A month in Temagami (part 4)
May 19, 2016
Day 16
Departed from my picturesque site on Mistinikon and started the drive to New Liskard, where I had a laundry list of items to take care of. First, Harvey's for a high-calorie lunch, then CanTire, Walmart, LCBO, and a couple of other stops to stock up on supplies. Lastly, I stopped at Pizza Pizza for my first bite of pizza in weeks. After catching up on some messages and checking some things online (Raptors are in the conference finals and I'm missing it!), I was on my way to Mowat Landing, which I arrived at around 4pm.
While organizing my supplies in the parking lot, a local hollered out to me, "Are you going to Lady E?" "Yes sir," I replied. He advised me to go to another launch just a minute's drive away, so I did. There I found a bay seemingly teeming with fish activity. With a couple of hours to go until sunset, I figured I might as well get the canoe set up in the water for tomorrow, and then troll around the bay. No bites, surprisingly, but the paddle was cut short my my body's secretary, Mrs. Applebottom. She informed me that I had an urgent call on line 1 from someone by the name of Nature. No wonder after all the food, not to mention a big salad for dinner. I later realized that it was the first fresh veggie I'd had all trip. I settled in to the van for the night and tried to sleep and get an early start the next day for a long trip to my planned campsite on "Lady E."
May 20, 2016
Day 17
On the water at 6am for the long trip to my site near Muskego Falls, and over the Mattawapika Dam portage by 7am. All going according to plan. Make it to my site by 11am and am relieved to find it unoccupied. Make camp and lie down in the tent to test its sleep-worthiness. Almost instantly fall asleep, and wake up about an hour later. Groggy, but unwilling to waste a nice day, I rise and paddle 2km east to a portage to a small lake which, my research indicated, held brook trout---one fish which has eluded me to date.
Thinking I may have found the portage trail, I worked my way in, bushwacking through the overgrown terrain. No luck. Paddled down the shore and bushwacked again, but it didn't seem right. Tried a third time to no avail. Went back to the second attempt and carried on a bit farther, with a rod in hand, and finally came upon Depression Lake.
Worked my way around the prickly shoreline, with about a dozen black flies buzzing around my head at any given time...to keep me company. Elevated about 10-feet above the lake, I spot two gorgeous trout basking in the shallow water. It doesn't take long to hook into one, as there are actually several of them, but it pops off the hook at the shoreline, since I didn't bring my net. Knowing that trout spook easily, I fear my chance was lost. But a few casts later another one was thrashing around on the line, and this one stuck around for a photo. Eventually I had to head back, but a loose arm fell off of my sunglasses, so I spent a while looking for it with now dozens of black flies swarming my head. It was not to be found, which will be tough for the sunny weather. With that, about 20km of paddling, 1km+ of portaging, and probably 2km of bushwacking, I was beat and needed to call it a day. But hey, I got a trout!
May 21, 2016
Day 18
Third Saturday in May, meaning that pike, walleye, and lake trout were now open in this part of the province. Headed for Muskego Falls with great anticipation, but as I paddled those few kilometres, I realized it was too shallow to hold big fish. Still, I hoped for a brook trout, perhaps unrealistically. The falls themselves were cascading and beautiful, but the fishing fell well short of expectations, with just five relatively small pike.
Headed back to camp for lunch and caught a walleye while trolling on the way. Ate a rice dish, read a bit of a new book (Ender's Game), and then crawled into the tent for a nap and didn't awaken for several hours.
Now nearly 7pm, I decided to just relax for the evening. Some fishing boats from the nearby lodges were heading to one spot, and that's where I would head tomorrow.
May 22, 2016
Day 19
Fished all morning, but only a walleye and a smallie to show for it, and neither a trophy by any means. Returned to camp for lunch, then read and did a crossword before hitting the water again.
Went back to the mouth of the Muskego and hooked into a couple of pike along some rock outcrops; that seemed to be where the fish were hanging out today, under blue bird skies. Around dinnertime, I just wanted a fish to eat, and got a pike again on some rocky shoreline. Filleted it on the rocks and paddled back to camp to fry it up. Filleting is getting considerably harder now that the black flies are out---not to mention tons of other flying insects. Perhaps it has something to do with the lackluster fishing. Yesterday was south, today east, so tomorrow will be west. At the end of the day, tomorrow is always filled with the hope of another big fish!
May 23, 2016
Day 20
Little to say about today other than that I paddled about 15km, battled the wind, swatted at a thousand black flies, probably go too much sun, and only netted two fish. No trophy pike or walleye, no sign of lake trout, and too many boats from the lodges on the lake and a handful of cottages. As is often the case, the places we look forward to the most often fall short, and the ones that barely make the itinerary are the ones remembered most fondly. That said, tomorrow I depart from "Lady E" for Anima Nipissing Lake, to access some smaller and more manageable lakes via portage. May spend some time around the Lady E launch where things looked promising back on Thursday evening.
May 24, 2016
Day 21
Packed up and launched the canoe. Tried a couple of promising spots on the way back, but still, nothing. Caught one small pike on the troll back, and lost what felt like a good fish close to the dam. On the bright side, I had an absolutely marvelous tailwind which did at least half of the work of getting back. Once past the Mattawapika Dam again, I did catch a few more fish, but nothing big. Hit the hay in the van at the launch.
