In short, we didn't know what we were doing. Not a problem. Years of fishing ignorance have taught me things would turn out as they were meant. I figured all we had to do was prep for everything, ask the lodge owner and other fishermen "what're they hitting on," they'd tell or sell us what we needed and we'd be set. Also, it was late July and all the walleye pros said the fish would be deep, maybe 25 to 30 feet down, and be hitting on leeches or night crawlers. Of course Al Lindner said plastics were every bit as effective. Somehow or other we'd figure it out. Regardless, I carried a range of stuff needed to get the bait down, a variety of trolling rigs and like I said, the resort would fill in the blanks. We were set, or as set as we could be.
Of course, like most every fishing trip I'd been on it didn't work out that way. One side of the story said the warm water had driven the walleyes down earlier than usual and deeper than ever, 35-40 feet and a crapshoot of the first order. The other said they were in 6 to 8 feet of water and Namakan was the better lake to fish. Long story short, fishing deep seemed like way too much work and we generally set to fishing like we always do with the idea if that didn't work we'd try something else. Over the days we caught a lot of small pike with only a couple topping five pounds. The few bigger fish only seemed interested in admiring my homemade spinners and checking our our boats. The bass were sparse and only Jakob caught one of size. Tough conditions. Finally, near the end of the week an old timer who'd been fishing the area for forty years simply said, "Half a night crawler on a quarter ounce trolling rig, single bead, no spinner, but a red hook seems to help. Troll slowly along the bay mouths just outside of the weed line where they just start rising from the bottom in eight feet of water." From his nightly stringer it looked like he was hooking up at about one every half hour or two per gallon of gas. Sit, drag a worm and putt-putt along. Not thrilling but it worked for us, enough to get a meal anyhow.
I can fish that way but sure don't like it. On the upside, Voyageurs National Park is a beautiful pace to be, sit on your ass with a rod in your hand and watch the world go by. And being there with people you love adds the joy of sharing. With the right people a person can have a pretty good time even when the fishing sucks. The videos I'd seen gave me the feeling Voyageur Park is wilderness but from what I saw while we passed through, the lakes felt pretty civilized. It wasn't thick with boats but we rarely went more than a few minutes without seeing or hearing one. On the other hand our day on Shoepack Lake felt like the real deal. I should've known, solitude always goes hand-in-hand with sweat. My problem is being seventy-three. These days when I push the envelope, it pushes back. You spend most of your life becoming the man you want to be till you wake up one morning and realize you're not the man you used to be. There's a balance point somewhere but it's awfully small. These days I can get it done when necessary but my idea of necessary is ever-shrinking. I've heard that's normal.
So what did we learn? I can't say about the others but when push comes to shove, bad fishing in northern Manitoba is a lot better than bad fishing along Minnesota's border lakes. And for me personally, if the Canadians will let us cross the border next year and if the others are interested, I'll give it a go. If not....
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