I was all set to go out with a fellow yakfisher and had my Tarpon on the car and all my gear packed when my friend suddenly had to cancel. Since I was ready I decided to go to another lake closer to home where I have soloed in the past. This lake has big smallmouth in it but the shoreline is swampy almost every where. There is only one good place to camp. I set up right at the water's edge. Kayak paddled a little easier with the two coolers on shore. It's rather amazing to find this one grassy piece of solid ground in a place where the shore line is a boggy mess of Labrador Brush and drowned cedar trees. Anyway this would be my bed and breakfast for this excursion.
I was able to pitch my tent right at the water's edge and my kayak slid right up on the grass in front of it. One of the most convenient pitches I've ever made. I was able to organize a nice cooking area with some logs and an old piece of plywood. After cooking lunch I inflated my backpackable float tube by mouth. It rolls up small enough to lash onto the bow of the yak. Got my flyrod and a couple of boxes of flies and kicked around in the tube for a couple of hours with nothing to show for it except a couple of rock bass.
The day was too windy for the flyrod and the float tube so I explored a bit with my spinning rod in the kayak. After a couple of hours of casting practice I paddled back to camp and pulled up the yak for the night. After supper when the winds had subsided I planned to go out in the tube again and cast surface poppers with the flyrod. It took quite a while for the wind to die down and the results of my efforts with the flyrod were again a couple of rock bass. I decided to call it a night and get up at dawn.
In the early light of morning I made coffee and enjoyed a breakfast of bacon and eggs. I'm a surviving heart patient who underwent quintuple bypass 10 years ago so I hardly ever eat bacon anymore. Boy was it good!
With little to show for my efforts with the flyrod and the spinning rod I decided to give my baitcaster a workout. That proved to be a wise choice as you can see below.
That is a big net and that is one of the biggest smallies I've ever caught. It was just shy of 23" long and with the girth I estimate this fish was easily 6 pounds. It fought hard for quite a while and went on several reel screaming runs. Tried to throw the hooks on a couple of spectacular leaps but for once, I was able to land the big one. With bass I usually just "lip" them but too many fish lost at the last minute have made me wise and I now carry a net for the big ones.
The fish took a white "lipless" crankbait trolled slowly from the kayak. So as you can see although I love to catch my fish with flies I am definitely not a purist and will try a number of different presentations before admitting defeat. Twice now I have camped on this lake and almost been "skunked" but both times I caught a very significant fish to save the trip. Last years fish was almost a clone of this one and it too was caught on a crankbait. Unfortunately I had "stowed" the camera as I was on my way out. That fish took on the "proverbial last cast". It's picture is permanently etched in my mind and the "last cast" aspect will help me remember it for a long time.
I guess it's every dad's dream to spend time doing what he loves with his children. Thanks to the kindness of my wife's cousins, my boys and I have been able to spend time together fishing on the Rideau. The cousins have a place just north of Kingston and they hav
e graciously offered us the use of it for a while the past two summers. My older boy is a very serious university student and has many years of study behind him and still ahead. He really appreciates the chance to unwind and fish alongside his younger brother and his dad. We catch a few bass and a few pike but we really have a blast fishing for bluegills and crappies from the kayaks and float tubes.
