Sweat equity: Persistence pays off on two very different backcountry fishing adventures

Early in the morning of our second session on Gods River, Lynn was perched on a rocky ledge above a plunge pool, where he quickly landed two pretty, foot-long brook trout on a #3 Mepps. Almost anywhere else in the world, most anglers—including us—would deliriously toast a 12-inch brookie, but this was Gods, and we were after bigger game. Morning stretched into afternoon as, one after another, we visited Kyle’s never-fail spots. For almost every run, pool and boulder, many of which had colourful names, he had a story about huge trout landed, some within the last week. But on this day, there was no sign of anything, let alone the big ones that Gods is famous for.

“I really can’t explain it,” Kyle said. We were doing everything right, he continued, but the fish were simply turned off or had, for some reason, abandoned their usual haunts for other places. Trout fishing isn’t exactly breaking rocks in the hot sun. Still, I’d now gone more than a day and a half on the river without a hit. By mid-afternoon, it was getting hard to maintain the kind of focus required to fish such technically challenging water.

Eventually, we pulled ashore at the farthest downstream section of fishable water, where the river becomes broad and slick before plunging over an impassable falls. Standing on the bank, I was swinging an 1/8-ounce red-and-gold Little Cleo down and across the tailout when it was inhaled by what felt like a record-book trout. It was heavy, though less peppy than I expected. As I hauled the fish into the slow water near shore, my epic trout was revealed to be a fat, gold-tinted walleye.

This was not the fish I’d travelled 2,000 kilometres to catch, so I probably should have been disappointed. Instead, I was absolutely tickled to land what turned out to be my biggest walleye of 2023, in a racing tailout over a falls on Gods River. It was a reminder that part of the mystery and joy of fishing is you truly never know what’s going to happen. It also got my head back in the game.

We were now far downstream from our rendezvous with the plane, and had little time to spare before the flight back to the lodge, then home to civilization. We could only stop for few casts here and there. Kyle shook things up by hitting the oddball and third-string places he’d usually overlook, but we still went two more hours without a sniff. Finally, with only 15 minutes left in our trip, it was down to one last hope: a small standing wave marking a barely submerged boulder in the heavy flow, just a rod’s length from shore. I’ve got a pretty good eye for river structure, but on this crashing river, I’d have never spotted something so subtle myself.

While Kyle skillfully held the boat in the current, Lynn graciously ceded the spot to me. With a knee on the bench, and one hand on the gunnel, I lobbed my red-and-gold spoon up and across stream, almost into the overhanging bushes. I was trying to time the sink and retrieve so the spoon would wobble right through the prime lie in front of the boulder. Once, twice, then three times I tossed it, not getting it quite right. Out of the corer of my eye, I saw Lynn peek at his watch. I tried once more, and this time it was perfect. Watching the spoon the whole way, I saw—then felt—the hit.

After too many years of landing dopey hatchery fish back home, I’d forgotten how strong a trout can be. In fact, I couldn’t recall the last time a river trout felt like it was putting up a genuine fight. The brookie was a real tiger, shaking, rolling and bulldogging back and forth in the current. I know nature made the fish powerful so it could live in such a wild and perilous place. What I’ll never understand, though, is how and why nature made that 21-inch brook trout so beautiful, with its bright orange belly and fins, red-on-blue spots, and impossibly intricate green and gold squiggles across its back. For the briefest moment, I never wanted to let it go. But then, more than anything in the world, I wanted it back in the water, to survive and thrive in that very special place.

They were two very different Canadian fishing adventures. One was at a picturesque lodge that, despite its remote location deep in the roadless wilderness, offered all the modern comforts and conveniences of home, not to mention meals and guides, along with the promise of trophy fish. The other was a two-room cabin less than 20 kilometres from a provincial highway, but totally off the grid, with no electricity or running water, and simple propane appliances. There, we packed in and cooked our own grub, and it was up to us to find the fish.

Both places were beautiful and charming in their own way. And at both, things didn’t go quite as expected. The fishing wasn’t easy, although giving up on it would have been. But with teamwork and smarts, and by just sticking to it, we had surprising and unforgettable fishing adventures, with high points that eclipsed—and even left us laughing about—the low ones.

Looking back now, I wouldn’t have had it any other way.

KEEN TO LEARN MORE?

Manitoba’s Elk Island Lodge features trophy brook trout, lake trout and pike fishing on Gods Lake and Gods River. Trips include food, lodging, guided fishing and a return charter flight from Winnipeg. Full details are at www.godslake.ca. You can also find out more about Manitoba’s myriad outdoor adventures at www.huntfishmanitoba.ca.

Ontario’s Kanipahow Wilderness Resort and Outposts offers two boat-in outposts, and six full-service waterfront cabins with multispecies fishing on Chapleau Lake and adjoining waters. For complete information, go to www.kanipahow.com.