Dinner was leftovers. Mattered not. All was good. At age fourteen food passed through me, was absorbed quickly or was burned up in minutes. Most said I was bottomless. So long as Emil kept stoking my fire I was ready for nearly anything. Maybe even fishing. On a lake five hundred miles north of the border? So off the map it had no name? Yeah, I was ready.
We strung the backup rods with care. Even tied my own knots. Chose my weapon for the evening. Red and white spinner tipped with squirrel hair all the way from France by way of Parkers Prairie, Minnesota.
Uncle Emil's hand gripped my shoulder, "This is our evening. Let's make the most of it."
We pushed off at six-thirty with intentions of seeing as much shoreline as the fish would allow. Good fishing slows the pace to a crawl. I figured out later this dilemma was the uncertainty of fishing principle. An angler in the midst of great fishing faces a choice, move on to see if better lies ahead and not know what's been left behind or stay put and let the future remain a mystery. One or the other, can't have both.
Emil's solution was simple, "So long as the fishing holds, we'll stay put. Tomorrow we'll do whatever we feel like doing."
He said the lake we were on had no inlet or outlet that he knew of. Wasn't but an oval bowl with ten or so islands. From camp our view said there was nothing but endless, smooth shoreline, treed and swamped. But the reality was nothing of the sort. Never ending small bays and points. All holding fish. We found walleye, sauger and perch. Now and then a small, terrified pike. So many fish we made little progress on our circumnavigation. And, outside of the surprise of jumbo perch, not a fish was of size. Pound and a half, two pound pickerel by the bucketful. That was the extent of our luck that first evening.
Emil mused, "I hope beyond hope this lake still has some of its glacial meltwater mixed in. There's nowhere the melt could have gone save skyward or into the ground. I have no exact idea how fish ended up in these lakes. Could be they migrated north in the trail of the melting glaciers. Maybe at one time this area was all one big body of water. Wedge, the Cranberries and this lake were all joined. Then as the land drained off, the remaining water divided up into the lakes we see now. What we're catching are the ancestors of the unfortunates that got trapped in here when their way out was cut off by descending lake level. Just maybe they've grown to be somewhat different than their brothers and sisters over on the main run. Who knows what we'll find? Maybe even sturgeon or lakers. Probably not, but I'm hoping."
We fished the first few bays that evening. Hard to leave a spot when the fishing's hot even if none were wall hangers. Those innocent fish were suckers for anything that moved or flashed. Not a one had ever seen a spinner before. Or a boat, or people for that matter. Virgin water. Almost seemed a shame to be despoiling it with our civilized gear.
"Archie me lad, there's near a sadness to what we're doing. Like we're messing with a good thing that was never meant to see animals like us. In a way it's an Eden. Set aside by forces beyond our ken for reasons we'll never know. Or just a fluke of location. Doesn't matter. Best we show this lake the respect it deserves."
We fished in silence for a few minutes before Emil spoke up again,
"I've almost a mind to pack it up and head out tomorrow. Feels to me like we're trespassing in a holy place. At least that's what I was thinking a minute ago. On the other hand, it seems a shame to waste an opportunity such as lies before us so long as we proceed in a respectful manner. It's something that requires sleeping on. Perhaps the lake will tell us what to do."
We reeled in our lines to watch as the lowering sun shot pastels on the tier of clouds rising above us. We didn't know it but some thousand miles away a tremendous forest fire was laying waste to part of the Canadian Rockies. To this day it doesn't seem possible to me that smoke could drift a thousand miles to paint sunset colors from horizon to zenith. Too much to see. Too much to grasp. There, on the waters of a nameless lake, we sat bobbing in Emil's aluminum canoe, gape-jawed, speechless.
Regardless of Emil's musings on the reality of man and his effect on wilderness, I hoped he wasn't one to withhold the fishing of a lifetime from a fourteen year old. Emil suggested I troll while he paddled our way diagonally toward camp in the descending darkness.
Though Emil had me sinker my spinner down, it was running no more than a dozen feet below. But I'd long-lined it so as not to spook any curious monsters. My line trailed behind in the cloud reflecting slick, splitting the Grumman's wake. I sat slump-shouldered, lost in thought, nodding to the sound of the paddle to my rear. And Uncle Emil's occasional muttered monolog as he commented on his zig-zagging course. Guess he was as lost in the moment as I. Looking everywhere but where we were going.
Rod snap against my right wrist pulled me back to the surface. Would have lost the whole rig had not my hand snarled between the line and rod. My first thought was I'd snagged a log or maybe Emil was fooling with me. A glance to the rear said no. And Emil's, "set the hook boy," was the clincher. So that's what I did. A moment's electric quiver of life at the end of my line, another hammer of a tug as I slammed home another set. Five seconds of line stripping was immediately followed by a turn and a limp line. Thought I'd lost it but Uncle Emil started yelling for me to crank as fast as I could. Seems she was now coming straight at the Grumman. By the time I'd regained control, the fish had already passed beneath us. The canoe's keel quickly finished the battle. Whatever I'd tied into swam off with my leader and spinner.
"Uf da, that was a hog Archie. Sure would like to know what it was. Sometimes the stars line up right and what seems the catch of a lifetime is nothing more than a frisky fish and a strong hook set. Have to say no to that. And am not sure why it ran straight at the boat. Couldn't be street smarts. Not a street in thirty miles. Heck, whatever it was, it'd never felt a hook. Same could be said for all its ancestors. But she was some fish, alright."
That single moment had our blood aboil as we paced the camp while brushing our teeth before turning in.
"Like I said earlier, I'll see what my dreams tell me as to our future on this water. Maybe that last hit was reward enough for any trip in the bush. Maybe not. We'll see."
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