Redfin with such zest that I can tell ya when it first ran I thought it was a Mack truck. Man, ya gotta love the catch-ability of pike on Lindy Rigs.
By the time I got off the river that day I had killed my 15hp Johnson. Problems arose with both the upper and lower ends, and after a few stalls along the way I still arrived at the launch without having to paddle. While I had been upriver earlier my buddy John had flown over me where I was fishing and, when I bumped into him a couple days later he told me he couldn't believe he saw me up there, being that parts of the river he told me had no channel. No guff, that's where I dredged my own with my motor. Bren (and Jim) had a surprise waiting for me on the table when I got in the house that evening.
Two days later the Johnson switched out for my Honda, I made an attempt to check the water levels and fish the North French river for an afternoon. About 15 minutes into my ride, bad weather and waves turned my boat around for home. It was a shame because I had a week off work coming up in which I hoped to camp and fish, but the river was not going to allow me the levels I needed to travel to the better fishing grounds.
The next day, Tuesday October 14th I received the call that Bren's sister had passed away. By the weekend we were in Attawapiskat with the family. That's a whole other story... a very sad but also truly remarkable experience.
While up north I did get the family out for some exercise, hiking about in my old playground. Learned that compared to 8 years ago I'm out of shape, "big time."
October 21st I was home and back on the river for a days just "scoping shat out" with my buddy Agent Stevie Zebco of Mission Fishin' Impossible fame. The 24th to 30th I had taken off work to plan a weeks long assault on autumns prime time pike. Stevie and I rode the Moose and then onward to the North French River. I was eager to see where water levels stood for our upcoming trip.
Turned out there was no fawking water to be had standing or flowing anywhere. I thought about pulling the plug on fall piking this year and making a mad dash for the BOQ with buddies, but I held out at home with hope seeing that some decent rain was forecasted ahead.
The 24th and the start of my week off arrived. It wasn't finally until the 28th that the ungodly north winds, pelting rain and wet snow and miserable cold lifted. On the 28th Zebco and I made a day trip to see if all the precipitation had raised the river. It had not. My planned week off for fall fishing allowed a half days trolling some poorer waters and coughed up one pike for Zebco. We considered our options over a beer out on the river and decided we'd make another attempt during a window of days off come November 3, 4,5 & 6. Another harsh front was supposed to come in during the meantime and deposit some more rain.
Halloween came and went... the girl's costumes this year were pretty great, and they played their parts well.
Finally last chance came. It was November 3rd. The weatherman had been calling for absolutely everything all week. It changed by the hour. Finally for the 4rth it reported, south winds 20, high 17C (amazing for november) low 7 overnight, mix sun and cloud, then wednesday the 4th, cloudiness, calm, rain 1mm and high of 16C. Thursday, cooling off, 8C, 1mm rain, NE wind 15km.
Three days for Stevie Zebco and I, the boat was fully loaded and I decided that the shallow river wasn't going to hold us back, only slow us down. Well, did it ever slow us the frick down...
The winds were gusting more like 45 and laying the SW to NE running river right down shallow yet throwing a good chop. The chop made reading the river tough and after two hours I had done more skeg dragging than I would have liked. Stevie and I also got off course in the worst section and required fancy maneuvers to push on through a rock garden. We couldn't see them in the stained waters until on top of them. I rubbed one stone sideways with the canoe and heard a crack... but later examined only a dent in the canvas and no puncture, and the cedar strips there appeared unharmed. Afterawhile we started working well together and I got lucky in some sections too. After 4 hours of it though, it's unnerving. You know you have to come back through it all later too, but with the river pushing you faster. Downriver is most times the easier way to go, but when ya hit rocks they tend to get hit harder with current driving you.
The cabin we aimed for was occupied but Stevie and I found a great new campsite and set up after a short hour long fish. That was it for the day. We scooped up 9 snot rockets total before needing to make camp in the remaining daylight. By 6pm all was completely black and we had scarfed down a huge feed of fajitas. The next six hours we chased our food with beer and scotch, enjoying an awesome, warm, starry night by the fire.
I had been plagued with a cold and laryngitis for a week until the day before we left. After an amazing night sleep in the bush and deep body scotch cleansing I woke feeling healed. Stevie Zebco and I broke camp... unsure of the ultimate plan.
We cruised over to the next bay. This was the spot where I had been seen by my buddy John from his plane a few weeks prior, and it's a bay that holds the most cabbage weed of any along a 50km stretch of river. The weed now was all near dead. Zebco and I got to working it with weedless spoons but things started slow.
I put us back into some real shallow slop and quit running the motor. Before long a few pike turned on. NOT running the engine or dropping anchor, but instead paddling about made for better odds. The calm day was perfect for topwater explosions.
Noon I thought about breaking for lunch but by then the action was furious. Problem was, they were all small fish. I kept telling Stevie that there has to be a big one and I was praying that as we made our way slowly out and into deeper water that we'd hook up. Afterall, this bay does hold the infamous Cheepas Monster that's haunted and taunted me for years.
By 1:00pm I caught wiff of cool air. Within minutes this started to form out on the main river...
I broke for lunch, thinking best eat now and quick because if this comes in navigating shallows and rapids will be a beeyotch. Stevie and I pounded some hearty homemade stew.
The fog actually started to thin and we got back to fishing. This one isolated cabbage bed about 50 feet in diameter sits shallow off a point near the mouth of the bay. It's a spot I always have high hopes for but it never seems to produce well. Zebco and I drifted over that way.
Casting between the weedbed and the point into water depth I had no idea of, my Johnson slapped down and immediately a huge boil broke the surface and I spotted a wide tail clear the surface as a pike tried T-boning my spoon. It missed, going shallow enough that it's back was out of the water when it turned at the shoreline. I slowed that spoon to give the fish chance to catch up, it did and it came right in on it from behind
As I was reeling in the big V-wake slowly follows my lure to the boat. I was about 15 feet to home on the retrieve when my lure got cranked. Within seconds I'm sadly releasing a two foot pike.
The big fish was scared off by the small pikes commotion of being hooked right in front of its face. Screaming at Zebco I was like, "get a cast in there, get it right in there!!! BIG FISH! BIG FISH MAN!!"
Stevie casts and misses yet there's a mammoth boil, but I'm up and have my retrieve just about ready to cross it's face....
SMMMMMMMMMMMAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAASSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!
The water explodes and the biggest pike I have ever seen leaps out of the water like a killer whale torpedoing a seal. It's all I can do to hold onto this mofo in the shallow water... it tests my ability to its Optimus Prime.
Zebco can't believe the fish either. It's got him so scared he's cowering at the bow of the boat, hugging the anchor in case he has to bonk the beast on the head with it.
The skies open up and Zeus looking down on me commands, "POSEIDON IS A PANSY! TAME HIS LAME butt MOOSEBUNK!" and just then a bolt of lightning cracks down from the heavens and releases my inner Hercules.
"I WILL OWN YOU PIKE-GOD-DEVIL POSEIDON!!!" "YOUR ESOXESNESS IS NO MATCH FOR MY ANGLINATION!!!"
Poseidon tries desperately to separate from it's pike host and escape, but the strength of my mighty PowerPro binds him within that weakening mortal shell. Pulling him nearer to me, at the boat I lay one stunning blow from my iron hands and capture the greatest nasty pike to ever swim. The Cheepas Monster aka, Poseidon Pike.
BEHOLD!!! 500 lbs of ESOX LOSER!!!
Well, anyways, that's how I would have liked it to turn out. Truth is, bold italics part of the report aside the rest is true. The big fish didn't return to be seen again. The Cheepas Monster continues after years to elude me, but Stevie and I put a good two dozen dinks in the boat that short fish.
A light snap of a cold west breeze put the spook in me. I told Agent Stevie Zebco we were getting off the river today. Navigating home I found a channel through the worst shallow part and was kind of pist-off that on likely the final outing of the year I now find the hidden path of prop/skeg-safety. An hour from home the rain started pouring. This was no 1mm as forecasted it was the beginning of a skanky monsoon that lasted overnight.
Holy Zeus was I ever happy to get off this river from hell.
) your fantastic reports!! 
