Ahh! There’s nothing quite like it. Imagine an early northern summer sunrise. The sky and lake share the same rosy glow broken only by the serrated silhouetted edge of the shoreline conifers.
Imagine boating in this solitude and making your way across Little Athapapuskow to Schist Creek. No rush. Run the motor low. Serenity. The bow silently parts the water and the wake rolls gently to the narrowing shorelines.
Now. Barrel Narrows where you stay to the right of the channel to avoid losing your prop to the ghostly boulders below. Cut the motor and drift into that one “sweet spot” where pickerel and perch await.
Anchor aweigh! (First ensuring that the anchor line is attached to the boat!).
This ancient waterway that connects Schist to Athapapuskow is part of the natural flow process that blends many lakes of the great Precambrian Shield.
It also served the provisioning of Mandy Mine (circa 1916) and shipping out the ore for smelting. This “water-highway” later carried the tons of material and supplies as well as the people needed to establish the Flin Flon mine site until completion of the Canadian National Railway link in 1928.
Not much of that entered my mind though as I sat at the stern of our creaking old boat “Jaws” and cracked open the thermos for a leisurely spot of tea. No hurry to get the rod and reel in action. Chill.
No casting for me, either. Cast out the lure, bring it back. Over and over. Tiresome. Nor is trolling. The monotonous motor drone and the exhaust fumes is not my idea of a pleasurable experience.
Me? I’m a jigging man through and through. Find your favourite spot, cut the motor, drop the anchor, attach the rig and add a bit of your favourite bait to the barbless hook. Then gently drop the rig into the water and when it hits the bottom, raise it up a bit and…well, that’s about it.
Oh yes…you could give the line a good yank and then let the bait drop again from time-to-time – if it’s not too much trouble. Ahh…no noise, no pollution, no mindless casting!
It’s the lazy day approach. Be sure to hold the rod gently and let your fingers rest just under the fishing line so that you can jiggle the bait and immediately sense a nibble or a bite on the bait. (This is a trick I learned by watching Master Jigger Mickey Perepeluk as he “out-pickereled” everyone at the West Channel fishing hole.)
Minnows (or shiners, if you like) are the favoured bait but they must be fresh and firm. Otherwise the little perch will nibble the bait off the hook and you’ll be none the wiser. Beef heart, bacon or slivers of perch belly seem to work well but then who has psychoanalyzed a pickerel’s bait orientation patterns?
Once you have “caught” a pickerel and it’s not either too small or too large, you then attach it to your stringer chain, and again as with the anchor, it’s important that the stringer is hooked to the boat.
I, sadly and with great embarrassment, recall dropping a stringer with three lovely pickerel attached into the water – and watching it sink slowly to the bottom of the channel. A tragic image burned into the memory bank, eh?
Another thing to watch out for are the “lake snakes.” Oops! Great Northern Pike is the proper term. Pikes are wily and wise as they wait in the weeds for the pickerel and perch that are attracted to your bait.
A bag of spits helps pass the time but don’t put the shells into the water. Leave your earbud thing at home so you can hear the silence and perhaps have a conversation with Raven.
Have another cup of tea or coffee. Perhaps you will catch a fair-sized fish. Perhaps not. In any case, you are privileged to be in a place and time that many in in the world will never experience. Good fortune!
Say…its’ about time to open the ol’ lunch bag and chow down. Whoop! I got a bite! I got a bite!
Vincent Murphy-Dodds is a former Flin Flon resident now living in Regina. His column appears the
first Wednesday of the month. Comments on his column are welcome. Contact vincent.
[email protected].
