As Muskies Canada Inc.’s Education Director, Dax was writing to tell me about a successful attempt to collect eggs and milt from adult muskies for the hatchery at Sir Sandford Fleming College in Lindsay, Ontario. Working with Ministry of Natural Resources biologists Emily Funnell and Brent Shirley, Dax and Muskies Canada President Ian Young netted three adult males and one female.

Remarkably, of the 15,000 fertilized eggs that made it to the hatchery, 75 per cent have already hatched out. Ultimately, the resulting fingerlings will be released in Lake Simcoe, as part of the ongoing Lake Simcoe Muskellunge Restoration Project.

That’s all great news, but what really drew me in was the awesome photo of Dax and Ian holding up the massive, 53-inch female they netted that day. Nice fish—I look forward to fishing for its progeny one day on Lake Simcoe.

By the way, guys, many thanks for wearing the Outdoor Canada caps. As I’ve long said, those hats always make fish pictures look that much better. Cheers, and congrats on the great work.

To learn more about the Lake Simcoe Muskellunge Restoration Project, click here.

Humongous hen: Muskies Canada Inc.'s Dax Jacklin and Ian Young cradle a giant female muskie

Here’s their video. Warning: it includes some salty language.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Aaron Martens, who is a five time Bassmaster tournament champion, BASS Angler of the Year winner and who has been second in the Bassmaster Classic four times now, was leading after the day one weigh in with a mammoth 23 pounds, 14 ounces. I’ve know Aaron since he was about 20 years old and he is not only a super nice person, but perhaps the finest angler I have ever fished with.

“Today went great,” Aaron said. “I caught about 25 fish. I was looking for five pounders or bigger. I ended up with two in the five-pound range and three in the four-pound range.”

Looking ahead to the rest of the weekend, Aaron was obviously pumped.

“I feel good about the rest of the event,” he said. “I have about thirty good spots with schools of fish. Some of them had boats on them today, but the fish are hard to catch. There are about twenty spots with good fish—over four pounds—on them. Today I went to a few of the spots where I thought the biggest fish were and it worked out.”

What really impressed me, however, was what Aaron said about his approach to the Douglas Lake tournament. “What I am most excited about is that the pattern I am on is good,” he said. “It’s what I love doing. Anytime you are fishing the way you love to fish and it’s working pretty well, you’ve got a chance to win.”

When all was said and done yesterday, Aaron was sitting in the hot seat, leading the tournament with only two remaining anglers left to weigh in. Unfortunately they nudged him out of the $100,000 win. Still, any time you can finish in third place against the top elite bass anglers in the world and put $20,000 into your pocket, you know you did things right.

And pattern fishing is one of the things that Aaron excels at. Indeed, I’ll never forget fishing with another legendary bass angler, Ricky Clunn, a few years ago and Ricky telling me that, “a good pattern will beat good spots every time.”

What the pros mean when they talk about developing a “pattern” is searching for the specific set of conditions they can use to predict and replicate where and how they can catch fish on any given day.

It starts with every fish they catch. When each one comes into the boat, they keep a mental note (Clunn actually writes down the details in a notebook) of the depth the fish was at, whether they were reeling the lure fast, slow or at a moderate speed, whether the structure or cover was positioned on the windy or sheltered side of the lake.  And so on, and so on, and so on.

(Credit: B.A.S.S. Communications)

After they catch three, four or five fish, and see the pattern evolving, they can usually then pick up an underwater contour map of the lake and predict with uncanny certainty that they are going to catch fish here and here and here.

Trust me, I’ve seen them do it. And it is nothing short of unbelievable.

So, the lesson for the day, folks, is that if you want to catch more and bigger walleye, bass, salmon, trout, or panfish—or whatever your favourite fish happens to be—like the pros, instead of always heading to your favourite fishing “spot”, broaden your scope and develop a pattern.

And if you can’t resist going to your favourite spots, at least keep track of things like the depth of water the fish are using and how they are relating and reacting to the wind and weather conditions. Then, take the information and try to expand on the evolving daily pattern.

Trust me: you will be pleasantly surprised by the results. You may even find yourself fishing like a five-time Bassmaster tournament champion!

This is the third time Outdoor Canada has been up for this particular honour during my tenure as editor of the magazine, so here’s to three times lucky! Of course, my editorial team and I are more than pleased just to be nominated, but man, would a win be sweet. (Just imagine a fishing and hunting magazine taking home the top prize at a Toronto media event!)

Congratulations to everyone involved in Outdoor Canada, from our roster of freelance field editors to everyone here at our publishing house, Cottage Life Media Inc. The nomination is a true feather in our collective cap.

Not that the Mag of the Year short-listing was the only nomination for the publications here at our Queen West digs in Toronto. Fellow magazine explore garnered a whopping 19 operations, while Cottage Life picked up a healthy nine. Huge congrats to my colleagues.

Along with the Magazine of the Year nod, Outdoor Canada and its contributors also received three other nominations:

• Best Editorial Package: “The Ultimate DIY Adventure Guide,” by Ken Bailey, Alan Davy, Scott Gardner, George Gruenefeld, Jake MacDonald, Bruce Masterman, Jim McLennan, Gord Pyzer, T.J. Schwanky, Bob Sexton, Ryan Stuart, Patrick Walsh & Charles Wilkins (appeared in the Summer 2011 issue).

• Best How-to Article: “75 Whitetail Essentials,” by Mark Raycroft (appeared in the Hunting 2011 issue).

• Best Lifestyle Service Article: “Our greatest waters,” by Tom Adamchick, Mark Anderson, Patrick Campeau, Rocky Crawford, Scott Gardner, George Gruenefeld, Paul Marriner, Bruce Masterman, Gord Pyzer, T.J. Schwanky & Patrick Walsh (appeared in the Fishing 2011 issue).

The winners will be announced June 7 during the awards gala at the Carlu in Toronto. Stay tuned! (Click here to learn how we made out at last year’s awards ceremony.)

Here is what Jason wrote: “My friends and I brought a couple lake trout home and while cleaning one of the fish I found a small white growth embedded in the meat.  It was pure white, shaped like a jellybean, and was about the size of the fingernail on my pinkie finger.  I removed the growth, squeezed it and it did not pop – it was firm.

“Have you ever heard of this type of growth before, or have you heard of any instances where lake trout are not safe to eat?  Do you think it would be best to discard the meat, or if I cook it thoroughly will it be safe to eat?  Any insight would be greatly appreciated.”

Well, Jason, unbeknownst to most anglers, is the fact that fish are susceptible to any number of parasites, grubs, bacteria, viruses, growths and diseases. The good news is that when we’re cleaning fish and see one of these things we tend to cut it out.  And even if we miss a couple during the filleting process, as we often do, few are harmful to humans.  Especially, if you freeze the fish and / or thoroughly cook it.  Indeed, this is the reason most Federal and Provincial Health Codes require that any fish that is to be served uncooked, as sushi in a restuarant, must first be frozen at a very cold temperature for a set period of time.

While it is only a guess, it’s likely that what you saw was the common tapeworm called Triaenophorus crassus.  The life cycle of this parasite is fascinating because the tapeworm matures only inside northern pike. The life cycle goes something like this.

When a mature worm lays its eggs inside a pike’s intestine, they are excreted into the water. This usually happens in the spring when the pike are spawning, as happened over the last few weeks, depending on where you live in Canada.

Obviously a tapeworm’s eggs are much too small for us to see with the naked eye.  But they’re not too small to escape detection by the trillions of microscopic animals (zooplankton) that live in the water.  When a zooplankton eats a tapeworm egg it becomes infected.  (By the way, the tapeworm egg has to be eaten within 48 hours or it dies.)

Once inside the zooplankton, however, the egg transforms itself, changes its shape and grows for about two weeks. Now, as you probably know, zooplankton are a favorite food of many smaller fish species.  Especially ciscoes.  But, whitefish and lake trout also eat them, especially younger trout.

When a fish eats an infected zooplankton, the gastric juices inside the fish’s stomach free the tapeworm embryo.  It, then, punctures a tiny hole in wall of the stomach and penetrates the flesh.  When it does this, however, the fish’s response system encapsulates the worm, almost like a cocoon, and forms a cyst.

By the way, the worm, or Plerocercoid larvae as it is called, can live in the host ciscoe, whitefish or trout for many years.  But they can only fully mature and develop eggs inside a northern pike, which is what happens when a pike eats an infected ciscoe, whitefish or trout.  The mature larvae attach themselves to the wall of the pike’s intestine and live off the digested food of the pike. The larvae finish maturing over a period of almost a year.  Then they develop and lay their eggs and the cycle starts all over again.

Ciscoes, which lake trout and pike devour, often host tapeworm larvae.

As I mentioned, if an infected ciscoe, whitefish or lake trout isn’t eaten by a pike the larvae can remain in the flesh for five or six years.  Eventually it will die, however, and when that happens the tapeworm is absorbed into the flesh and the wound heals.  What you saw was likely the scar tissue.  But, as I mentioned, if you removed it during the filleting process, or prior to cooking the fish, you shouldn’t have any worries.

Bon appetit!

You really can’t give these creatures time to rest, or they’ll just peel back any line you manage to gain on them. Four or five times my fish took giant runs and I had to start the reeling-in process all over again. I was admittedly glad when I finally got the monster to the Fraser River’s sandy shoreline, but what a reward. And as it turned out, my fish had never been caught, tagged and released before—a virgin sturgeon, so to speak. Pretty special.

Thanks again to Tony Nootebos, president of B.C. Sportfishing Group, for the great guiding and hospitality—and, of course, for putting my fishing buddy, Ted Cawkell, and me on the fish. I’ll be writing all about this latest fishing adventure, as well as the conservation efforts behind the Fraser’s catch-and-release sturgeon fishery, in an upcoming issue of Outdoor Canada magazine.

Personal best: That's me on the right with fishing buddy Ted Cawkwell holding my seven foot seven inch white sturgeon before releasing it back into the B.C.'s Fraser River

That’s right: we skied hard and played hard.

Then last night, I arrived here in Harrison Hot Springs for the first of three days of fishing, which got underway this morning courtesy of my new friend Tony Nootebos, president of B.C. Sportfishing Group.

Today’s game was pursuing white sturgeon up the Fraser Canyon from Hope to just beyond Yale. The chance to take a jet boat up this rugged stretch of the Fraser, with cliffs and mountains towering over either side of the river, was alone worth the price of admission.

My fishing buddy, Ted Cawkell, caught the big fish of the day. The beast stretched the tape to 7 feet 9 inches, just inches shy of Ted’s personal best sturgeon. As for me, I brought in two fish under five feet—my very first sturgeon—before high winds, debris-laden water and an engine problem forced us ashore.

No mind: I still have two more days to catch even bigger sturgeon. We also plan to fly fish for cutthroat and bull trout, which is pure bonus—bulls are also on my fishing bucket list. And when all is said and done, I plan to finally visit the namesake hot springs here at Harrison Hot Springs Hotel.

After four days of skiing and a few days of fishing, I’m pretty sure the soak will do me no end of good.

My first sturgeon: A relative puppy at 4 feet 6 inches. But sweet.

Close, but no cigar: this giant was just three inches short of Ted Cawkwell's personal best sturgeon

My second sturgeon: A respectable four foot two inch specimen. So cool.

The fun and games start tomorrow night when my posse of friends (and personal photographers!) and I head up to Whistler for the Telus World Ski & Snowboard Festival, 10 days of music, arts, winter sports and…parties. The plan is to ski hard, take in the events and check out the festival nightlife through to Monday. If you’re a skier or snowboarder, Whistler will be the place to be. Watch this space for reports.

Monday evening, I head down to Harrison Hot Springs, picking up my old fishing buddy, Ted Cawkwell, along the way. We’ll be meeting up with Tony Nootebos of B.C. Sportfishing Group, who aims to put us on the fish. The main event: white sturgeon. Ted’s been fishing down in the Fraser Valley for years now, and his aim is to bring an eight-foot-plus leviathan to hand. Me? Any sturgeon will do, although I do have a secret ambition to top the whoppers—size-wise—my two fishing buddy neighbours caught down in Mexico (mahi mahi and marlin). More on that later should the bragging rights come to me.

Seriously, though, I’m looking forward to learning a lot more about the prehistoric white sturgeon, and the efforts of Nootebos and other outfitters in the Fraser Valley working to help bring the species back from the brink of extirpation. You got it: this is a strictly catch-and-release operation.

And if the river cooperates, we also hope to do some fly fishing for bull and cutthroat trout. I’ve caught cutties on the dry before down in Alberta’s Old Man River with my friend and field editor Bruce Masterman, but I’ve yet to even target bulls. Here’s to making my fishing bucket list just a tad shorter.