2019 Season Archives - Page 3 of 5

Summer Time and the Livin’s Easy: Week 8 Report

by Jason | Jul 22, 2019 | 2019 Season, Website Fishing Blog

SUMMERTIME: THE LIVIN’ IS EASY

“Summertime and the livin’ is easy”

In 1957 Ella Fitzgerald first recorded that memorable song. It was only 66 seconds long. Our Week 8 guests felt that sentiment right to the bone for five blissful days of summer—the perfect “not too hot but not too cold”. After an extended spring with more than our share of windy, cool and cloudy weather, summer arrived on a warm breeze that lifted the spirits of everyone on this 12-acre island in the far northern reaches of Canada. Every morning there were clear skies and the hope of a magical day. Every day that hope was rewarded with calm waters, impossibly blue skies and great fishing.

“Fish are jumpin’ and the cotton is high”

Well, the only cotton we have around here is the delicate and beautiful cotton grass plant that is less than a foot high, but the fish WERE jumpin’. (I’m sure Ira and George Gershwin who wrote and composed the song will posthumously give us some latitude here.) While our pike, lake trout and arctic grayling weren’t quite jumpin’ in the boats, they were certainly jumpin’ on our guest’s flies and lures. Our aquatic friends really got into the summer spirit: the raising barometer lifted the mood on the island along with the pike in the lake and the grayling in our rivers—they came shallow, just like it was early June. The number of fish caught this week was extraordinary. Dinner conversations referring to daily catches of over 100 fish per boat were common. Not just the little guys either. With abundant sunshine and warm temperatures, the big pike flooded the shallows. Some trophy pike were literally caught in just inches of water. When they are shallow, pike are easy to find and often quite receptive to our guest’s offerings.

Numbers? We had ‘em. In just five days there were 138 pike over 40” landed. Everyone at the lodge got in on the action. And ten anglers put 13 “super-sized” pike (45” or more) into their guide’s waiting nets. Pike of exactly 45” were landed by Dave Lotts, Travis Carrothers, Tim Solso and Peter Myhre who caught three 45s; pike that pulled the tape to 46” or 46.5” were taken by Joel Leisch and Troy Carrothers who got a pair; pike of 47” (a true monster pike) made the trip for Eddie Brown, Joel Leisch, Eric Bailey and Peter Myhre. For many Ontario lodges and lodges in the lower parts of Saskatchewan and Manitoba putting that many big fish in their books would be a summer’s worth of trophies not a week’s. The tape of our Scott Lake guides don’t stop at 47” though. A Scott Lake Lodge staff alum, from the kitchen a dozen or so years back, held his guide’s tape at the tail of a 48” pike and a current Scott staff member, our Head Chef Nigel Rivera, landed the biggest pike of the season (so far) pulling the tape to exactly 50”. It was Nigel’s first full day off during this season: he made good use of it. There aren’t many weeks when we get a baker’s dozen of giant pike. We need to thank the sun, along with experienced guides and sharp hook-setting guests. Guests like Peter Myhre who is becoming something of a legend here; he caught 28 trophy pike in just five days with nine in a single day. Eric Baily and Marvin Bragewitz had five-pike days and Tim Solso brought in a quad for his big day.

Grayling were loving the sun as well. We had 37 trophy grayling (or just “ling” as the guides often call them) for the week with some big ones. Travis Carrothers, Joel Leisch and John Horstman all got 18 inchers, near the top of our grayling ladder. Joel Leisch and John Horstman had an incredible “ling” day, landing 21 between them. Many of the grayling were taken on dry flies and 4-weight fly rods, a perfect way for an angler to spend a summer day. These northern acrobats love the sunshine almost as much as our pike. Even though they don’t like sun, the heat helped the lake trout fishing as well by pushing them deeper into their summer holes where our guides can target them effectively. Fat 40 inchers were landed by Eddie Brown and Joel Leisch

With all those big grayling and lake trout there must have been some hats and jackets passed out. Indeed. Three lucky angles got the Trophy Triple hat and the 100+Club jacket: Travis Carrothers who was at exactly 100 inches, Eddie Brown at 104 and Joel Leisch at a healthy 105.

“One of these mornings

Your gonna rise up singing

Yes, you’ll spread your wings

And you’ll take to the sky”

We did occasionally hear some guests singing on these perfect summer mornings and we did hear a lot of floatplanes taking to the sky. This group took full advantage of our 22 fly out lakes and jumped in the lodge-based Beaver and Otter to see lakes even more remote than Scott, some a hundred miles distant. It’s not that the fishing on our home lake (Scott Lake) was slow by any means. Our numbers here were sensational. The big fish on Scott are plentiful but all have PhDs or at least Masters in seeing the difference between a real baitfish and even the latest generation of plastic lures or fluffy flies. Some lakes in our fly out system are fished only five or ten times a season. The lakes with more anglers are huge—some many times bigger than Scott. We spread the fishing pressure to a vast area, around nine million acres of land and nearly two million acres of water, a number that grows every year.

So, while most people were sweltering in heat wave crippling the eastern and midwestern US, the anglers at Scott Lake were livin’easy in the “just right” sunshine. Where do you want to be next July.

Three Part Harmony: Week 7 Update

by Jason | Jul 15, 2019 | 2019 Season, Uncategorized, Website Fishing Blog

THREE-PART HARMONY: WEEK 7 UPDATE

As we approach the mid-point of the 2019, the music is changing. For the first six weeks we had one beautiful and loud note—pike. Our other Scott Lake Lodge gamefish (the arctic grayling and the lake trout) were mainly MIA. It was a lonely note. No longer! With the grayling and lakers now playing well in our waters, we have real music, with three-part harmony. As has been noted several times in these updates, it’s been a very cool summer and, while no heat wave has entered the scene, some seasonal movements (down and up) are showing up. While the warming surface temperatures are pushing the big lake trout down, that same trend is pushing the grayling up where there are a few more bugs to keep them busy near the surface. So, thirty-five days into our season, we’re catching some nice lake trout on the bottom and lots of grayling on tip. Its’ no longer a one-note pike show.

Not that pike have not been a big part of the show. They are–big time. During this week, there were probably 3,000 of the aggressive “tundra sharks” caught with 117 reaching our trophy status of 40”. With lots of big fish on the prowl, some went way over that mark. There were 45 inchers landed by Peter Myhre (he also got a 46), Gary Parzych and Dave Wallace. Eight-year-old Colton Erickson landed a fish he will remember 50 years from now—a girthy, beautiful 45.5” pike, almost as long as Colton is tall. Bruce Bush had quite an introduction to Scott Lake Lodge. On his first trip to Scott Bruce had two-thirds of the giant pike hat trick, landing 47 inchers on consecutive days. Welcome to the Scott Lake Lodge family! Steve Nicholas had top pike honors of the week, getting a monster that stretched the tape to just under 48”. The very honest guest and guide called it 47 and three-quarters. A bunch of anglers landed a bunch of big pike in a single day: Peter Myhre with seven, Dave Bensema and Bruce Bush with six, Peter again with five and Jerry Kyle with four. When the fishing is good here, it’s very good.

So, pike were still the main act, but they had to share the stage this week. Arctic grayling made a big splash (many splashes) this week. Over 50 trophy grayling were landed on the inflows or outflows of our fly out lakes. Most were taken on 4-weight fly rods, some on ultra-light spinning rigs. No fish in the north has more dramatic coloration with vividly spotted dorsal fins or a feistier attitude. If you match the tackle to the size, it’s an exciting gamefish. We had some dandies this week: 19 inchers, a very big grayling in these parts, were landed by Mark Graf, Colton Erickson and Wyatt Erickson; 18s were taken by Garth Olds, Ted Erickson and Angie Erickson. These fish, the second part of our three-part harmony, added an interesting, more contemplative, contrast to the smash-mouth pike fishing.

And the third part? Our big lake trout, after randomly cruising the cool surface waters for over a month, have finally started to drop into deeper water where they can be more effectively targeted. Some nice trophy-sized trout were taken. Trevor Myers and Mark Graf landed 38s. On the last day on Scott, James Finney got his biggest laker ever, a fat 40 incher. On a memorable day on one of Scott’s 22 fly out lakes, Mark Graf and his son, Foster, found trout heaven. They landed around 90 lakers and one was a heart stopper. Foster knew he had something big when his line just plain stopped; he wasn’t snagged, but he had just hooked a huge lake trout. About fifteen minutes later he saw the fish in his guide’s big net. He needed a big net to land this massive lake trout with a huge girth. A quick look with the tape showed 45” before the magnificent beast went gently back into the lake. Foster and Mark had been through this before. Seven years earlier, almost to the exact day, Mark landed a 46”X28” trout that he nicknamed Tubby. Well, Foster got Tubby II and the Foster story isn’t over. Earlier in the trip he landed a 46” pike and a 17.5” grayling, giving him membership in the 100+Club with a whopping 108.5 total inches, one of the highest totals ever.

It was a great week for big fish. A total of 183 trophies were taken. Everyone in the lodge caught multiple trophy fish. We almost ran out of trophy pins. The three-part harmony was very sweet music indeed.

A Wonderfully Average Week: Week 6 Fishing Report

by Jason | Jul 11, 2019 | 2019 Season, Northern Pike, Website Fishing Blog

A WONDERFULLY AVERAGE WEEK

Average gets a bum rap. In our media-saturated era, everything must be way above average to be respected. If you don’t see words or phrases like “the next level”, “over the top”, “stupendous”, “sensational” or “tremendous”, you just want to tune out. What if average though was still good or even great? Take our Week number six. Having average weather (some sun, some rain, some clouds but not much heat), having a group of anglers with average experience (some pro level, some early in their angling careers), and having the imperfect but functional marker of an average number of trophies (at 143 to the boat which was higher than three of the previous weeks, but way below the other two—so average), it was a classic average week.

But those are just numbers. Let’s look at an average week of fishing at Scott Lake Lodge. We did realize our #1 goal here: everyone we talked to had fun and had a safe trip; that’s the top priority of management here. No one at the dock when the floatplanes landed to take our group south was eager to leave, especially those who did have some extraordinary days on the water, like Bog Hoagland who landed six trophy pike in a single day, or Tim Fierbaugh, Frances Sun and Tom Granneman who had five. Our guests who thought skill, luck or some combination of those two elements caught super-sized fish certainly didn’t think their trip was average. I’m sure Paul Granneman, Dan Spielman, Frances Sun, Tim Fierbaugh or Tom Granneman didn’t think their 45” pike were average. Without a doubt having a 46 incher on the line didn’t feel average to Jeff Christiansen. What about experiencing the fury of a monster 48.5” pike? Ask Dennis Hetler. He did it in an average week, but that’s about as far from average as you can get. Tim Fierbaugh battled successfully with a 41-inch lake trout. That’s a lifetime memory. While smaller fish, the big grayling of the week (fish of 18” or more) provided some huge angling satisfaction to the lucky group (Frances Sun, Frank O’Neil, Craig Brown, Randy and Mickey Moret) who went to our northern rivers to bend their light rods against the current and beautiful, high-jumping arctic grayling.

An average day doesn’t describe the “Done in One” Trophy Triple days of Dan Spielman, Frances Sun or Craig Brown who landed trophy-sized fish of all three of Scott Lake Lodge’s gamefish in one day. Frances had a very special day because her three big ones totaled 102 inches, putting her in the exclusive 100+Club. There were, of course, many moments that just can’t be quantified: enjoying the traditional and delicious fresh pike shore lunches; the sight of a soaring eagle; the unearthly calls of the common loon at night; that first bite of the prime rib, the duck confit or the New York strip steak—just a few of the twelve entrees served to our guests. Maybe the most above average experience was the warm feeling of being in a room full of excited, happy anglers who loved this northern experience. If this was an average week, we’ll take it. It was wonderful.

Weathering the Weather: A Wild Week 5

by Jason | Jul 9, 2019 | 2019 Season, fly fishing, Island Life, Northern Pike, Website Fishing Blog

Weathering the Weather

Anglers are well known for their patience. It’s a good thing because it was tested during our fifth group of the still young 2019 season. They had to wait out some of the worst mid-summer weather we have seen in the twenty-three years of the current ownership. In less than a month of operations we have seen it all—intense, burn your bare feet on the floor of the boat heat, the six-layers of clothing cold front, the calm lake surface that goes for miles and wind and waves right to the edge of fishability. This group got the six-layer option. It was damn cold, unprecedented for this time of year. Since, as we’ve often commented in these posts, pike love warm water and sunshine, the first four days of this five-day trip turned out to be quite challenging for pike fisherman. They were patient enough to wait four days before the sun finally made an appearance and gave our group a shot of vitamin D and a shot at some real good fishing.

Despite the nasty wind and cold, our anglers kept heading out and, except for one day of ridiculously high winds, did quite well, catching a lot of fish and some very impressive fish. Fish like the monster pike of 47.5” that Nate Naprstek induced to grab his fly just 15 minutes from the lodge; the 47” pike that Andrew Troop landed; the 46 inchers taken by Josh Nardo, Brent Laing, Dave Morales 2^nd, and Tom Wigglesworth, or the 45 brought to the boat by John Green. Considering the weather, there were some amazing results.

As often happens the big pike came in clusters: Josh Nardo and Brent Laing enjoyed seven-trophy days; John Green had a six-trophy day and Andrew Nardo had a five-trophy day. Frank and Susan Saraka had a wonderful mixed bag (pike, trout and grayling) of six trophies each, earning them the Trophy Triple hat. Andy Nardo left wearing one too. Gerry O’Brien got the whole enchilada, joining the 100+Club with trophy pike, trout and grayling that collectively measured over 100”. His total was a fat 102.

While the pike story this week was pretty good, the best story was the lake trout. That was the one benefit of the cold conditions—it kept the lake trout up shallow, right on the surface where anglers casting for pike could tie into some great fish. No weights. No heavy tackle. Just great fights with fish that typically are much deeper. With any tackle a lake trout of 38” or better is a tough customer. On pike gear they are downright nasty fighters as Susan Saraka and Andrew Nardo found out. Getting a 40” plus trout that way is a real angling achievement. Ask Chris Kasper or Gerry O’Brien who landed 41” lake trout or Frank Saraka who got a 41.5” beauty. How about a 12-year-old dealing with that much raw power. Colter Sloan knows how that felt. He got a fish of a lifetime, a 41.5” lake trout, on the coldest and wildest day of the week. Congrats to Colter, but the poor kid is now ruined for fishing anywhere else.

That was the four-day story. On that fifth day the sun did shine, and the trophies rolled in, 32 on that final day. Bruce Koslowski got five pike, topping out at 47”. Gerry O’Brien and Andrew Troop got a mess of big grayling and Will Waltrip pulled in four trophy pike and a 39.5” laker. It was a great way to end the trip. Rain or shine, wind or calm, the Scott Lake trip always ends too soon. That’s why almost everyone comes back the next year: it’s an addiction that brings only smiles.

A Community of Anglers: Week 4 Update

by Jason | Jul 3, 2019 | 2019 Season, Website Fishing Blog

A COMMUNITY OF ANGLERS: WEEK 4 UPDATE

Rolling right along, the 2019 season here at Scott Lake Lodge has welcomed just over 100 anglers who have landed at our dock in Beavers or Otters to be greeted by fourteen guides looking sharp in their crisp “changeover whites” fishing shirts. Only ten of those 100 anglers were first-time Scott Lake Lodge guests. It didn’t take long for those anglers to realize that Scott is a unique fishing lodge. They quickly witnessed the “More” in our slogan of “World Class Fishing and More”. The More isn’t just the resort-like amenities. The best part of the More is what our new guests experience on their first evening at the lodge; it’s the high level of energy, the animated conversations, the handshakes and hugs between both guests and staff. There is a buzz in Laker Lodge that’s rare: it’s the buzz of friendship and community. That community definitely includes the 32 staff members. Here at Scott we deliberately blur the line between guests and staff who all sit down at the same dinner table and enjoy the same meal—together, catching up on their last twelve months and sharing their travel experiences (most of the Scott staff are world travelers in their off-season). This doesn’t happen just anywhere; we do more.

Every week, bonds between guests and between staff and guests are formed and deepened; it’s an extended family without the family fights. After dinner on most evenings there will be spontaneous games—cards, darts or beanbag games on the expansive deck. Sometimes this transient community even organizes events like the annual Week 3 3rd Annual Ken Thome Euchre Tournament (for non-Midwesterners, it’s a card game) that had a two dozen, two-person teams this year or the new Kracum-crowd organized Mario Cart Challenge (for the over 60 crowd, that’s a video game) that had an equal number of teams, evenly mixed between guests and staff. The “More” is pretty heady stuff around here. So, do we have time for fishing? Isn’t this a fishing lodge?

Indeed, it is. There is always lots of time for fishing, just no time for boredom. Fishing is the core activity and we did it up big on Week 4. Apparently, some anglers perform best under pressure. Like pro athletes, they save their best for late in the game. For four days Sam Bajalia and his fishing partner Curtis Fellows pulled in some good fish, a number of which surpassed the trophy mark, but they wanted more; they wanted a truly memorable day. So, on their final day they flew out to one of Scott’s 22 fly out lakes for one more shot at glory and they made it a good one. Before their last day ended, Sam had landed four trophy pike with a pair of 45 inchers while Curtis delivered on a 46 incher and a mammoth 48, along with dozens of smaller but hard fighting cold-water pike.

While that was a dramatic day, Joe Novicki and Bill Calabresa had an even more sensational day a few days earlier. No strangers to Scott with an incredible 65 trips to Scott between them (people can come to Scott more than once a season as this duo figured out long ago), Bill and Joe have done pretty well up here. They almost always earn the 100+Club membership where anglers land all three Scott trophies whose collective measurements hit or exceed 100 inches. In fact, Bill led the 100+ parade in 2017 with Joe in third position. In 2016 they had the same rankings but with Joe at #1. So, it’s not surprising then that they pulled it off again, but to both do it in a single day, the rare “Done in One, that’s surprising. Joe did his up big, landing a massive 44” lake trout, a 43.5” pike and a fat 19.5” grayling (about as big as they get up here) in one memorable day, getting a total of 107” for his leading 100+Club standing. Bill landed at 101.5”.

More than those four anglers enjoyed some great fishing action. Our Week 4 gang brought in 132 trophies (109 pike, 19 grayling and 7 lake trout), none more memorable than young Kai Boland’s 39” lake trout that was nearly as long as Kai. Just 16 but with some major league fishing cred and five Scott Lake trips behind him, Griffin Kristo did what he’s always done at Scott: land big fish. This season he registered the second biggest pike of the week, a very photogenic 46.5 incher. Rich Kracum and Tom Lind got 45s. Matt Klenk, Craig Mataczynski and Tom Lind all had exciting single days with five pike trophies. Scott Lake Lodge got some trophies too. For the fourth consecutive year we had 100% rebooking. The Week 4 Community will reconvene in 2020. That’s loyalty.

The Week 3 Fishing Report

by Jason | Jun 26, 2019 | 2019 Season, Uncategorized, Website Fishing Blog

FISH STORIES: THE GROUP THREE REVIEW

Here’s a good fish story for you. Imagine a guy who has fished for pike for a few years and done well with his spinning rod. He decides to get into fly fishing and has his guide show him the basics. So, his guide works with him on technique, but the cast is pretty basic. There is no double haul, not even a single haul. It’s kind of a straight arm flop. But the guide has faith and encourages the guy to go for it. What does the guy do? Nothing more than cast to a sighted fish, set the hook and land a magnificent 49” northern pike, our biggest of the season. Not a bad start for a beginner. The “guy” is Bernie Heile and the story is absolutely true. That fish alone would have made a great trip but a couple of days earlier, Bernie used his spinning gear to land five trophy pike in a single day while his friend and fishing partner, Len Dorr, landed eight trophies that day including a 48 incher, the third biggest of the season. Not a bad trip for the boys.

As with the previous two groups, the fishing story for our third group was all about sunshine. For the first three days of the five-day trip, we had glorious sunshine and lot of heat. It brought the pike out of the shadows of the deep water into the shallows. These fish were aggressive, even angry. Our daily trophy counts jumped like a startled frog (even though we don’t have frogs up here). Day 1 tallied 46 trophies; Day 2 registered 56 and Day 3 brought home 40—all incredible numbers. Then the wind changed from the balmy southwest to the nasty northeast. It felt like the change brought the air all the way from the Greeland ice sheet. The temperatures dropped from the 70s and even low 80s all the way down to 50. Our pike were not impressed. They dropped out of sight and our daily counts dropped to 13 on Day 4 (including three trophy lake trout) to 7 on Day 5.

With three amazing days in the books, no one complained about the slower days on the final two. Anyway, it’s fishing. Who do you complain to? There were a lot of fish in the books before the weather turned. One of our guests with a long Scott history, Steve Bandt otherwise known as “Big Dog”, had quite a trip. Steve had three consecutive days with five trophies. That was no flash in the shorelunch pan. Joe Novicki, who has been coming to Scott for over 20 years, had the pike six-pack. Greg Larson and Jerry Maunus had five trophy pike days. When you’re in the right spot they often just keep coming. Of the 157 total trophies for the week, nine were huge fish. In addition to the 48 and 49 of Dorr and Heile, Grant Larson, fishing just 15 minutes from the lodge, hauled in a fat 47. Rory Wright got a 46.5” even closer to the lodge. Steve Bandt, Dave Thome, Peter Jewett, Phil Proctor and Chase Larson all nailed 45s. Lots of big fish. The lake trout were still shallow but scattered around all our lakes, making them fun to catch but difficult to target the big ones. Lots of smaller lakers were taken but Steve Bandt did that trick too, getting a 39.5” beauty. To cap things off on Day 5 David Thome and Poach found a buzzer beater 47” giant!

It was a fantastic wildlife week with the most bear sighting ever (we lost track of that count). Almost everyone saw a bear on four consecutive days. They seemed to be everywhere. Everyone though got through their shore lunch without an Ursus Interruptus. Overall a great week. Probably 4,000 fish landed with plenty of trophies. Lots of smiles on the departing anglers. And again, lots of people rebooking: out of 26 guests 24 are coming back next summer. There will be fish waiting for them.