John's tale ...
Flying from Sydney to Los Angeles, then to Minneapolis Minnesota then two days car trip into Ontario Canada as far as human habitation allows, to reach Red Lake.
From there it was a float plane trip much further north towards the Arctic Circle & the magic of Douglas Lake with four American buddies for our annual getaway.
Douglas Lake covers about 2000 acres in the absolute wilderness of North central Canada & is only available for about 12 weeks in any one year as it is covered in snow & ice for the rest of the time. We fly into “outposts” & the one we like is Viking Island of about 3 acres in the middle of Douglas Lake.
Here the fishing is sensational for the three types of fish in this lake, namely WALLEYE , Northern Pike & Lake Trout a deep water variety not seen in Australia.
We fish with conservation licences which only permit the taking 2 fish from each of the 3 types each day. The licence is really self fulfilling the ideals of conservation as we didn’t catch one Lake Trout as at this time of year they are in very deep water over 200 feet. Only smaller juvenile Northern Pikes were around as the big ones have moved away for the breeding season.
However their famous WALLEYE were the reason we were there as they are the equal of Barramundi as the most desired fish in the world. Fishing strictly on the “ fish & release system” as the reality is, without a facility hold or transport the catch , it is pointless to take any more than 2 Walleye per day for our own needs, we had four sessions per day in open tinnies with 9 HP outboard motors. One a good day we had personal catches of 49 & 47 Walleyes & the group of 5 might catch 200 plus for the day .
Virtually all caught were released immediately. On quieter days we would troll the shorelines for Northern Pike which were real fighting fish but not the same quality to eat as a Walleye. They were fun to catch but nothing of significant size as only the mid sized ones were available.
We then retraced our steps & flew to Salt Lake City UTAH famous for its 50% Mormon population & shared their excitement for one of their people, MITT ROMNEY who is the Republican Parties candidate for the Presidential Election to be held on Melbourne Cup day.
After 10 days there we drove for six hours to the SE corner of Utah to Lake Powell on the mighty Colorado River where one of our group owns a shy little 65 foot by 18 foot house boat. We have had access to 200 miles of the river in normal times but due to the US drought the rivers lake was reduced to only 170 miles. But when you take in the two tributories of the Escalante & San Juan Rivers the opportunities to fish are limitless. Fishing here is mainly for various types of BASS. Striped, large mouth & small mouth, but all great fighting fish for their size.
Whilst fishing the Colorado is not nearly as plentiful or exciting as northern Canada , the scenery along the Colorado is absolutely second to none in the rest of the world. Every year I remain stunned with the beauty of its massive siltstone mountains & canyons which take your breath away. It is a very historic area as the first native people in North America’ the Anazasi Indians lived & died out here in 1270 but remnants of their culture can still be viewed in secluded areas of the Colorado River.
