WEEK 12 UPDATE

“FIRE AND RAIN”

In his memorable song “Fire and Rain” James Taylor covered perfectly the story of our Week 12 anglers. Like Taylor they did see fire and rain, but they saw a lot more rain than fire. Fortunately, the fires that swept through the Scott Lake region in late July were nearly out by the time this group landed at Scott Lake on August 3rd. There were still a few isolated flames along the lake shores and some smoky areas. But the rain, both nighttime and daytime, over the first four days of the trip put out every smoldering hot spot. By the end of the fourth day, the fire story of summer 2023 had a peaceful ending. Truthfully it was a rainy, dark week with only a few glimpses of sunshine and blue sky.

But that didn’t seem to bother the fish too much. As the primary entertainment of the week, they didn’t fail, offering up just over 100 trophies. As almost always with fishing, there were slow days, hot days and days that are in-between. With “just” over a dozen trophies, the first day would land in that slow day category, considering the elevated standards of fishing here. On the second day the fishing got a bit warmer, enough to call it an in-between day. There were just under two dozen trophies including Amy Tower’s 45” pike and some huge grayling taken by Dave and Priscilla O’Donnell (more on those fish later). The fishing was building and by the third day the fishing was hot, very hot—one of the best days of our season—even though it started with a very cold morning with some rain and fog that made it feel like September. In fact, many noted that it felt like the first day of fall. While it didn’t look like a great fishing day, it was with 26 trophy pike and 19 trophy lake trout landed. The big ones were well spread out among our guests: 22 of our 26 anglers got at least one trophy that day, some very nice ones. Tina Walker used a fly rod all day and was rewarded with her first big pike on the fly. It was 44” big. Priscilla O’Donnell got a 44.5” dandy. Todd Kalish landed a pair of trophy pike, the biggest a hefty 45-incher. Big lakers though were the headlined story. Lake trout of 38 or 39 inches were caught by Mike Skogen, Mike Schiedt, Tony Trusso and Priscilla O’Donnell. The really big trout were on the prowl too. A lake trout of 42” is huge. We don’t get a lot of those, but we had three on a single day. The lucky and tired anglers (these brutes really fight) were Jeff Towers, Amy Towers and Dave O’Donnell. A day couldn’t get much better.

The next day did get better for Ryan Robbins and John Milano who both connected and “Supersized” with 40” lake trout. Tiff Skogen and Tony Trusso were just a half-inch under that mark at 39.5”. Brian Rauser got a 39-incher into the net and Mike Kelly got a 38”. It was a trout fest. Tina Walker, Mike Scheidt, Anthony Maurice and Jerry Kyle also landed trophy trout on windy and rainy day—weather lake trout seem to love. But even sun-loving pike have to eat sometime: Dan Romine found a 44” pike at the end of his line. A heavy morning fog had cancelled all the fly outs on the fourth day, but Scott Lake was in a giving mood with a total of 20 trophies landed.

For the last day the sun finally came out and blessed the lake with warmth. Many ended their trip with a blissful shore lunch in the sunshine. Others kept up a full fishing day with some great results. Jeremy May, Brian Ash and Jerry Kyle all landed lake trout in the 39-inch zone. The Tower group headed to Lefty Falls, the most spectacular places we fish, where they loaded up on Grayling. Thanks to a few grayling fly outs, a lot of Trophy Triple Hats were passed out this week. Pricilla and Dave O’Donnell got theirs and all four of the Tower group (Amy and Jeff Towers, Anthony Maurice and Ryan Robbins) left with some new head gear. Pricilla, Dave, Amy and Jeff all upgraded to the 100+Club. All have been frequent club members over their many years of Scott Lake fishing.

While the sun wasn’t out a lot for this group, on the final day they could have sung along with James: “There have been sunny days I thought would never end”. It was a wonderful ending to a great week at Scott Lake Lodge.

WEEK 11 UPDATE
“IF A TREE FALLS IN THE FOREST AND THERE IS NO ONE TO HEAR IT . . .

Was there a Week 11 at Scott Lake Lodge? Depends. The calendar certainly noted the passing of the days between July 29th and August 3rd. With no guests on the island for five days, there were no float planes flying, no boats leaving the docks every morning, and no raucous dinners in the evening. We could have heard a tree falling. Just a quiet island with a few hardy souls who did almost no fishing (well, just a little). The great fishing games of Scott Lake were not played. Let’s just call it the 2023 Scott Lake Lodge All-Star break. And there were All-Stars on the island who stayed to protect and defend this 12-acre island on the 60th parallel. They started their defence right after the hurried evacuation of all the guests (and many of our team members) using powerful pumps and fire hoses to spray the entire island, hoping some water would stop any flaming cinders from landing on the parched ground.

Thanks to a dramatic wind shift from north to south the fire that was bearing down on us did a 180-degree turn and furiously burned its way up the north arm of Scott Lake. Then Mother Nature took over with four days of on/off rain. She did a much better job and brought our world back to normal. It was the first rain in well over a month. Just in time. Our home in the north was secure. And our All-Stars could play other games, like catching up on sleep and doing dozens of odd jobs that get lost in the fast pace of normal operations. There was a profound sense of community as the group sat down for meals at one long table in the main lodge. And an even greater sense of relief. One highlight of the week, was what we thought could be the last Tundra Trail hike before it burnt, nearly all the crew took part in this fun outing. Tundra Trail it turned out was saved.

On August 3rd guests returned to the lodge with the balance of our team members. We just all pretended that we were back to Week 1, Day 1. We were back in business with a sharp focus and high level of energy. On August 4th we had even more rain, the steady soft kind of rain that finished off any remaining smoky hot spots left. The smoke and fire that closed the lodge for the first time in 27 years (not counting Covid of course) was in the rear-view mirror. There are large areas on the northwest and north arms of Scott as well as big chucks of adjacent Premier Lake as a reminder, miles of charred timber. But as it’s done for millennia in the far north, the land will heal, and the forests will return. It’s all part of the natural cycle here. We just happened to be in the middle of it.

We all extend our sympathy and empathy to the 26 guests who made it all the way to Edmonton only to be sent home without making a single cast. It was the right call but still a major disappointment for the Week 11 guests—the lost week. We will put extra effort on July 29, 2024 to welcome those same guests and put on a great fishing show. Same time, same lake—no fire!

IT’S HALFTIME!

Today marks the exact halfway mark of the 2023 season. It’s Halftime. There will be no breaks though for popcorn, beer or hotdogs. For the crew at Scott Lake Lodge, it’s just another day in our long season of keeping guests into food, fish and good times for 94 consecutive days. There is no rest for this team. But we can indulge in a bit of reflections and something all sports fans love—stats. We’ll give you a few here, but don’t just double what you read. We’ve been through 25 of these halfway marks over the lodge’s history and it’s safe to say that the second half of the game is rarely a mirror of the first half. Anything can happen on the 60th parallel. Fishing success will depend, as it always does, entirely on what the weather does.

For our pike and grayling fishing hot weather equals hot fishing. Plain and simple. We saw that maximum dramatically illustrated over the first half. When it was sunny the pike were happy and active. Over the first three groups we had a grand total of three sunny days (zero in Week 1) combined with very cool, no make it cold, conditions. Our average trophy count for those three groups was a fairly quiet number of 95. That’s still good fishing, but when the sun finally made a major league appearance for our fourth group the trophy tally soared to 195, mainly big pike. That sun felt so good! The weather for groups 5, 6 and 7 bounced around a lot and so did the trophy count (from 99 to 131), but the weather did stabilize for groups 8 and 9 and the counts for those weeks landed on very respectable numbers of 161 and 170. There is solid momentum heading into our second half. It will be an exciting game. For a little perspective we are at 1,180 trophies so far. With an equal second half (just speculation), we would be just over the totals for our most recent seasons. Last year we landed at 2,177, almost the same as the 1,965 for the 2017 season and the 2,221 for the 2018 season. (The 2020 and 2021 seasons were Covid years—it does seem like a distant memory now.) It doesn’t look like we will equal the all-time trophy record of 2,670 trophies landed in the hot and sunny 2019 season. But you never know. It could happen.

Behind this season’s numbers are a lot of angler’s smiles, wide ones. There are a lot of great fish tales to be told like the “Done in One” story of Joe Novicki and Bill Calabresa who on their 42nd trip to Scott (they do come more than once a season) both landed trophy pike, lake trout and grayling that collectively exceeded 100” and put them into the 100+Club in just a single day. And Joe did it all on a fly rod, the first time that has ever happened. Jim MacDougal used his fly rod to land the biggest pike of the season, so far. He subdued a 48.5” beauty on one of our smallest flyout lakes—Odin. Peter Myhre has a long history of getting a lot of trophy pike. In Week 8 he landed twenty trophy pike. Over his fifteen day stay he ended up with four 45s. Rachael Bandt had a stellar day, landing pike of 44,45 and 46 inches. The biggest smile and the best “feel good” story from the halfway mark has to be Cole Booth’s. This 10-year-old showed all the big people how to catch big northern pike. With no help from mom or guide, he landed a bunch of ten trophy pike, including two at 44”. But he also landed a 47” monster. That kid is hooked for life. The adults though have done OK. One of the most memorable days in years was Donna Quincy. This was her first Canadian fishing trip. So, what was her first Canadian fish? Nothing less than a 47-incher. Many ardent pike anglers have fished Canadian waters for decades without getting one that big. So how did she react? As the guide admired the giant resting quietly in the net, Donna politely asked: “Is it a big one”. Yes, Donna it is big, very big. Then she added a 45.5” hog a bit later. Jeff Berg, on his 20th trip to Scott, is a veteran angler, 86 years young, and has caught a lot of big fish, but he’s never got two giant pike on the same trip. He put a 47 and a 47.5” pike in his guide’s net and into his already full fishing memory book. Other first half anglers who successfully tackled 47s or 47.5s were Ross Purpura Jr, Nate Valenti, Joe Wright and Gary Peters. We had a total of 55 big pike of 45” or better, so far. It’s been a great pike story.

The trout story is finally coming into focus. Early season trout fishing is always tough. The small ones are everywhere when the surface temperatures are cool but the big can seem to be nowhere. Actually they are simply scattered throughout the water column and are impossible to target. With the surface finally warming up over the past three weeks, the big trout are going down into their deep-water summer homes. With the help of advanced electronics and their decades of experience here, our guides know how to knock on their doors. We have 17 lakers over 40” in the books at Halftime. Of those ten have been caught over the past 16 days. It’s trout time right now. And three of those fish were extraordinary. Joni Schackmuth got a 45.5” laker in Week 9, along with a 41 on the same day. Amazingly on the first day of Week 10 (the final day included in this report) we had two 45.5” lake trout showing up on the TV screens after dinner. Larry Rohan got just a mammoth 45.5-incher in the northeast end of Scott Lake and Bill Williamson got his on adjacent Wignes Lake. We’ve had many years without a 45” trout. To get three in just a few days is remarkable.

Grayling fishing has been steady with many in the 18 and 19” range. As the summer rolls on the grayling fishing just gets better and better. A few anglers are making grayling their top priority, spending full days on the arctic sailfish rather than just a quick step into the rapids separating our many flyout lakes. The biggest to date is a 19.5” grayling landed on the far end of Wholdaia Lake landed by Rebecca Graf. We have handed out 20 Triple Trophy hats to anglers getting a trophy in all three of our species and have entered 13 of those into the elite 100+Club. Not a bad showing in both those departments.

What’s on tap for the second half of the fishing game at Scott Lake Lodge? We expect the lake trout train to keep chugging along and the grayling numbers to shoot up as the rivers drop in volume making fishing easier for sun-loving fish. The pike fishing will depend entirely on our weather. We have had wonderfully warm weather of late and that has keep pike shallow and aggressive. Whatever the fishing we do know that the game at Scott is played with high energy and excitement. No one leaves this place without catching a lot of fish and absorbing a world class customer service experience. Stay tuned to our blog posts for the rest of the story. The game is afoot.

Does this all sound like fun? Adventure, fishing and making memories in the wilderness of Canada…all while being treated to the finest customer service in the business. We are almost full for the weeks that have passed, we expect the same result for the second half of the season. Reach out to our sales manager Jon Wimpney (j5@scottlakelodge.com) to have your adventure with us in 2024. We will sell out quickly, the time to act is NOW!