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Diaries of a Lodge Owner
In 2009, sheet metal mechanic, Steve Niedzwiecki, turned his passions into reality using steadfast belief in himself and his vision by investing everything in a once-obscure run-down Canadian fishing lodge.
After ten years, the now-former lodge owner and co-host of The Fish'n Canada Show is here to share stories of inspiration, relationships and the many struggles that turned his monumental gamble into one of the most legendary lodges in the country.
From anglers to entrepreneurs, athletes to conservationists; you never know who is going to stop by the lodge.
Diaries of a Lodge Owner
Episode 74: Cold Adventures and Warm Memories in Muskie Fishing
What happens when a chance meeting at a curling club evolves into an enduring friendship and a shared passion for muskie fishing? Join me and renowned musky guide Matt O'Brien as we revisit the early days on Lake Nipissing and the Upper French River. Matt's ingenuity in navigating without modern technology laid the foundation for our adventures, and our stories today peel back the layers of what it means to be a guide on such dynamic waters. From the fundamentals of musky fishing to the challenges faced amidst fluctuating water levels, our conversation reveals the heart of our guiding journey.
With the advent of auto-charting technology, musky fishing has transformed, and so has the guiding experience. We unravel the shift from walleye to muskie guiding, underscoring the importance of adapting to weather conditions, particularly during the harsh Canadian winters. Light-hearted moments pepper our chat as we debate the merits of Polish boots against the unforgiving northern cold. As our clientele grows, so does the need for a refined approach to fishing techniques, teamwork, and the art of storytelling, which we bring to life through our own experiences and those shared with fellow anglers.
Living a dual life between digital signage and fishing, my passion has only deepened with the acquisition of a lodge. Together with Matt, we explore the significance of meticulous record-keeping, drawing inspiration from Chris Shock's fishing diaries, and how such traditions enrich our understanding and strategy. Our episode culminates in a nostalgic look at camaraderie and the shared joy of fishing and music at Chaudière, reminding us that amidst the challenges and technological advancements, it's the relationships and memories that truly anchor us to the beauty of the North.
This episode of Diaries of a Lodge Owner is brought to you by Nordic Point Lodge a luxury outdoor experience with five-star service.
Speaker 2:You know, if you just go for one day on a musky guide trip, you might not catch something. You know like we do our best, but if you come for four or five days at a time, it's like it's pretty much guaranteed you're gonna catch something. You know like we do our best, but if you come for four or five days at a time, it's all like it's pretty much guaranteed You're going to catch. You know.
Speaker 1:This week on the outdoor journal radio podcast networks diaries of a lodge owner stories of the North. With Willie tied up, I finally found the opportunity to sit with someone I met at the beginning of my show to air journey and had the pleasure of working with in those years. He helped me with my website marketing and several IT projects at the lodge and, most interestingly, as a guide, and it is now my pleasure to introduce to all of you Matt O'Brien On this show. Matt and I reminisce about our tenure on the Upper French River and Lake Nipissing, where he still guides today and, in my opinion, is the best muskie guide on that watershed bar none. We talk about guiding and musky fishing fundamentals and learn just how Matt has successfully balanced his life to include his passion musky guiding. So it's another walk down memory lane for us, filled with great stories and awesome information. We invite you to sit back and watch the rods as we troll through well over a decade of memories. Here's my conversation with Matt O'Brien. Welcome, folks, to another episode of Diaries of a Lodge Owner Stories of the North. And today I have a really, really awesome dude here with us and he's a pretty special guy to me Back when I bought Chaudière there were two people and I always say one person got a hold of me right off the bat and that was Pat Tryon, and these guys have very, very similar situations with me.
Speaker 1:I'll call it because this awesome, awesome guy, matt O'Brien, was probably the very first person to talk to me about Chaudière when I bought it, because it ended up that we met at the curling club in Shelburne and he had heard that some guy at the curling club, through our ice maker, gordie Brown, bought Chaudière. And Matt was already fishing the Upper French River at that point in his life and knew Chaudière and thought, oh my God, I wonder if it's the same Chaudière that I know. And sure enough, he come up to me in the curling club and said hey, I'm Matt O'Brien, and did you buy the Chaudière Lodge on the Upper French River? And thus the relationship between Matt and myself began. And, matt, I just want to welcome you to the show and tell you I'm really, really looking forward to talking to you today.
Speaker 2:Hey, steve, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no problem so listen go ahead.
Speaker 2:No, I just remembered that first year there it wasn't.
Speaker 1:A couple of weeks later somebody on your curling team got injured and you ended up calling me and saying we played together that year, yeah, and we curled together, and, and I think too, it's been so long ago, this was in the winter of 2009 and 10. And I saw you at the Sportsman Show. I don't know if I met you at the Sportsman Show before we met at the Curling Club. I think the Curling Club was the first point that we met. But just, I would love because I know that we've we've talked about this and um, um privately, but I would love to hear a little bit about what the upper french river was like before I got there, when you guys were fishing it.
Speaker 2:For sure. Well, one thing I remember that stands out to me from back in the day is not having a base map on my GPS, and you know what the rocks are like out there.
Speaker 1:Oh, you didn't have a base map back then.
Speaker 2:No, well, I had a GPS on my fish finder, but it didn't have a map.
Speaker 1:Didn't have a Navionics map. So you guys were out there fishing without a map.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I like oh my God, yeah. One of the first things I ever did there when I got there was I drove around like every single island in the river Smashed a few bottom ends oh yeah, for sure, but my strategy was just to put a waypoint at 10 feet all the way around every island, every shoreline, so like, basically, if you zoomed out of my old GPS you could see kind of like an outline of what the map looked like anyways.
Speaker 1:No way.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I had like tens of thousands of waypoints just to kind of keep you off the proms Even back then Yep, wow, I didn't know you were doing that back then, because I had to.
Speaker 1:Wow, no shit, but it to to. I was fishing back then too. Um, not like you and I, it never occurred to me to put way points in to draw a map, like you're, basically putting dots in to draw the map, and, and, and, um, uh, pat also, when he started this is a couple of years after you were doing this he did that. So the thought of you doing that back then is very cool Because, again, like I mean, the Upper French River for those of you who don't know is up and down like a toilet seat. The average depth on the river is probably close to a hundred feet.
Speaker 2:Eh, yeah, I've heard 75, but same thing deep.
Speaker 1:But deep and but you can be in 75 feet and go 20 yards or 10 feet and be on a rock like the can opener.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like the can opener, you control right beside it and be in 40 feet and the tip of your rod could hit the rock.
Speaker 1:And it and, and it's not like it's a cliff folks the can opener If, if you know if we could take the water out of the upper French river just to look at what it looks like with no water, it would be cool, because this can opener is more like a pillar. It's not a, it's not a wall, and it comes, it comes on on regular water depths. You can't see it. It's about four to six inches under the water at the top of it and um it, it's uh, like Matt said it, it's 40 feet down, straight down on one side. The top of it is probably what?
Speaker 2:Maybe the size of a truck if that Not even Like a kitchen table.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, it's crazy, this pillar, and you know it's claimed a few victims over the years uh, I've knock on wood. I was lucky enough, while I own chaudiere, that uh, we managed to keep all of our guests off of it.
Speaker 2:but, um, there's, that's not the only hazard out there and and, uh, we couldn't keep them off the mall, that's for sure the problem with that one is it seems like it's you're safe, right because it's right in the middle of a wide open basin.
Speaker 1:Yeah, oh yeah, nothing else around it. That just sticks straight up, and you can pass by on both sides, up and down either way, and unless you hit the top of it, you're pretty safe. But yeah, no, it's treacherous that one. So you were putting marks in 10 feet. That was just to give you an idea of how close to the shoreline you could get or were you wanting to fish that 10 foot depth?
Speaker 2:both and and. I was for safety at first, right, so I knew where I could go without hitting a rock. Yeah and um, I started to be able to use that contour line. Basically, I've kind of made my own avionics map and then from there I started making, you know, five foot icons and then 15 foot icons. And then I started making you know 16 and 17 foot, and then you know I just started changing colors and it kind of evolved from there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's, that's an awesome evolution, and we're going to go back and talk about the french river in those days. But, um, I'd really like to talk about the evolution of of the that thought, and how you were making your contour lines at 5, 10, 15, 20 feet with you, with the different colored icons to what you're doing today. We had this conversation in the boat the other day. What does the map now look like?
Speaker 2:Okay, so I could get rid of probably 90% of those waypoints, but the more information you have, the better when you're out there and they're sentimental.
Speaker 2:There's a lot of work to be done. I don't really need them anymore because of the auto chart, right, like, yeah, you know, as I'm driving around now, the, the uh sonar gives information back to the unit and the unit redraws the, the contour maps automatically as I'm going and I've got basically like all of nipissing and the french river completely auto charted now. So, um, but there is it. It kind of works on an algorithm right on like a one or two foot contour, depending on how you have it set up. Yeah, and if you have like a like a big boulder or something sitting on top of one of those contours, it won't show up on the auto chart. So having the waypoints is still kind of uh key sometimes for catching fish that's for sure, because a little more information.
Speaker 1:Wow and and really important information, because often, um, that boulder on those contours is the spot on the spot and you hear us talking about spots on the spots all the time, um and uh, uh, like I mean, it's nice to have those spots and to know that nobody else does those are proprietary as far as I'm concerned.
Speaker 1:I can't imagine the amount of hours that you and Pat and the Slobland boys and all of those guys myself have spent out there charting and logging and charting, because pat and I, for I don't know, eight or ten years now, have been doing something similar and and it was all him, all I did he showed me how to get on on the boat and whenever I was on my boat and uh, and out trolling or fishing for bass or whatever, we would take the recordings. We would record, would record and save our sonar logs and then he would take it back and use a program to put them together in a map very similar to the auto-write map. We were building that nice contoured map before the auto-write came along, yeah, and it's a lot more labor intensive.
Speaker 2:I started doing it and I just said forget this.
Speaker 1:I didn't do it until it was live.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, pat, we all know Pat, he's a little more. Anal is not the best word, I'll call it focused. Anal is not the best word, I'll call it focused. But like, I mean, it was a process where he was taking the logged information using the date it was recorded, cross-referencing the date with the water level that day with the buoy on Lake Nipissing, so that when you put the maps together water level that day with the buoy on Lake Nipissing, so that when you put the maps together because if I'm auto charting in November, the water is four feet lower or could even be five feet lower than when I'm auto charting in May Right, so there's a lot, of, a lot of shit that he was he was doing there, but but it is. I think it's more accurate than the auto, right there.
Speaker 2:But um, but it is. I think it's more accurate than the auto right. But well, the nice thing about the auto one is like, say you, you auto chart something in june on musky opener right and then the water level drops two feet and then you drive over it again in november.
Speaker 2:It just corrects the first time you drive over it yeah so, instead of having to upload it to insight genocide, download it, put it on sc card and all that. So do you find that? See, and I download it, put it on SCCard and all that jazz.
Speaker 1:So do you find that, see and I know it does that but when you take a pass over a spot and then it rewrites it and then it looks like there's a trough there until you go back over, because you're only rewriting a certain width depending on the depth of the water in the cone, right? Do you find that? It gets a little bit confusing when you're auto-righting and it's three feet more shallow in the fall and then you got to go over it? I guess you just know that you got to go over it three or four times.
Speaker 2:And when you're out there every day, it's not going from zero to three feet, it's switching a couple inches at a time.
Speaker 1:Wow, that's true.
Speaker 2:And then July, and then August and September, october, that's true.
Speaker 1:And that's where you're at. You're out there every day. Now I'm interested. Well, I'll tell you. I'm interested to know how many days are you spending now musky guiding versus walleye compared to when we first started? Because I know where you were at when we were working together and you were like I would feed you as many musky guides as I could, as I could give you between you and Pat, but there were there was probably, well, honestly, some years you were probably doing 50, maybe more, in walleye versus muskie. Where's that number? What's that number like today?
Speaker 2:um, it's like um close to 100 muskie oh, that's awesome the only time I do walleye is if uh, it's if there's like a new muskie client, um that, uh, you know, gets bored and just needs to catch something. We'll just stop quick and catch 10 walleye and then go back to muskie fishing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so there's no shore lunch or nothing with that.
Speaker 2:No, I haven't done shore lunch in a few years.
Speaker 1:Gotcha. Well, that's good, because what that tells me is you're really between you and everybody there. You've built a very good musky following.
Speaker 2:Yeah, most of my customers now just are return customers. Yeah, we don't have much openings for new customers a year. There's always a few, usually in late fall.
Speaker 1:Yeah, wow, that's the best time to fish, although it does get a little bit.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's the problem Everybody gets too cold and they don't want to go anymore, and I still want to keep bit. Yeah, that's the problem Everybody gets too cold and they don't want to go anymore, and I still want to keep going.
Speaker 1:Well, it's uncomfortable, right, but while we were just out on the fall trip together and it worked out that you got to spend a few days with us, yep, and I like to think that the way that we fish is pretty comfortable. You know we've got covers on our boats, propane heaters underneath the cover and you know we're trolling. You got to still dress right A few of the nights this year. We were right out until the 30th of November and it was getting to like minus seven minus eight at night.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and we were fishing at night too. Yeah, yeah, you're at night too. Yeah, yeah, you're right, though it's all about how you dress because, like I had a couple of people join me in the boat and they weren't dressed right and they were freezing all day and I was. I had proper clothing on and I was. I was like these guys are cold, like even Pat. Pat showed up with like summer rain gear on, with just layers underneath, where I has like insulated, you know fishing clothes on, with 100 minus 100 boots on, and I was fine yeah, yeah, well, we're used to.
Speaker 1:We're used to being a little more pampered with that uh, propane heater. Um, I did have. I bought a great pair of boots. Um, uh, I like them for two reasons. Number one, they're made in Poland and number two, they're light as shit, like I mean, these things are like an ounce apiece and they're supposed to be good to minus 70. But I don't know if the Polish minus 70 is the same as the Canadian minus 70. But these Nat boots, they kept my feet warm. But listen, if it was minus 70 out I think I might be in trouble.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't think you're going to be floating on water, more like sliding on the ice, oh yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure. A quick story, a quick aside. Yesterday was the day that I went and picked up my boat. It was in the water until yesterday, which was December the 5th, and Bud called me. I had planned because I couldn't take it home with me when we left on Sunday, so I planned to come and get it on yesterday, the Thursday, but in between then and when we left they got about two feet of snow and it got cold and the bay froze in. It was. There was two inches of ice in the bay but it was soft and we managed to get it around and onto the trailer.
Speaker 1:But with all of the snow and it being so slippery because there's no salt, sand or anything like that, bud just kind of cleared and Bud folks, for those of you who don't know, he's the owner of the Dokis Marina and that's the marina that we all use to access. I use it to access our island and we used it for the lodge and everything else. So he was clearing the snow at the ramp with the backhoe, but the waters dropped even more Like I mean, it's oh, it's way down, and that ramp is steep now and he couldn't get down there, so I backed the truck down with the trailer and it dropped off really, really quick. So I managed to get the boat on and then tried to drive out through the snow. But that snow with no salt or sand, it just packs right into ice.
Speaker 1:Well, the first time I slid like I mean, I thought that I was going to lose the truck into the lake. And then Bud was there, so we hooked up his backhoe. He put the stabilizers down perpendicular to it and was using the arm to swing and pull the truck with the chain Matt. The backhoe spun and slid, the truck slid, the boat slid and all of us almost ended up into the river. He had to put the bucket down and jam it onto the ramp to stop us all from sliding in.
Speaker 2:Next time just call him and say Bud, before it freezes, take my boat out.
Speaker 1:He wasn't there, he was in Vancouver. So when I left he was already gone. So there was nobody there. It just. And note to self, I am never going to leave without going with my boat in the wintertime.
Speaker 2:Or at least take it out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, that's true. I should have pulled it out when we left, but I had Melissa's van with no ball hitch.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, right, pat drove.
Speaker 1:That's right. Yeah, we neither one of us had a hitch or or we could have pulled it out, but anyway, the way that it worked out, we got it out. But what a shit show, I'm telling you.
Speaker 2:I know we had the same thing, I I fish Monday and Tuesday with Kyle and Andrew and JP oh yeah, okay.
Speaker 1:On Georgian Bay yeah and uh so Kyle Garon and Andrew ratio from um slob land and JP Bushy. And uh, who else did you say?
Speaker 2:Myself.
Speaker 1:Oh, and yourself. Wow, that's. Uh, there's some heavy hitters.
Speaker 2:I know. So we've done that before, do that in december, um, but I think we're gonna go out again next week. We'll see.
Speaker 1:You should come I, I would love that opportunity, honestly they've got the best setup too, um because andrew, let's talk about a winter setup.
Speaker 2:What is the proper, I think you know the proper winter setup the key is being able to thaw your boat overnight, right, gotcha? Because if you, if everything's soaked and you leave it overnight, you try to go out the next day. Your pumps are frozen, the floor is frozen, the trolling motor is frozen, nothing, everything's frozen, right so if you have, if you have the opportunity to get in a heated shop. The next day you go out fishing again. It's dry as a bone. You know everything's sod and um, everything goes smoothly. Yeah, yeah, that well, that's a great point, launch it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a great point. We take it out and relaunch it every day. Yeah, that's a great point A heated area to put the boat. Because, man, I'll tell you what, when it's cold and shit freezes on you, it's a nightmare. How are you keeping your guide? Are you trolling?
Speaker 2:No jigging.
Speaker 1:Oh, you're jigging, Jigging, yeah, so your guides must be freezing up pretty good.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it wasn't too bad, but it can. Kyle uses this WD-40 silicone spray. Okay, it's on the line. It keeps the guides and the worm gear from freezing up. Too bad. I mean, you got to reapply it every once in a while, but if it gets really cold cold, there's nothing you can do. Yeah, when you're jigging, you just let let it down, you know, once or twice and and, yeah, you just keep it down there all day. If it's too cold, yeah, and if you use the proper line too, what it doesn't hold as much water, gotcha.
Speaker 1:And what is that proper line?
Speaker 2:like I'm using the uh suffix 832. It's got like gore-tex in it.
Speaker 1:It's pretty gotcha gotcha, and you're not spraying your whole line, you're just basically spraying the guides with the wd-40 and the worm gear it's not like normal wd-40 either.
Speaker 2:It's like silicone spray. Yeah, it's called wd-40 silicone, I think gotcha that's. That's very cool and then we actually we saw one muskie, um, didn't catch it, but usually we do like over the years we got a pretty good pattern, built it, but we uh, andrew likes walleye fishing too, so we brought the multi-species out uh, oh yeah, about seven nice big georgian bay walleye oh really seven yep and when you say big, are you talking like uh 27 to 30 inches or bigger?
Speaker 2:yeah, in that range, yeah, 25 to 30 nice nice yeah, they're huge there.
Speaker 4:We used to catch 40, 50 a day.
Speaker 2:There's not as many as there used to be, yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, yeah, I know, it seems like it's that way for big fish just about everywhere in southern Ontario. I don't know. Listen, I got a quick question when you said you saw a muskie. How did you see it? Did you see it with your eyes? Did you see it with your eyes? Did?
Speaker 2:you see it with um your sonar.
Speaker 1:Oh, you got saw it with the laser, and matt calls the uh, the live scope a laser yeah yeah, it's um. The live scope is ridiculous but you would have seen.
Speaker 2:I would have seen it with 2d or down imaging anyways. But yeah, um, kyle's right into the live scope now. So he was at the back of the boat just scanning around all day.
Speaker 1:Nice.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I know it's uh, it's very addictive, that's for sure. It changes. It changes the way that uh you think and the way you feel in the boat, like I mean you're always more engaged. But um, like I mean um, from using it a lot with uh Canada, I find that it helps when you're doing a job, when you're going out and you're doing a job. But if you're going out and we don't really do this unless we're not shooting with Fish in Canada but I do it a lot with my family and friends If you're going out to just kind of hang out and fish and whatever it can be, it can be fairly distracting oh sure, yeah, I mean any any of those uh technologies can be though yo first.
Speaker 1:Well, it's like the phone. I love, I love. Don't get me wrong. I love that live scope, especially for you know suspended fish and and schooling fish like smallmouth and walleye and you know any kind of open water bite. That live scope is awesome. But anyway, that's a conversation for another day.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's too much talk about that these days. Yeah yeah.
Speaker 1:So listen, tell me how you. I'd like to get a bit of a chronological order on how you take yourself from an angler and a uh, I don't want to say every day of the season, but uh, you fill in the blank something percent, um, like 90 percent so I just have like a schedule or a calendar like anyone else has, and I fill it up.
Speaker 2:First come, first serve. So so you're, you're somebody you know says they want a muskie guide. They go in there and they're locked and loaded.
Speaker 5:And then if somebody from other businesses reaches out and they need something done.
Speaker 2:If that day's open, they get that spot.
Speaker 1:Oh no shit, so you've got your.
Speaker 2:That's the only way that's fair right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, you've got your two businesses merged on the same calendar. That's it. Well, and not only. And so your other business. So folks know you're in digital signage.
Speaker 2:Yep Correct. Basically it's like an IT business, and the best example I use to explain how it works or what it is to people is like if you go into the gas station or a convenience store and you see the digital monitor on the counter with the lotto information or the two-for-one deal for the Gatorades or whatever. You see that's flipped around backwards to the customer. That's digital signage. So we deploy, we sell the, the, the, the hardware, uh, we deploy them, the networks, and then we monitor and manage the content that goes on those screens um full time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and then you musky guide. Yeah Well, yeah, I mean, and I think the technology background helps me, uh, catch fish a lot too, you know for sure, and and you know what, matt, um, let's talk a little bit about how you went to this point throughout the years, because I know you weren't guiding every day. Back when I sold the lodge, I was doing my best to kind of try and line up three to four days of muskie guiding and then you would come up and then you would guide those for four days, right?
Speaker 2:so, um, talk a little bit about, um, where you come from and how you got to where you are today uh, well, I just like um a lot of other fishermen, diehard muskie guys, um, I grew up, just you know, with a fishing rod in my hand, always loved it.
Speaker 2:I I grew up in Milton, ontario, just outside of Toronto, west of Toronto, there, and there's some good fishing holes around town, so I'd ride my bike around town to you know the local spots and try to catch fish and then I just kind of got obsessed with it. Actually, kyle from Slobland, he moved to town when I was in like grade five and he kind of shared the same passion as I did and we would, uh, you know, fish together like every day. And then, as we got older, we started going up to Georgian Bay and fishing out of the Magnetawan River, which is the mighty Magnetawan, yeah, just south of the French, and the muskie numbers in there used to be really good. So, you know, when we were like 12 or 13 we started muskie fishing. Uh, a little bit, more and more became successful and then kind of just got the musky fever and and, uh, became obsessed with it yeah, for sure, for sure.
Speaker 1:So um you were, you were hot into it, um, um, when? When I met you, but when was the first time so you started on the Magnanawan? When was the first time you moved to the Upper French in Nipissing?
Speaker 2:oh geez, that's a long time ago, probably. How long you owned it? For 10 years. So how long I bought.
Speaker 1:I bought in. 2010 was my first year. I bought it in 2009 in the fall so it was well before that.
Speaker 2:I'm gonna say like 2001, oh wow, 2001 and did you see it advertised?
Speaker 1:or how did you guys figure that that was a hot?
Speaker 2:actually from from a mutual friend of ours, pete stefanik oh, the legend the legend. Yeah uh, the first time I ever went there is with pete stefanik. I had been to the middle, like the, the middle French and the lower French but the first time I went to the upper was with Pete Stefanik and we caught like a 45-pounder First day, no way, yeah.
Speaker 2:And then. So I was obsessed with George and Bay and I started going to the French and Nipissing just a little more every year and I was always more successful. So you know, catching fish wow, trump's everything it drew me into going to, to nipissing the french river more than georgian bay, because georgian bay is really really really tough like it's, and it like the high reward yeah, the magneto one used to be probably the easiest place to catch them too. It's not anymore.
Speaker 5:Um yeah, because I think it was the number one sp used to be probably the easiest place to catch them too.
Speaker 2:Really it's not anymore. Yeah, because I think it was the number one spawning area in all the bay, maybe all of Lake Huron, but it's not that way anymore. And anyways, we just caught way more. And then, you know, just the success drew me back there more and more and more.
Speaker 1:And then you bought the lodge. Yeah, when I the Lodge, matt, that was a huge. It was huge for me number one to buy the Lodge. But to meet you, I remember you showing me a picture of yourself and it was at night and you were wearing this big orange floater suit holding on to the biggest, fattest muskie I had ever seen, in a picture Like I had never seen a bigger, fatter muskie by any of ever. And you showed me this picture and you told me it was from around the corner, from the lodge I had just bought.
Speaker 1:Yep Do you remember that?
Speaker 2:I do. That's where the name Slavland came from. Oh really, the land of the Slavs. Yeah, all the fat fish that we were catching out there.
Speaker 1:No shit.
Speaker 2:Yeah, everybody's always like what does Slobland mean? I'm like well, if you've seen how fat the muskies that we catch up there were, then you'd understand the name.
Speaker 1:That's freaking awesome. And you know what it made me feel good at that point. Because when I bought the lodge, you got to understand, um, I uh I didn't do a lot of fishing there to know what the fishery was really like, and the owner I bought it from was kind of trying to hide what the fishery was like and discourage me from going out with my boat to to fish. But, um, the walleye fishery at that point was under a little bit of stress and just to know that there was big muskies there, like that was awesome. And then we did, you helped me do an ad for Muskie Hunter Magazine and a lot of those pictures too were pictures that come from you guys, from the Slolob land boys, and um, uh, that was awesome too yeah, I think that fish that you're talking about, where I had the big orange suit on, might have been in that ad I think it was in that ad.
Speaker 1:I'm sure it was, and there might have been one one of of Kyle's fish in that ad too. It was a good ad. I should have kept one of those Musky Hunter magazines.
Speaker 2:It's too bad. Yeah, they don't even print that magazine anymore, unfortunately.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, Jim Sarek, he was the host. I think he retired, did he not?
Speaker 2:No. So what happened was he kept on with Musky Hunter TV and sold the magazine to two other guys and they kind of they went on with it for a couple years and then, I think, covid screwed it and they ended up just going all digital. So they don't even they still have it, but it's all digital. You can download it or subscribe to it, but you can't buy a printed copy anymore gotcha which kind of sucks? But?
Speaker 1:yeah, it does it. It's nice, uh the uh. The landscape of this shithouse is changing, that's for sure. Like I mean, it's, it's uh. I used to love sitting down in the bathroom and having a couple of magazines there to flip through and, and you know, today it's like you got to go in there with your phone just to read a freaking fishing article. I know, you know.
Speaker 2:That's why you never touch somebody else's phone.
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Speaker 1:So, listen, I, I really I'd love to talk about back in the day when you first started guiding with me and maybe tell us a few stories of well, first of all, from when we, when we worked together at Chaudière, what was one of, what was one of your favorite fishing memories with, uh, with, with clients, or just out, or, or whatever.
Speaker 2:That's a good. That's a good question. I gotta, I gotta think of something. Steve, there's so many.
Speaker 1:You know what I mean Well listen, what was it like to work with? Um, I think you, you, you helped out Fishin' Canada a little bit um with that muskie, um that muskie show that, uh, that they did, and uh, you were one of the the guys uh that uh pointed them in the direction of the, of the that spot where they caught those two big muskies.
Speaker 2:That was yeah.
Speaker 1:They went out with Pete Stefanik remember that's right, but you were there. Yeah, him and I were fishing together.
Speaker 2:He was a little bit of guiding for you.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:And I think he was guiding and I went fishing by myself and I saw like six muskie.
Speaker 2:With your eyes or with the sonar, no, with my eyes. Oh, no shit. Okay, old-fashioned lives go nice. And uh, I remember coming in and you were sitting up in the cabin with Ange having a few drinks and I came up and and had a chat with you and I I told him, and Pete, where all the muskies were for the show and uh, pete Savanik, that is yeah, and uh, yeah. So I just left him alone for a few days and I think they got two or three of them for the tv show they did, I actually went out and caught the biggest one at the day that they stopped filming, which was fun.
Speaker 2:I left it alone, but they just couldn't catch.
Speaker 1:I got lucky, I guess well, you know, matt, you are Matt, you are uh like, I mean uh, from what I've seen, what I remember and what I know today, you are, in my opinion, um, the best musky angler on that body of water, and uh could be in Ontario. Now I'm telling you I'm not sure if you want to share with our guests how many fish, how many muskies you caught last season. I know the answer.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's usually in the hundreds. Yeah, but I'll tell you one thing and I tell people this all the time my success has a lot to do with the guys I I fished with over the years. You know, um, including, you know, pat, try on yourself kyle, garron, jp, bushy, andrew, raise you all those guys right, um. You know, when I take people out on the french river, they're not only getting my um experience, they're getting all of those guys' experiences through me as well. It really helped me in my success big time fishing with those guys for so many years.
Speaker 1:That's true, but that's true for any amazing angler Roland Martin, one of the best bass anglers in US history. He has people that showed him and they work together. You got to give credit where credit is due. And listen, mister. For somebody who goes out and in a year on the Upper French and Lake Nipissing catches 150 quality fish, like I mean, that is that is a um, truly uh, a number that's outstanding. I'm not sure that there's anybody out there that can claim that they've done that on on our body of water. I call it our body of water, uh, because I feel the French and and Nipissing is is our home. Um, but I don't uh the best like I mean, you got lazarus who who fished uh, who fished out, uh, out in in on our on that water for for years, but um I he wasn't catching those numbers, he wasn't fishing that many days either and he was also catching giants by the way, he caught lots, don't kid yourself, but.
Speaker 2:But I think he was going all over the place, right?
Speaker 1:For sure he was, for sure he was.
Speaker 2:So back to the beginning of this conversation. Honestly, I think the waypoints and the technology just gave me a huge advantage. Not that I had that anymore with the auto charting and all of the other technologies that are available to us these days, but back then, you know, five years ago and before that you know, because I had all those waypoints, you know, I just had the structures kind of mapped out so well that I could just go back to where I was getting bit every day and keep catching on.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, and I know Pat, um, pat had, uh, did a ton of work in in which I was a beneficiary of uh, when it comes to um um using the waypoints and everything else. Uh, but um um, it, it, it's an advantage, but it was it's not just an advantage, it was a skill, because the skill was to be able to, to understand those waypoints and interpret that information. Because when I looked at it, it was just it was. It was like looking at Chinese, for Christ's sake, like I mean, it was. It made no sense to me, but you guys had the information organized in a way that you could understand it and, yeah, that's a huge advantage. But I would also argue that the amount of hours that it took you guys to accumulate that information was also part of that advantage, because you were on the water for all of those hours and sand flats coming off the point. You were actually physically there for a period of time while you were mapping it, at very least.
Speaker 1:For sure, and it goes back to the absolute most important thing that you can do for yourself as an, as an angler, um, to make yourself better is spend time on the water and uh, just in, uh, could you even take a guess at the amount of time that you you spent map making, like I know you were? You were fishing a lot of the time, right, like pat went out and actually just went out to make maps yeah, not even fish. But can you even hazard a guess at how many hours were in those original um waypoint maps?
Speaker 2:no, but I'll tell you like it's never ending. So, um, every second that I'm on the water and I'm driving around, I'm I'm seeing things that that are giving me more information and through my system of waypoints right, it's kind of like a language. Yeah, continuously adding to it, so that every second I'm on the water, my database of information just gets larger. I had a guy up from Cleveland, ohio, this past season and he looked at my graph for two seconds and he goes you know what that is? I'm like what he's like?
Speaker 1:that's sweat equity right there and I'm like, yeah, it's true, it is true, oh yeah, that is sweat equity. And when you start to combine the knowledge base of all of those people together.
Speaker 2:That's when things start to really become magic. Sorry, go ahead. That just reminded me of something you know. You know our, uh, our July bite that we have there now, steve, up in the.
Speaker 1:French river.
Speaker 2:Yeah, um, that was, you know, kind of put together through those guys I mentioned before, like we were doing that same thing on a smaller body of water North of the Kawarthas, um, where we kind of um, figured it out and mastered it. And then Andrew and I brought it to the French River and we showed Pat, right, yeah, then Pat started doing it there along with well, he was there a little bit more than us, right and then I started doing it there and JP started doing there, and then we started dialing in even more yeah, together.
Speaker 1:Well it's interesting how everybody's doing it. Wow, that's unfortunate, but it's interesting that you're talking about that because, um, I really didn't. I didn't know exactly what. Uh, I was running the lodge and and after hours, when you guys went out, it was just something that I really didn't think a whole lot about. But I started kind of noticing it and you might remember do you remember a guide by the name of Philput, trevor, trevor, trevor, philput.
Speaker 1:I started to notice what you're talking about when he would go out and he would always like we had the housekeeper, servers and all of our staff and everything, and sometimes the staff would leave, go on, go to North Bay for the day and hang around, and they'd need a ride back. And it could be, you know, nine, 10, 11 o'clock at night and whenever the girls come back, or the guys from the dock or a combination of everybody come back to the dock to need to get back to the island at you know, 10 or 11 or midnight, trevor was always the first one to say, yeah, I'll go and do it. And he was trolling from the lodge to Doquese and catching muskies Like. He probably did it six times over the course of that summer, six or seven where he was catching in the middle of that big basin, and it was at that point that I kind of started thinking. And then you guys took me out for a night fish too. I don't know if you remember.
Speaker 2:I remember, yep.
Speaker 1:Yeah, with definitely Andrew was there, raishu and maybe Kyle, but I'm not sure. I think it might have been just yourself, myself and Andrew. Yeah, but it was that, you know, using planer boards and doing a troll bite in the evening, and it was then that I started to kind of put it together. But it doesn't work like it used to and things change and it's because people learn about it, and then I don't want to say take advantage of it, but enjoy the situation while it lasts. Enjoy the situation while it lasts.
Speaker 1:And you got to be, and the thing that defines, I think, you in particular and the elite of the muskie and fishing world is you're always because you're on the water and you're doing exactly what you were talking about. You're gaining new information every day. Your database of information consistently grows and in real time. You're watching what's going on and that information just so that I'm clear it's not just the water is eight feet deep here and the boulder is in four feet there. The information that we're talking about is the walleye are schooling here now, or there's ciscos that are showing up in this place, or there's eagles that are constantly feeding over here, or it's information on the whole ecosystem, really, and when you start gathering that information on a daily basis, you can really start to put together patterns and start to follow those fish, because once you find them, if you stay on them, you know they're not all that far and you can kind of begin to pattern. Patterning is one of the uh, one of the key um topics that I've.
Speaker 2:I've uh that we've covered on diaries because I believe it's so important, yeah, and that a lot of that comes back to timing, right, absolutely, talk a little bit about that year, yeah, so I kind of uh got I made like a good decision 15, 20 years ago, whatever it was, and uh, because I never really took a log, uh writing down my, my fishing um, yeah, and uh and failures. I just started putting into my google calendar my, my, uh, my outlook calendar, right, yeah, my email, yeah, when stuff happened and what I would do is I'd put a yearly reminder on it. So the fish are in the weeds or the open white water oh no shit what a great idea.
Speaker 2:So now you know, and then I started doing it because it would work. You know, the first couple of years I was like oh yeah, right, and then so I started doing it more and more and more. So now, like I just wake up in the morning, my phone goes bing and it tells me what happened the year before or five years before that. And it's amazing, once you do that for a few years, you get like a bunch of reminders, yearly reminders, all in the same week.
Speaker 1:That's ridiculous.
Speaker 2:With the same information, so how often does?
Speaker 1:it happen that way, like how often does it work? Like all the time, yep.
Speaker 2:Wow. Well, I mean like now I'm at the point where I don't even really have to do it, unless something new happens. I don't even do it anymore, because I just dirty in there. Gotcha. Yeah, it's definitely. It definitely got lucky there by kind of tricking myself into fishing properly.
Speaker 1:Well, it's not even luck.
Speaker 2:It's that that I call that good intuition. I guess it is a log. It's just like a, an electronic log yeah, yeah, it's.
Speaker 1:It's a way of capturing the information and bringing it back to you when you need it. And, um, you know a lot of the best anglers and and I should do this, but but I I don't do it when it comes to fishing. But Pete Bowman, pat, they have detailed diaries that they actually write down the information. Another guy that's got a detailed diary like that and you know him as well as I know him. His name is Chris Shock and he's from Ohio.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he does. His name is Chris Shock and he's from Ohio?
Speaker 1:Yeah, he does, he's been on. I had them on Diaries quite a while ago, about a year ago. The Shock family and I'm going to we were talking about this on the winter trip last week, you and I, and I'm going to have Chris on, but I'm going to do a little bit of preliminary work with him and this is what the point is. We're talking about logging and Chris for I don't know. I think he's been there. We did over 50 when I was there, 1964 1964 was his 50 when I was there 1964.
Speaker 1:1964 was his first year on the river and every year, him and his family. They're northern pike fishermen and they love northern. And it doesn't have to be, they don't have to be big, their thing is they count them. It's numbers for Chris and Sue and Katie. Katie's a different animal now You've pulled her to the dark side and she's a musky angler and she does quite a few trips with you throughout the year, but for the most part they are Northern Pike people. They are northern pike people and I loved chris because in the beginning, when I bought the lodge and you know I didn't have a whole lot of people there and I didn't know the water all that well and um, um, you know chris would go out and he would offer to take anybody that wanted to go with him.
Speaker 1:Like, not in his boat, but he, he would do like these flotillas, I would call them because Chris would say, hey, come and follow me, we'll go to Marshy Bay. And then, for guests that don't really know the river, marsh Bay, it's a good wee hike, like I mean it's in a cedar strip. You're near 45 minutes of driving to get there, which number one is a great experience all on its own to be able to to drive and navigate on the upper french river and go to um, um, uh, marshy bay and drive for 45 minutes and just see the scenery and the, the eagles and and all of that shit. But then chris would go out and he would keep track of every northern pike. They caught all three of them in categories.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they stop, or he would stop If anyone in the boat could catch the fish. He stops immediately and writes in the book. He doesn't try to remember 10 minutes later and write it in. No, it goes in the book right away, instantly.
Speaker 1:Absolutely yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, he's a clicker without the clicker yeah, right, plus not just pike, they record musky and bass and well now, since I've started, since since I owned the place, I took chris out and I've told this story a couple of times on the show where um chris out and showed me all of his pike spots and everything else to help me understand the fishery. And he took me up into Wigwam Bay and we were fishing Northern Pike and Wigwam Bay and I saw all of those pencil reeds in the back of it and I looked over to and it's like five feet everywhere and I looked at Chris. I said Chris, you ever caught a largemouth bass? He says well, yeah, I caught a largemouth bass.
Speaker 1:I said, have you ever caught one on a Senko worm? He says no, I can't say I ever have. I said you want to learn? He said well, yeah, no, yeah, that'd be good. So I took him back into those reeds, we put on Senkos and fished with them weedless and threw it out. There we caught like two or three nice largemouth like maybe three pounders, nothing huge but nice. And after a second fish he's like all right, let's go fish for some Northerns.
Speaker 1:I was like, okay, but since then they've started recording. They keep track of bass, muskie, walleye, so they keep track of those numbers of fish. But the very cool thing about it and we were talking about it again is it would be so cool to and not and and folks, he writes this by hand in the field, okay, so he takes his field notes and then he takes that, that, that notebook of field notes, back home to ohio, puts it on his desk in his office and then transcribes them into the computer or by typewriter back in the day, right, so it would be so cool to line. And the other very cool thing that we were talking about is it's very consistent because they fish the same spots basically all the time, right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and the same time of year.
Speaker 1:And the same time of year.
Speaker 2:One trip end of June and one trip mid-September.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, two weeks, two weeks in June, two weeks in September for like since 1964. So to take it like, I mean, it's as controlled, uh, an uncontrolled situation as you can get. And, uh, I would love to bring to all of you that information. Um, and and see, year over year, how was the fishing, how, truly, how was the? Now we're not going to know size, because the size was irrelevant to Chris over the years, it was enough that he just accurately recorded the numbers. But to truly know what were the numbers like in 1971, right For sure yeah.
Speaker 1:Versus 1996, versus 2010, versus 2020. You know what I mean. Well, maybe not 2020 because of bullshit COVID, but you get the picture. So that is something that I want to do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we should get together with them or just get the data crunch it all and then get them on a podcast and kind of go over it with them.
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah, yeah for sure. Well, you know what between you, myself and Katie if you're talking to her or if I am, I'll give Chris a call and we should, we should put some of those numbers together and we'll get. We'll get Chris on and and and have him talk about the old days.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't think he's going to like what he sees, though, because I think Katie catches most of them.
Speaker 1:Well, katie catches most of them and Susan, his wife, catches all the big ones, that's for sure. I'm pretty sure Susan had this size record for a long time and I think she's got the biggest muskie to this day.
Speaker 2:For sure bigger than Katie yep.
Speaker 1:Oh, no way, Susanan still got the biggest yeah, katie is 49 and a half.
Speaker 2:She hasn't hit 50 yet.
Speaker 1:She's stuck yeah, and what was susan susan's up around 52 or 52 and a half?
Speaker 1:definitely over 50, I can't remember oh yeah, I think it's five mile day. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know it's. Uh, that's a well, it, it's a good spot. Oh yeah, it's a great spot. All the spots there like depending on again, you know, time of year and all of that stuff is so key and you're keyed in on it better than anybody on the water today. I'm not, I just go do the same thing and you know if it works, it works, if it doesn't I still have a good time right.
Speaker 2:Well, perfect habitat right for musky, like people ask me all the time. You know where should I go catch musky? And I look out there. I'm like, honestly, your, your chance of catching musky is probably the same on every cast, because they could be underneath that log, you know, in that weed bed or on the point of that island like, or all three in the same day, the same fish can use all three. Right, it's just perfect. Everything in that entire river is perfect muskie habitat, everything From the open water to the shallowest little bit.
Speaker 1:You know, I've never really thought about it that way, but you're absolutely right. Like I mean, from open water over top of 150 feet to you know, eight inches of water and logs and rock and everything else, you just never know where these animals are going to be. You know For sure, and that's really really cool, um. So listen, um, what was it like back in the days when we were working together? Um, at Shodier to be a guide? You know like I've talked to a lot of guides and, um, I'm always interested to get their point of view on how their situation at Lodges were and I always have the benefit of knowing how we run things versus how they did. But this is a little bit different perspective From your point of view. What was it like working at Chaudière when we worked together?
Speaker 2:point of view. What was it like working at chaudiere when we worked together? Um well, it was the early days for me as a guide, for sure, and probably the best part about it was the, the other guides that I was working with back then, you know, having, having, uh, billy and patrick and jp, and I think that was, oh, marcel marcel.
Speaker 1:Marcel, yeah.
Speaker 2:And Pete Stefanik. Working with those guys is a lot of fun, right? Because not only did we get to spend time with each other at shore lunch, but after we got off work we could go musky fishing again, which is what I like the best about it, and it was always a blast on Thursday nights when Steve would pull the guitar out and have a jam night.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, those jam nights were great.
Speaker 2:My favorite was when we did the jam night down on the dock.
Speaker 1:No doubt I was just going to say that you remember the jam night we had and I think Pete and Ange were there and all the yacht people were there and they parked the yachts out in front of the lodge. And we did that jam night, and I think wasn't Pete Stefanik there too?
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, he was there yeah.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, those were great memories.
Speaker 2:I used to love. We used to call it Rock the Dock.
Speaker 1:No, I never heard that we should have coined that phrase. We could have made t-shirts with with that on them oh, that was the best oh, yeah, those were great.
Speaker 1:Uh, those were great times, well, and for me too. Like, I mean, I have so many wonderful memories and I love having people like you on you and Micah and all of those people that really built Chaudière together. I love reminiscing because, you know, my mind is unfortunately it's not like a steel trap I don't have the recall to remember all of these different scenarios, yeah, but it's nice whenever you start talking and it reminds me of different scenarios and different times and things like that.
Speaker 2:I remember that just reminded me of something else that I'll remind you of.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, talk about it, and anything's anything.
Speaker 2:We can talk about everything yeah, remember when you got your first foosball table, oh yeah, yeah and uh, it was the cooper, the cooper one yeah, at the time I think I might have been able to beat you, but I can't anymore.
Speaker 2:You got too good. You played too much. Well, I remember, I remember when you probably the second year you had it Andrew came up with Billy, remember, yes, andrew came up with Billy and he beat you a couple of times and you would not give up. I think you guys played 10 games in a row. Right, yeah, we went outside and you were sweating so badly, you were steaming. It must have been. It must have been in like september, october, because I remember going outside and talking to you after the games and you were like you had like steam coming off, you like you're just walked out of a sauna or something. It was hilarious, do you remember?
Speaker 1:that, yes, I do. Well, that was when you were up hooking up the intranet system. I didn't have I didn't have um, wi-fi or anything there, but I wanted to build. I was working with Sheldon, the internet guy. Do you remember his last name? No, sheldon, I got to think of it. It's been bothering me.
Speaker 1:Anyway, I was working with Sheldon and we had built the bookings and the POS system and all of that stuff and I wanted to hook up the dock. So we had a terminal on the dock so that I made these little credit card things for the guests as they come in. It was just a business card with a barcode that we printed on them and then that way that barcode was associated with your bill or your invoice. So when you check in on Saturday or whatever, you could take that little credit card down to the dock and if you wanted to buy live bait or you wanted to buy a t-shirt or you wanted to buy whatever hand, the, uh, the, the, the dock hand or whoever's down there, your little credit card, they scan it, it opens right into your um, into your uh, um invoice and then you scan what you buy and it would just populate the invoice so that, um, um, when you check out it's automatically there.
Speaker 1:But yeah, that I was using like a cheat sheet deal where, oh, dude, it was awful and it's not anybody's fault, but you know, the guys or girls on the dock would sell a musky bait for $20 to I'll use Chris Shock because we were just talking about him and I love him. Musky bait to Chrisock on June 1st. He checked out on June 7th and I got the chit on like June the 12th and I'm like, oh my God, I can't go back to him now because you guys down on the dock lost the chit for 10 days. You know what I mean. So, yes, you were there hooking wiring. Intranet is by wire rather than internet, which is through the air, I'm assuming.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, it's just local network as opposed to worldwide network. Yes, remember how we got the wire down to the boathouse.
Speaker 1:Well, I know it went through an ABS pipe.
Speaker 2:No, no, it went. We didn't. We couldn't find anything, so me and Lison pushed it through a garden hose.
Speaker 4:Oh that's right.
Speaker 2:We pushed it because we had to go through the water too. Right, yeah, yeah, yeah, we put it down across underneath the bridge. Yep, back down to the back of the boathouse. So we jammed an ether cat five cable through this, probably like a hundred foot.
Speaker 1:Oh, it had to have been that anyway.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it worked, though. Oh, it worked, it's still there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, that was a great system that you guys rigged up for me up to the. I still have the desktop computer you set up for that. It's actually the one I've got in my office right now. The password. Do you remember the password?
Speaker 2:Probably Slobland or something.
Speaker 1:Yes, it is Nice, yeah, 100%. But no, we had some good times too in the evening. Oh yeah, yeah, I don't know whether you want to tell that story about Lisa or not. There's so many good stories. Oh yeah, yeah, I don't know whether you want to tell that story about Lison or not.
Speaker 2:There's so many good stories, oh man. Well, that's Lison's story. We'll leave that for you. You can have him on too.
Speaker 1:Oh, I know it's almost worth it just for that story and folks. It'll come out at some point. I know it will. But you're right, we probably should leave it for lee's on.
Speaker 2:Yeah, hockey player with him, but anyways yeah yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:So no, that's uh, that's uh awesome, awesome stuff. So what was one of um, um, what was one of the best fish memories that you can think of? Like, what's your biggest, your biggest muskie? Uh, from, uh, what is your biggest muskie and where'd it come from? How about that? I'm, I'm really interested to know.
Speaker 2:Like I know you, I know you catch big fish well, the biggest muskie ever guided to was 56 inches and it was caught real close to the lodge actually.
Speaker 1:Um, I've got five or six other ones is that the one that was just recently caught?
Speaker 2:no, that was. That was a real big one as well. It was a little shorter. That one was 55 and a half. Oh, that's right, and that was with.
Speaker 2:That was with matt clayman, who comes up, uh, yeah, twice a year for about 10 days he's guided so he catches, like he's got a 49, a 50, 51, a 51 and a half, a 54 and 2 over 55 with me and uh, it's because I think, well, number one, he knows when to come right, because he's been doing it for so long and he comes for 10 days at a time. So, like you know, if you just go for one day on a muskie guide trip, you might not catch something. You know, yeah, like we do, our know, if you just go for one day on a on a musky guide trip you might not catch something. You know, like we do our best, but if you come for four or five days at a time, it sounds like it's pretty much guaranteed you're going to catch one, you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. So that, uh, those big fish, um, like that biggest one that you got, was that casting, was it trolling? Like what were some of the parameters around it?
Speaker 2:that was another guide uh named matt firestein from saint claire. He comes up uh, every year, now as well, and he caught it casting. I don't think anyone else in the world would have been casting at that point, because it was like um, blowing 40k uh, freezing rain, and like he was out casting on the front deck. I was underneath the bimini top freezing, and when he was, when he would move around, the ice on his uh rain or snowsuit would shatter because it was literally hitting him and freezing. No way. It's actually a really funny story.
Speaker 2:Um, it was a long day and we did a little bit of trolling that day too, but at this point we were casting. But anyways, it had just got dark and the net was sideways in the gunwale of the boat, like right beside the passenger seat, yeah. And when he hooked it I went to grab the. There's another guy casting at the back of the boat too. I went to grab the net and it had like, uh, pringles, can, red bull, monster granola bars all in the net, right, and he's got this 56 incher on.
Speaker 2:So I'm like, oh, my god, right, I gotta get this net. So I get the net, deploy it. And now it's got all this crap in it, garbage and all, and the bimini tops up and there's this huge net and I can't get it through the bimini top so I ended up just passing it over the roof of the bimini top. Then I ran up front, grabbed it and I netted that 56 incher and all of the stuff that was inside the net stayed in the in the net for the netting of the fish. And then when the muskie was in it, we looked across the surface of the water and there's like all that stuff floating like a yard sale all around the fish.
Speaker 1:No, all that stuff floating like a yard sale all around the fish. No, yeah, well, for nice pictures eh.
Speaker 2:Well, I couldn't. I couldn't stop and take all the stuff out when he had this huge fish on. No, of course not, I just left it all in there and netted it with the right in the mesh. So he's a really good angler too, and I didn't know this at the time. But I guess it came up beside the boat and remember it was like late November. So the fish was kind of like docile, yeah. And when it came up beside the net he just swung the front hook of the bull log or the back hook. He swung the other one inside the fish's mouth and said it again no, yeah, he just manipulated move the the hook, the other hook on the inside of the fish's mouth and just hooked it in the mouth again.
Speaker 1:Really, so let me get this straight.
Speaker 2:He re-hooked it better while he was waiting for it.
Speaker 1:So while he's waiting for you to get the net, he's got the fish beside the boat and he sees that he's got it hooked just with the trailing trouble. So he manipulated the bait around back over top of the of the fish's mouth to get the middle hook into its mouth and then set that hook too. Oh my god, that's awesome, I know you know, you've caught a lot of muskies.
Speaker 2:When you have, you know the wherewithal to to well, yeah, doing that, you know what I mean. Honestly, a lot of peoplekies when you have.
Speaker 1:You know the wherewithal to to well, yeah doing that you know what I mean, honestly a lot of people freak out.
Speaker 2:They got the biggest musk on their life.
Speaker 1:They start losing their minds, right, he's like I catch them all the time well, yeah, but it's, it's those little things that that make a great angler outstanding, like that could have been. That could have been the difference between actually catching that fish and losing the fish. Because when you've got it on that one hook and yes, it's November, and yes it's, it's docile a little bit but, buddy, those big fish, they give one tail kick and, uh, there's not a you know you to have them hooked real good, and if they're not hooked that good, it could have popped off easy. What a what a like.
Speaker 2:That's a epic move, right there, I know, I know he's so good. He got a 51 and a half by 25 with me last week too. Giant Same lure, the exact same lure the big pounder bulldog.
Speaker 1:Oh my God, and what kind of gear do you need to throw that? I've thrown it like once or twice, but on a, on a I'm sure not the right rod, because it it is a, it is well, it's a pound, right, right.
Speaker 2:Um, yeah, so you need. I use a 10 foot extra heavy, so you could probably get away with a nine and a half or nine foot or two. The 10 footer just gives you a little more leverage and better boat side figure eight. But for me it's it's more about the extra heavy and the heavier action rod is more about setting the hook yeah and casting the lure, because you can just lay it backwards and lob it out and get away with it, right yeah.
Speaker 2:But when that fish hits you need to have enough backbone to rip the teeth through the rubber into the hooks, because a lot of people, especially with lighter rods when they're fishing for muskie or pike- Wow, and that key is those fish and they can't slide them through, right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they've got that rubber bait gripped with their teeth. They clamp down like an alligator and a 50 plus inch muskie has big teeth, don't get me wrong. And when you try and rip that rubber bait that they're holding onto so that it slides, so you get a good hook set, that's pretty difficult, whereas if it's a-bodied plastic bait or uh or a um, a wooden bait, it slides much easier because their teeth don't don't sink into that rubber right.
Speaker 1:But um yeah, so and and then, like I mean casting a one pound bait all day, oh my god, that's a workout.
Speaker 2:No, there's a trick to that too, like, uh, you know, like when you're bass or pike fishing with like a small spinnerbait or sinko or something, you just kind of keep it out there, right. Yeah, when you're using those really heavy baits, you want to let out like five, six feet of line okay of having it right up, like close to the tip of your rod, where it's only a foot right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you want to let out like five, six feet and then lay it behind you so it's almost like the same height as your person. Yeah, and then just like, catapult it over your head and lob it out there, you. It does two things saves your back and your shoulders, right, because instead of whipping it right with your shoulders and your back, yeah, and then just laying across the top of your head, um, and it also allows the bait to land flat without getting what we call a dog ball. And what a dog ball is is when you cast that big lure out, sometimes the, the hooks will catch the leader or the tail and it lands in the water and just like a big ball of rubber and it doesn't swim properly. Yeah, like that across your head, like a catapult, you can kind of thumb it and then lay it out flat and let it smack down on the on the water oh, I need, I'm gonna have to take a lesson on that, um, because, yeah, I need to do that.
Speaker 1:Like, uh, the way I was casting it, I was leaving like a foot, foot and a half behind and then I was using my, my arms and my shoulders right over the back side of my body and then coming way over the top and like lobbing it out there, but still, like I mean it's a lot of work, and then it would fly out. Every fourth cast was a dog ball and, um, is there something to like um, letting that bait, like I could? Sometimes it would smack the water and make this huge splash and make all kinds of noise, and then other times it would like kind of hit the water, but not it wasn't as intrusive. Like, do you ever, when you're casting these big baits out, is the way that it hits the water something that you think about, or do you just throw it out there?
Speaker 2:um, a hundred percent. But it's more to um, not get a tangle gotcha. It's more about not getting that dog ball than yeah, than the splash, because if you think about it, the bait fish jumps out of the water and lands back in the water again. It's going to make a sound too, yeah, right, so I don't think it spooks them. But if that thing just hits the water, even if it's not the dog balled in the air and it hits the water sideways, you go to pull it once and then it's like it's the worst thing in musky fishing, reeling in a big one pound or pound and a half rubber bait sideways it's like it takes a lot of power.
Speaker 2:I know and you're like why am I doing this? Let's just troll. I think I've said that a few times. But if you do that, if you let a lot of line out like five, six feet, yeah what do you think? Right yeah enough where you got the.
Speaker 1:You know, you got that big, long rod above your head yeah right, I'd be worried about having it smack me in the back no, because you just kind of swing your arms.
Speaker 2:you got to use your, your, your off hand that's not on the reel to kind of pull back. Yeah, it takes all the effort out of it. And then you have to make sure that you thumb it too, like as it's about to land. You get your thumb on the line and just like slow that spool down so that it kind of lays the bait out and then lands on the water untangled.
Speaker 1:Nice.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And folks. That's why you go with guys like this, because it's these little tricks that make all of the difference. They make all the difference. And, matt, you have become one of the, if not the premier, muskie guide in the province, and definitely on our home water, and I believe that you're catching some of the biggest fish out there. And numbers, your numbers, are ridiculous, like I mean when you start talking about these on St the, st Claire and all of these long you know 50-inch, 20-pound muskies and you can go out and you can catch six or seven in a day on a charter and this and that that's one thing.
Speaker 1:But that's not what we're doing. That's not what you specialize in the way that I see that kind of thing, those big charters where they're running like 12 to 15 lines and catching those fish that's like the Walmart of musky fishing. What you're doing is you're doing the absolute high end, focusing on experience musky fishing, and there's not a more beautiful setting that I can think of that you can musky fish in and catch those massive monsters. And buddy congratulations. I'm real proud of being able to be part of your journey and I just want to thank you on behalf of Will and myself and all of the Diaries, listeners and family. Thank you for coming on with us today.
Speaker 2:Oh, my pleasure Steve.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we're going to have to do this again for sure, like, I mean, there's so many stories and things. What I will ask you to do, though, matt, is anytime you were talking and remind me, because now that we've got two teenage boys curling and we're on the same team although we're getting the shit kicked out of us every night that's going to change, I guarantee it. That's going to change. That's going to change, I guarantee it. That's going to change. But anytime you think of one of those great stories that we've shared in the past, or from the days that we spent together, just make a note of them and I'll do the same, and we'll get together again and share the airwaves with the Diaries family.
Speaker 2:Absolutely For sure.
Speaker 1:Wonderful and folks, I just want to remind you. Well, first of all, I want to thank you very much for getting to this point in the podcast. I really appreciate your time and I hope you love the show. And for anybody out there that has any ideas for subjects and topics, please don't hesitate to reach out. You know where to get us. It's steven at fishincanadacom and will or willpalowski at nordicpointlodgecom.
Speaker 1:And you guys and it's not Will Palowski you can go back and listen to the previous shows. I've always got it it's will at nordicpointlodgecom. Reach out to us, let us know what you're thinking and if anybody is out there looking to partner up, we've got an absolutely wonderful rate card that we would love to share with you. Will is looking after that. Reach out to him directly and don't forget to go to fishincanadacom for all of the free giveaways. Guys, this is, it happens. Every day there's giveaways. We've got Garmin constantly on there, so head on over there, check out what we've got and folks. Thus brings us to the conclusion of another episode of Diaries of a Lodge Owner. Stories of the North. I'm a good old boy, never meaning no harm. I'll be all you ever saw, been reeling in the hog since the day I was born.
Speaker 5:Bending my rock, stretching my line.
Speaker 3:Someday I might own a lodge, and that'd be fine.
Speaker 2:Someday I might own a lodge, and that'd be fine.
Speaker 1:I'll be making my way, the only way I know how, working hard and sharing the north with all of my pals. Well, I'm a good old boy. I bought a lodge and lived my dream, and now I'm here talking about how life can be as good as it seems.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 5:As the world gets louder and louder, the lessons of our natural world become harder and harder to hear, but they are still available to those who know where to listen. I'm Jerry Ouellette and I was honoured to serve as Ontario's Minister of Natural Resources. However, my journey into the woods didn't come from politics. Rather, it came from my time in the bush and a mushroom. Rather, it came from my time in the bush and a mushroom. In 2015, I was introduced to the birch-hungry fungus known as chaga, a tree conch with centuries of medicinal use by Indigenous peoples all over the globe.
Speaker 5:After nearly a decade of harvest use, testimonials and research, my skepticism has faded to obsession and I now spend my life dedicated to improving the lives of others through natural means. But that's not what the show is about. My pursuit of the strange mushroom and my passion for the outdoors has brought me to the places and around the people that are shaped by our natural world. On Outdoor Journal Radio's Under the Canopy podcast, I'm going to take you along with me to see the places, meet the people that will help you find your outdoor passion and help you live a life close to nature and under the canopy. Find Under the Canopy now on Spotify, apple Podcasts or wherever else you get your podcasts.
Speaker 4:Hi everybody. I'm Angelo Viola and I'm Pete Bowman.
Speaker 1:Now you might know us as the hosts of Canada's favorite fishing show but now we're hosting a podcast that's right.
Speaker 4:Every Thursday, Ang and I will be right here in your ears bringing you a brand new episode of Outdoor Journal Radio.
Speaker 1:Hmm, Now what are we going to talk about for two hours every week?
Speaker 3:Well, you know there's going to be a lot of fishing. I knew exactly where those fish were going to be and how to catch them, and they were easy to catch.
Speaker 4:Yeah, but it's not just a fishing show. We're going to be talking to people from all facets of the outdoors, from athletes, All the other guys would go golfing Me Athletes. All the other guys would go golfing Me and Garton Turk and all the Russians would go fishing.
Speaker 3:To scientists, but now that we're reforesting and letting things breathe, it's the perfect transmission environment for life.
Speaker 4:To chefs If any game isn't cooked properly, marinated, you will taste it and whoever else will pick up the phone. Wherever you are, Outdoor Journal Radio seeks to answer the questions and tell the stories of all those who enjoy being outside.
Speaker 3:Find us on Spotify, apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.