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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 91: Planning Your Ultimate Canadian Outdoor Experience
From the moment a float plane touches down on a remote lake to the camaraderie of sharing stories around a community dinner table, the outdoor adventures waiting in Canada's wilderness create memories that last a lifetime. In this captivating episode, Steve and Willie draw on their extensive experience as former lodge owners to guide you through planning the perfect outdoor getaway.
Now is the crucial time when savvy adventurers are finalizing their bookings for the upcoming season. We break down the full spectrum of experiences available—from high-end executive lodges with helicopter access to budget-friendly Crown Land camping where you're completely self-reliant. Each option has its unique appeal, whether you're seeking isolation on a fly-in lake that sees fewer than a dozen anglers per year or the social atmosphere of an American Plan lodge where lasting friendships form over shared meals.
The logistics behind these wilderness experiences are fascinating. We reveal how outfitters maintain dozens of remote cabins, flying in everything from propane to fresh produce, and the extraordinary measures taken to ensure guest comfort in the most isolated settings. You'll hear firsthand accounts of soaring through mountain passes in float planes, watching forest fires from the air, and experiencing the world's largest tides in the Bay of Fundy.
Beyond fishing and hunting, we explore the growing interest in ecotourism—northern lights viewing, wildlife photography, hiking pristine trails, and even astronomy experiences under unpolluted skies. These diverse options reflect a deeper truth: what draws us to the wilderness isn't just the pursuit of fish or game but the immersion in nature's majesty and the connections formed along the way.
Whether you're a seasoned outdoor enthusiast or planning your first wilderness adventure, this episode provides invaluable guidance for creating an experience tailored to your preferences, abilities, and budget. The wilderness is calling—what kind of adventure will you choose?
you know, I agree, steve. I think that's one of the one of the best parts about traveling, too is is the diverse areas and the diversification of what you can do, like that the fishing doesn't have to always be. You can still go to the same lodge, yeah, or the same outpost or the same, and support the same people you have, but maybe, instead of utilizing their bodies of water that they offer, right then, maybe you bring your own boat and you go on adventure.
Speaker 2:This week on the Outdoor Journal, radio Podcast Networks. Diaries of a Lodge Owner.
Speaker 3:Stories of the North. It's a great day, folks. Willie has made the long trek from the great white north down to the wonderful balmy minus 10 of the south in Shelburne, and we are sitting here together looking at each other face to face, and you know there's nothing better than talking about planning outdoor adventures, planning outdoor adventures On this show we cover all aspects of outdoor adventures, from fishing to hunting to ecotourism. So, folks, this is a great one. If you're planning your adventure, it's a must listen to. And now Willie, let's bring him in on this podcast. Will, how you doing, brother?
Speaker 1:Good, Stevie, how you doing today buddy.
Speaker 3:I'm doing great. It's a real pleasure to sit here and talk face-to-face. I can hug you and I can reach over and give you a wee peck on the cheek when I want to, and, folks, we've got a great one here. We were brainstorming together about what we were going to do and how we can help people out, and from both of our backgrounds being former lodge owners and love the outdoors and have had the pleasure of taking part in northern adventures, southern adventures, um, and you know what now's the time to plan right.
Speaker 1:Well, yes, it is stevie. That's the time of the year where we're actually running even later into the year, now, where we should be. You know, right now is the time where people are actually booking. You know a lot of people have already spent the last you know four, six weeks, you know, scavengering around the web and looking, going to shows and asking their friends advice on where they've been in the past. And it's the time of the year to get that, get those holidays booked.
Speaker 3:Yeah, Well, those shows are big, right they're, they're, they're where people and and they're not quite as big as they used to be 30 years ago because those shows were key for people planning. I know, when I first started doing shows back in 2009, most of the people were still coming out to shows, walking the aisles with all of those booths, the ones we set up.
Speaker 1:A bag full of brochures.
Speaker 3:A bag full of brochures, a bag full of brochures. I for one, never really made many sales at shows. I wasn't a great seller in the moment because I'm not good at pressure sales, yeah, yeah, and I found that the pressure sales part of it I was outgunned. I would have people come and stop at the booth and they'd say so, how's the fishing? And I would always tell them you know well, the fishing's really good. You can catch anywhere from you know 50 to 100 walleye, but you need to take a guide. And always the big question was well, how big are they? And I could say you know they're. Well, you know the average size is, you know 18 to 20 inches, but you get a lot of smaller ones and you might get lucky and catch something between you know 25 and 30 inches long. But everybody wanted a guarantee, absolutely. And then they'd walk from my booth across the aisle and there was another high-pressure guy that would guarantee the moon and the sun and the stars.
Speaker 1:Hold it up or hold the earth up, rotate it, spin it at the same time.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and they would end up with the booking. But I did get a lot of bookings after the fact. Yeah, and another key thing that people like to do is they'll go to these shows already, knowing that they're going to go back to where they always go.
Speaker 1:Or the same couple destinations, for sure.
Speaker 3:And they want to visit with the owners. Yeah and um. And then you get the people that, uh, fill that bag full of brochures, whether it be, you know, um, uh, before christmas show or or a new year show or or a show that's going on right now in the spring, and then they go home for easter, get together with the family that's going on right now in the spring and then they go home for Easter, get together with the family that's right yeah spread all those brochures out on the table and have a big discussion, yeah, on where they were gonna go.
Speaker 1:Yep, you know it's uh, the shows I think have as we're on this topic have changed. I think that I think the shows now and we've talked about this before, steve, where it's, I found you know I was a decade later getting into the business and I find you still have the I call them, you know, the boot kickers, where they know where they're going right, but they always just want to see what's out there and have a comparison.
Speaker 3:And price a lot.
Speaker 1:Correct, correct. Yeah, yeah, and facility upgrades too, and you know new areas, maybe somewhere they haven't heard about. But I find the networking aspect of it, even for those lodges, that was the biggest part of my show. It started out the networking for myself and Krista to make our brand, but it really wasn't guided through the guests, it was guided through the networking of even the other lodges. You know, I remember being at that show and Melanie from Herst Air was right across from me and you know, oh, mel's a sweetheart, she's a beauty, she's a hardworking lady. They got a great business up there salt of the earth people and she would. But I would watch them, you know, because I am that high pressure sales guy, right, I like clothes, I'm a clothes man, that's my deal, right? Is you know? If I get one on the line, it's coming in the net for sure.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you know, I would watch how, who and how she was dealing with people per se, who and how she was dealing with people per se, and I would feed off that as to what they were, the energy coming to my table and as the show went on, these shows, I could see that they would watch me and they were like man, this is working this style of a tactic right. Or to use the information of a different style of choice and to network the connections between those lodges and you was super great, I found.
Speaker 3:Well, and you, it was super great. I found well and, and you speak of networking, that for me was was key, and and my networking was networking with a lot of the outdoor writers, uh, television shows and and all of those people, which was very cool because I really loved watching the fishing shows, the Fish in Canada's, the Real Fishing's, the you know, charlie Ray and Fishful Thinking, and that is where I met all of those people and I would always introduce myself to them and say, hey, listen, my name's Steve. I just bought a lodge up on the upper French River and if there's any way that I can help you guys out, whether it's, you know, you need a giveaway for a charity function or all of that stuff, I would throw that out there. And that is how I built the television network that I was able to put together and it was really what ended up driving my business. I know all of you folks out there, the Diaries family know that in my decade tenure, that in my decade tenure I had upwards of 30 different television shows shot at the lodge and it was well different. There was 30 different episodes shot at the lodge, like for one Fish in Canada. I think we were up to 13 episodes or 14 episodes in my tenure and that was really the driving factor for for the success of my business, and that all started basically at those shows.
Speaker 3:Yeah, the other key networking, um, um, uh piece of the puzzle for me was getting to know all of the people in. A piece of the puzzle for me was getting to know all of the people in in tourism ontario, yeah, um, in otmp and uh, the the getting to know the jimmy grayston's and and uh, knowing how, understanding how that part of the business worked. Uh, because out of all of those shows that I had shot, I didn't reach into my pocket to pay for a television show. I just supplied everything that they needed their accommodations, their food, boats, guides, you name it, whatever it was. If they said they needed they needed it, I made sure it was a work together relationship.
Speaker 3:Absolutely Right and and that turned into a, a huge, uh, a huge advantage for for my business. But um the so the shows are key for the networking part of it. That was the biggest part of it.
Speaker 1:well, that's what brought us together. Yeah, like that that it really is, and I mean like I know. So, like that booth and you've seen my nordic booth, like it was, it was gorgeous, we had a beautiful backdrop and it was simple beautiful backdrop. We had two TVs on either side, you know, I think it was a little 32 inches, yeah, but we had, uh, jay Siemens there had hooked us up with Ryan Bonin, as I'd said before, and he had that video, that our promotional video playing. So we would, we would plug it in and just we would start one, let it run for two minutes and then we would start the other TV.
Speaker 1:So you would constantly, while you're standing at my booth, you're looking at this one going oh, that's a great looking booth. Oh, wow, we can go and look at the Northern Lights office, oh wow, oh, look at the swimming beach. There we were covering all aspects. It was almost information overload and at the same time you have this 250-pound guy, you know, putting everything in front of your face and trying to take that booking. You're right, man. The television show aspect, the podcasting, the YouTubing, you know, with Brucey and with guys like Jay, yeah, Jay Siemens.
Speaker 1:All of those. They've been great networking deals that we've been able to find.
Speaker 3:Yeah, 100%. And then there's also the networking with your guests, like little Nixon that I met at the last Sportsman Show, who listens to diaries as he falls asleep. Hey, little buddy, how you doing? Have a good night's sleep, brother. That was one of the best experiences for me. And then Nixon's dad sent me a DM I think you call him on Messenger, yep and he said that it was a really, really wonderful thing that when we mentioned Nixon and that, what a great story.
Speaker 3:Well, those are the things that you know keep us motivated to do that kind of thing and and you know I mentioned that I'm I've got a new hobby right. I've been, I've been buying up some, some guns, hunting rifles and different things no handguns, that's not something that I'm into, but hunting rifles. And and I had a guy that I met at at Chaudière after I sold it, yep, in passing, and he come up to me at the at the sportsman show, rob, and said hey, I heard you're, I heard you're buying older guns from estates and you know when people don't want them anymore. I've got a few and actually we went and met Rob last night.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what a great guy.
Speaker 3:Excellent guy, yeah, and I purchased some hunting rifles from him and we went on from there. So that was great, because it's a I you know, I love, I love hunting rifles. They're great projects, they're, they're mechanical, they're it's just, it's and, and I forgot how much I loved hunting yeah, for sure, for sure, I to hop back here.
Speaker 1:You know you're talking about that, the the reasons that we continue to do this and and you like the Nixons and the Robs, and you know I had my first experience actually with my son and I haven't told anybody this on the air yet, but I was my boy Holton he was. I picked him up in Port Perry from visiting some family and we were cruising back up north. This was a couple of months ago and everyone you know I'm a big Buffalo B. Everyone you know I'm a big buffalo bills fan. I'm a huge bills fan, go bills mafia.
Speaker 1:But uh leave skull baby go leave skull go leave skull as well. Yeah, so we uh anyway. So we had stopped in north bay because I wanted to watch the football game. We hadn't, you know, he wanted a little rest and a stretch. So, you know, he went for a swim and I figured, well, I'm gonna go for a quick smoke glide, you know. So I went for a swim and I figured, well, I'm going to go out for a quick smoke line, you know.
Speaker 1:So I go outside and, sure enough, I'm standing there and this other gentleman's down there and he's looking at me and I'm thinking what's this guy looking at right? Because he says are you Willie, willie the oil man? I said, yeah, are you reading my neck or what do you mean? Like, do I know you from the past? He's like no, I'm a Diaries fan, I'm part of the Diaries family, and it was so great to hear the positive feedback about what these men and women and children have learned from our show and that they can just sit back and relax and and enjoy it. I think that was that was my first experience like that, so it was kind of seeing Rob last night was kind of a full circle thing too.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it, it's, uh, it's wonderful that you folks are out there and uh, and we love hearing from you and and uh, you all know how to get in touch with us and and, if not, just listen to the end of this episode and we'll tell you where to find us. But um, back to the gun.
Speaker 3:Sorry, buddy, I didn't mean to no, no, that's, that's perfect. Um, and and speaking of of learning, one of the things like, uh, like we mentioned off the top of this show is now is the time to plan your outdoor adventure. Yes and um, why don't we talk a little bit about what's available and, uh, what we love to do, and uh, and and give you guys out there listening some ideas of what you can do in this country, this beautiful, beautiful country of ours, to experience the outdoors and maybe do some things that you've never really thought about experiencing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like there is so much you know. So the you know the shows are a one direction to get you, to get you looking. You know there's the interweb, as we all know. You know there's word of mouth, there's the TV shows, all the things we've talked about. But even all of that, there is still so much more that we have to offer in Canada that you know some, some experiences here that we're just going to go over. You know, I'll just start firing some out there, yeah let's talk about the most isolated ones.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so you know your flying back lake outposts are going to be. You know your most remote targeted places. You know your, your Wayne Clarks uh, who could, who, who? You know Wayne is more of a service at your. Do it your own kind of thing, um well, and a lot of these isolated fly-ins.
Speaker 3:We're talking about flying in in a float plane, which for for so many people out there even myself, like the first time I had the pleasure of flying in a float plane just for a quick ride when I owned the lodge, because we would have float planes frequent the lodge and drop off guests.
Speaker 3:So I was in a float plane once then, but it wasn't until I started with the Fish and Canada television show on a more full-time basis in 2019 that I really got to experience an amazing float plane adventure, and that was with Urs at Northern Rockies Lodge in BC, in Northern BC, and the whole deal with that was we stayed at his base camp, which was beautiful, on the Alaska Highway on Moncho Lake, and basically Moncho Lake was the landing strip, and then every day we were there I think we shot four days we would jump on a plane and fly into a new lake and in the northern Rockies you don't fly over the Rockies to get. You fly through the pass, you fly through the Rockies and just the experience of a float plane, never mind the fishing, never mind everything else that goes along with it. The experience of being in a float plane is so absolutely breathtaking.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. It really is a second-to-none adventure when it comes to fishing and hunting and the outdoors in general. It's something that everybody has to do once in their lifetime.
Speaker 3:Absolutely, and there's places that are accessible. Like you mentioned, melanie, off the top from Hearst Air she's got a bunch of wonderful outposts. We shot a show for her about three years ago it was, and we flew over the forest fires that were burning at that point, and to see forest fires from the air was crazy and just-.
Speaker 1:I've never seen that.
Speaker 3:That would be cool.
Speaker 1:Describe that for me Like what it was like going over it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know it was. There's always a front on these fires, right, but when you're in a plain and you're in Northern Ontario, you really, unless you've experienced it, have no idea how vast.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah.
Speaker 3:The province is and for as far as you could see, you could see black and burnt and the fire would. Sometimes it was like a tornado. Like you know, some spots are left totally untouched, yet everything around it is burnt. And to watch that and then we were also watching the water bombers at the same time flying and dropping loads of water on top of these fires, and it was an unbelievable experience. Wow, same like with Earths, we were flying over glaciers to get to some of these lakes. Oh, that's cool. And the one day it was my turn to sit in the co-pilot seat. Yep, and I remember flying over a glacier and then looking out on my right side and seeing this cavernous wee lake right in the crotch of two big mountains and thinking, wow, that would be an interesting lake to get down to. And in my mind I'm thinking I bet you nobody's ever been down there.
Speaker 3:Like you can't land in that. And all of a sudden the plane took a bank to the hard right.
Speaker 1:You were kissing the side of the window a bit.
Speaker 3:Well, we flew across the side of the window a bit. Well, we flew across the side of the one mountain and then made a hard. The bank turned into what felt like to me a nosedive, like I mean, I have it on video but the phone just doesn't do it justice. We were probably on better than a 45 degree angle, heading straight down towards this lake, and I said to Urs I said we're not going down, there are we. And he said we absolutely are. And I was like all right, and the water was flat as piss on a plate Wow, like flat. And then we turned and banked towards the sun and the reflection off of the water, with the surrounding. I didn't know where the water was.
Speaker 1:That's dangerous. I'll tell you a story after.
Speaker 3:Yeah, earth was beautiful, like to the point where the landing was so smooth that I had to ask Earth if we were on the water. Yet you know so these experiences are outstanding. That's awesome, and so you have an experience with this, with this.
Speaker 1:Well, I got a story. It wasn't me, but I uh, we talked about him last night. Quick, there, tinker um oh yeah, gentleman, tinker. So back when I started guiding and he's up in canora, he's in nester falls.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's called tinker's places and, uh, katie and dallas mossbeck, uh, they run it now and they run it, so it's kind of a it's a drive-to experience so you can drive to it, you can fish on Lake of the Woods, but majority of their business is flyouts. So it's kind of a different setup it's like Craig Purcell, he's got Nestor Falls Correct. It's a base and then they fly out from the base every day.
Speaker 1:Yeah, which is super cool. So the old tanker there, anyway, he started this business, you know, just like your old guy. You know he was born in a gunny sack on the trail, right? Yeah, I don't think he's ever left Karaskan Lake, still to this day. They cook on like a wood-burning stove, they bake on it, his wife, the best bread you've ever had in your life.
Speaker 1:But anyway, so this guy, he would, um, he did a lot of flying over the years, you know from, from building his own planes to, you know, to to now we're, we're this amazing businesses they have. But he would tell me stories. I spent 60 days in the bush with him at Kariscon Lake and, uh, he taught me things and told me stories that I could never imagine hearing, and his was one of them. So his brother had passed and we were in the plane when Anna asked him you know, tank, how did your brother die? And I knew it was in a plane crash, but I didn't know how. So the story goes is he was coming into a back lake, like you're talking about piss on the plate kind of scenario the water, no wind, the water is dead calm and everything on the shore is a reflective of that shore.
Speaker 1:So he was coming in and he had the reflection was misguiding and he toe-tipped the water. He didn't flare in time and the plane caught and tumbled over and over and over. And this guy was like. This family has an extensive history of flying, yeah, so that stuff can happen to anyone. So old Tink taught me, every time a plane and I would see him every time a plane would come in, it didn't matter if it was 5 in the morning or eight at night, he would go out in the boat or I would go out in the boat and we would rip around the bay for five minutes, just rip, rip, rip, yeah, and all that would do is create a wake and enough of a wave that that pilot was safe to land, right. So just a little story to throw in there, just uh, it was. It was pretty wild hearing that from them that that had happened, you know.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, that's for sure. So on these type of adventures, we haven't even talked about the fishing or anything like that, or the hunting, but it goes without saying.
Speaker 1:Oh, when you're in the back, when you're in places where people go once a year, maybe even once. I know Wayne has places that people go every five years.
Speaker 3:Yeah well, between Wayne and Craig up in Nestor Falls and Kenora and Tinker, there's got to be close to 200 outposts between those guys.
Speaker 1:Just between the three of them. Just between the three of them.
Speaker 3:Yes, it's insane Because I know Craig's got 20 anyway.
Speaker 1:You know it's horrible for me to say this, but I don't really know the exact number of outposts. I should ask Dave McLaughlin here while I'm at these meetings, because he would know the statistic and we'll get it back to you folks, because that would be a good one to know how many outposts and how many actual lodges are actually out there right now operating?
Speaker 3:Absolutely. Well, how many does Wayne have outposts? Well, he said 40. And that's ridiculous post.
Speaker 1:he said 40 that and though that's ridiculous, 40 cabins on 40 different lakes, right, yeah, it's like to service, that to serve. So anybody who hasn't been on a back lake adventure like this and on a float plane, so your, your, your. Your cabin is always run by a generator. Um, solar power, I guess, now some of them. Um, you know, you got to have the resources to dock your plane. Yeah, you know, you got to have a dock system built out there. That's positive. You got to have some kind of septic field or an outhouse. That's serviced, yeah, for the clients. You got to clean it, you got to maintain it, like all of that. And logistically it's not easy to do because you're not like I was at Nordic and you just back up to the door with a Cisco truck. Yeah, everything has got to be flown in right.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, Like I know.
Speaker 1:So there's that part of that flying outpost back like experience. But then there's the executive one. So I'll use my buddy, josh McElishan from Maynard Lake as an example. So Maynard is, it's a five-star place. You know it was one of my competitions. Yeah, great guy, great facility. But so his place? You fly out of a place called River Air downtown Kenora. A gentleman named James owns it. So the guests come into Kenora, they fly into Winnipeg or they fly into Kenora on a private jet or they drive to the airbase and then they mount on the plane and head out to Josh's. So when you get there you know he has 20 staff ready. You know, just like you did at Chaudière, but off a plane. Everything comes in Every time guests come in, food comes in, every time guests leave, gas fuel barrels go out. You know it's a constant logistical nightmare for those guys. An outpost is one thing. Having an executive place where you have to have the upper echelon service and style, that's a completely different thing. And they're out there, those five-star places in the backwoods as well.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I know the logistics of having a five-star on an island and bringing everything in by boat. I couldn't imagine the logistics involved with a fly-in. It would be, and that's why a lot of those experiences are so expensive. For sure, for sure, right. Yeah, these experiences we're talking about are a little more on the expensive side. Now, with the outposts that you can fly into and you look after yourself, you fly in your booze, you fly in your food, you fly in all of the stuff, they're a little bit more reasonable as far as price goes, correct. But, and listen, folks, the fishing on these lakes are all outstanding and you just talk to the operator and they'll be able to tell you what kind of experience they have. And you can choose. Do you want to catch a thousand walleye in a week, or do you want to catch, you know, a couple hundred, really, really big ones? Yeah, or you want a northern pike experience, or you want to go for a multi-species experience. Like, the experiences that you can have in this type of industry are endless.
Speaker 1:Yeah, for sure, for sure, and you know there's, and not just the hunting and the fishing as you brought up at the start of the show. There's, I know, with Destination Ontario right now, that's a huge push for ecotourism.
Speaker 3:Yeah we're going to talk about that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but there's flying back like places that you can do that now, Very cool. You know that's super cool.
Speaker 3:So we'll move on to a different type of experience in the fishing world, and that is basically the same experience we're talking about with the outpost where you look after all of your own gear and food, and that's basically called a housekeeping plan. And the housekeeping plan again is something where you can drive to or boat to. I know Terry, at the Toque Outdoor or the Toque Wilderness Lodge Tilted Toque, sorry, terry. Tilted Toque Wilderness Lodge on the Upper French.
Speaker 3:River. Yeah, yeah, that's a housekeeping facility where you basically bring your own boat and you bring your own food and Terry supplies you with a cottage.
Speaker 1:So it's a drive-to destination where you bring your boat.
Speaker 3:You can bring your boat, you drive to the Doquese Marina and then you boat out to his lodge, which is super cool. Yeah, again, it's another great experience.
Speaker 1:Same as a back lake, but you have the convenience of having your own boat and you're close enough to shore if you need to be.
Speaker 3:for whatever reasons you need, yes and it's not quite as isolated as a back lake, because you're on the Upper French River and there's a couple of lodges there. But these housekeeping deals are more economical, for sure, when it comes to pricing, right right, and they're also great experiences. So you've got your housekeeping aspect of it for for those and, and they are more economical, but a lot of people they like doing it themselves. Yeah, right, yeah, there's a comfort aspect of having your own boat and knowing where your gear is and feeling comfortable.
Speaker 1:I know I'm like that for sure I know if I go fishing with you know, or if I'm going to go traveling somewhere, I really, you know, I love the experience of being having the catered to aspect of it sometimes, but I really would much more rather have you know even my equipment in their boat. At least I have my stuff that I'm comfortable with.
Speaker 3:I know, and that's always an option, and for me, um, the, the uh outdoor experience, having my own boat is is awesome, but um, uh, I'm not. I and I like cooking too, and as long as you get a group where where I can cook and you can clean, I'm good with it. But as soon as the tables switch and I'm the cleaner and dishes and everything else, c2a problemas. I'm not. You know, I'm a bit of a, I'm a bit of a pig, are you? Well, I shouldn't say I'm a bit of a pig, but I and I'll do my share.
Speaker 1:I know you've got a freaking beautiful home here and an amazing place. I think you're one of the cleanest men I've ever seen Well no, it's my wife.
Speaker 3:You should see the cottage after I'm there for a couple of weeks by myself. But that and so those housekeeping experiences are out there, and there's places where you can rent a boat and do the housekeeping thing as well, and there's hundreds of them, thousands of them Thousands yeah. Out in Ontario from right, from the south all the way to the north and from coast to coast All the way across Canada yeah, like you know New Brunswick, you know BC Saskatchewan, they're everywhere.
Speaker 1:Yeah, all these amazing places, and you know, uh, I agree, steve. I think that's one of the one of the one of the the the best parts about traveling, too, is is the diverse areas and the diversification of what you can do, like that the fishing doesn't have to always be. You can still go to the same lodge, yeah, or the same outpost or the same, and support the same people you have, but maybe, instead of utilizing their bodies of water that they offer, right then, maybe you bring your own boat and you go on adventure. You know, like Ang and Pete did when they came to Nordic. We focused for three, four days on our lake, but we also spent two days banging around other lakes, right, and you were on a back lake with Dino there.
Speaker 1:You know, to me that's awesome. And if people can diversify like that and keep that in your mind, folks that, just because that's on the brochure, ask them. You know, is there a spot I can go catch a lake trout?
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:You know, is there a spot I can take the ATV and go down the back and go catch a speckle? You know, because there probably is.
Speaker 3:Yeah, for sure, and you know I'll, I'll go back to the fly in real quick and tell a story. So I've I've had the pleasure of now with Fish in Canada, uh, experiencing um a lot of these back Lake adventures. But, um, when you had Nordic, I, uh I had such a great experience when we shot for you last, uh, last spring, that uh, I said, well, uh, I'm going to bring my family up for a holiday. And, um, uh, we had planned and I didn't tell um, my wife or, or, it was my three kids, my oldest, rayburn, was, uh, that was his cottage week with his uh girlfriend and cottage week with his girlfriend and her family up at our place.
Speaker 3:So he didn't come, but I had the rest of the family there and we planned, you and I, to take them on a fly-in because I wanted to give them the experience that I was getting and show them what I do when I'm talking about this stuff, and to get them into a float plane and to fly them out to a lake where you know there was no cottage or anything, there was just boats out there. So it was just a day trip. And you can experience those day trips in a plane and go out and hit this lake and to get my kids and my wife in a float plane and fly them out, and it was a quick flight. Yeah, you know, like I think 15 minutes or something, yeah 15, 20 minutes there and back.
Speaker 3:It was really a moving experience for me to see them experience something so wonderful. That's awesome, you know, and that'll be a memory that we hold for a long time.
Speaker 1:I remember the kids getting off the plane when you came back and the smiles were so big. I don't think I'll ever forget that and that was wonderful, that you got to do that and you know your whole. We were so fortunate to have you come up there and just to hang out. It was fun.
Speaker 3:Man, yeah, we had a great we ended up going to a birthday party.
Speaker 1:We went bowling, remember, oh yeah.
Speaker 3:We took all the kids up to Red Lake and went bowling for my son's birthday. And yeah, it was a great thing was we didn't tell them. I told them that we had a guide, yep, and we walked down to the dock and the plane was sitting there. I made sure that the plane was already there before I brought everybody down and just to see the look in their eyes and it was a little bit of fear and excitement and everything else when I told them that we're going on that.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:That was a great part.
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Speaker 4: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 Gerry 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. 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 4: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 3:Now why don't we talk about something that is right up our alley and that is the American Plan experience? Yes, and I'm going to explain the American Plan experience, because when you're an American, you understand what the American plan is, and the American plan was born because so many of our friends from down south would come, but it just wasn't feasible to bring your own food, like I mean, if you're coming from Texas, you're either flying or you're driving. You don't want to bring your own food. A lot of times you don't want to bring your own food. A lot of times you don't want to bring your own gear, although a lot of people do. You don't have to. But the American plan is a full. I called it an all-inclusive so that a lot of Canadians would think the housekeeping plan meant that you got housekeeping, which is the opposite, and the American plan it just wasn't well explained, so I called it an all-inclusive.
Speaker 1:I did the same thing.
Speaker 3:Yeah, the only confusing part with an all-inclusive is when you think all-inclusive, you think that your booze is included. So that was something that I had to be very diligent on with the website and just letting people know that, yes, everything is included, but not your guides, not your alcohol. And, having said that, you got guys like Ted Putnam up at Hawk Lake where you can get those packages, where your booze and your food and your guides and everything is included.
Speaker 1:He would be the same as me or Nordic, but he would be the drive-to scenario for you.
Speaker 3:So the all-inclusive or American plan was what I specialized in offering. Inclusive or American plan was what I specialized in offering, and it's one of those things that I, over the years, I did. When I was younger, the group that I run with, we really didn't have a whole lot of money and we always opted for the housekeeping plan just because it's cheaper. But the one thing that I found after years of doing it was you know, by the time you look at buying all of your food, by the time you look at carting everything to wherever you're going to go, by the time you factor in, you know well. So by the time you factor in, you know well, we've got to take time out of our fishing day to go in to cook dinner. And then you know, inevitably the dishes all get piled up and by Wednesday of your trip, three days into it, you got a mound of dishes that prevents you from having your next meal because there's nothing clean and you've got to take two hours to clean out of your time.
Speaker 3:I just I loved the all-inclusive aspect of it because you know you wake up in the morning, you go down to the main lodge. There's the social aspect of meeting everybody. That that's there because it's a meeting place.
Speaker 3:You know when you're in a housekeeping scenario you kind of keep to yourself in your kitchen, in your cabin, it's not at the lodge there's not much socializing unless you really, you know, you reach out to the other people that are there and you run into them on the dock or whatever. But when you're in an American planner all-inclusive package, everybody gets together for meals. So you go down, you wake up, you have your shower, you head to the lodge, you have your breakfast everybody's there, you know people are talking breakfast everybody's there. You know people are talking. And when you've got great hosts like like yourself you're you always see the host at the meals, absolutely. And and that person I called it the heartbeat of my business because I would bring people together. That's where you would say hey guys, there's going to be a jam night tonight. We're going to be playing some music and come on down and sing and drink and you know we're going to have a great time.
Speaker 1:You know what we would do. Let me throw this one in there. This is something I've never heard any other lodge doing and I don't think you saw me do it, but we would do. I actually went and got a guitar because you suggested night and then we had you guys up there, the fishing canada guys, but we actually after that we started doing a seminar once a week, so one of my guys so johnny, my guide or little johnny, would come in for like half hour 45 minutes and we would post it on the whiteboard and just tell people around camp and they'd come in for an information session on, on crappie fishing or on, you know, on, uh, whatever the case may be, the topic of the angler on the water that day or the species and just a little bit of information. And guests love that.
Speaker 3:Oh for sure they did Well no, it's a great point, because that is something that we did at Chaudière.
Speaker 1:Oh, you did, eh I built a big dock house.
Speaker 3:We called it down at the dock where I had a store and I had a nice a, a nice sized room in the uh, in the in the dog house and um Pat Tryon was one of my guides in particular and we would uh, we would do uh once a week maybe, once you know it was.
Speaker 3:It was something that whenever we had time, we would throw it on the whiteboard and we would do just that Uh and um myself. Um, anytime guests were inbound, I would not so much a fishing seminar, but I would meet everybody on the dock and then, as they were coming in, I would do a seminar style information. You know, this is the meal times, this is our main lodge, show them around. And it was a time and this was one of the things that I love doing, because I had a wonderful staff of dock hands and the rule was from the point that the guests hit the dock in Doquese where we would pick them up guests don't touch their gear, right? Oh no, the dock hands would go and they would grab all the gear either if, and a lot of people would already have everything unpacked and on the dock, but the point that we made contact with them.
Speaker 1:Nobody touched anything 100 catering for sure and um.
Speaker 3:So when they hit the dock, I was there to then take them. The boys would, we already knew where they were going, what cottage and everything else. And I would say, hey, folks, how you doing. I introduced myself and, um, I already knew where they were going, what cottage and everything else. And I would say, hey, folks, how you doing. I introduced myself and I already knew who they were. And the boys would take all of their gear to the cottage and I would say, listen, the guys are going to lock after your gear. We're going to get you all moved in, but in the meantime, come on with me and I would show them the lodge, give them the lay of the land.
Speaker 1:Orientation kind of thing. It was an orientation.
Speaker 3:Exactly, and that's another key ingredient in a successful business right, because the more that you can make somebody feel comfortable and the more information that you can give them face-to-face and personally, the better it was Absolutely Right. Face and personally, the better it was Absolutely Right. So the whole experience with the American plan was my kind of feel right, very, very social. Yeah, whether it be like, I say, we would do campfires and sing around the campfires, we also did every week a shore lunch down on the dock where everybody would get together and we would provide fish and then we would also take we would let everybody know. You know, thursday is our shore lunch day. Any fish that you catch on Thursday morning, feel free to bring them in, as long as obviously they're in the legal size limits and follow the rules, and we'll cook them for you right at lunch. So you know, those days were always awesome.
Speaker 1:Those are fun. We used to do a fish fry on Thursday nights and we wouldn't do it every week. It would depend how busy we were and it would depend on the style of clients, because we were a hybrid camp right. So we'd have more. Some weeks I'd be heavier with the housekeeping end.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Some weeks I'd be heavier with the American plan, right. So when we were heavier with the housekeeping plan, I would. There's this old native fellow, Fred lives in Eagle River down by Eagle Lake Lodge, and I'd go down there and I'd buy whitefish off them. Yeah, you know, it was like 100 bucks for whitefish. And then we'd, you know, we'd fry them up on our big barbecue pit outside right and Johnny would dress up in his cowboy hat. We'd have some old country music playing, but everybody in camp would come together.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And it was an amazing. It was an amazing time. You're right, that was one of the funnest experiences having the lodge.
Speaker 3:Well, and all of those experiences, aside from the fishing, are where the magic happens in the business. Yes, yes.
Speaker 3:Right, because I would. My goal was to bring people together and the music to my ears was you know, typically a trip would go from Saturday to Saturday. So on Friday night at dinner you would get people who had groups that would meet each other and everything else, and I would always my heart would just glow when you hear two couples sitting that started in separate tables and are now sitting together, because that would often happen, or you know, whether it's two couples or a group or whatever, they want to sit together. And then the conversation turns to hey, this was great, what are you guys doing next year? Are you coming back? Yeah, and then they say well, we've been coming back. We've been coming here for you know, the last 10 years. Oh, really, well, what week do you come?
Speaker 1:This is the networking part of the experience, well, yeah, that's right. So you get.
Speaker 3:Then you get people saying, well, okay, well, why don't we book this? We'll book the same week and, and they would book to come back to your place together and that's just. You know, another booking that you don't have to move and shake for, and those bookings are the ones that that are are the best, because they're they turn into you know, two, three, four, five, six years of people. Coming back to the point where this one group I had a group from Texas. I love them so much. Actually I took my family down to Texas and we stayed with Ty and Sonia and unfortunately last summer Ty passed, which was heartbreaking, and you know we went. I took my son to Texas and we spread some ashes about a month ago. That's awesome. But on one of those trips they hooked up with a couple from Illinois and they've been, they become such good friends that now they spend winters they drive from Illinois to Texas and they spend their winter living with them in Texas.
Speaker 2:No way, oh yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and they met it's so crazy that that came together from dining at Chaudier Lodge, yes, from your hospitality. Bringing people together is what developed that. You know what that brings? A shiver, yeah, it's beautiful, yeah.
Speaker 3:And they're such great people. I love them all, and those are the things that make this business such a special business.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. I got a good story here. So my first American plant experience ever wasn't in Ontario, it wasn't, you know, a back league fly out for walleyes or anything. You know the standard. It was Ontario, at Langara Island, it was called. So it was in northern BC, off the coast of Masset, it was called. So we were going salmon and halibut fishing and grizzly we were watching, and it's up in the area where they have them, blonde grizzlies, what are they?
Speaker 3:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.
Speaker 1:So I was jacked. The oil company had us all set up, we had a great year with Chevron and they decided to take us out there. You know, this was like mid-2000s, I mean like 2005, 2006. So we flew to Vancouver from Calgary, into Terminal 2, got on a small plane you know a little 20-seater Ting Air up to Masset, got on a small plane you know a little 20-seater Ting Air up to Masset, and then from Masset we helicoptered out to a ship. Now, the ship was anchored off of the side of an island. You know, it was 50, 60 feet of water and it was anchored there.
Speaker 1:Um, so it was a super cool thing. It's the only time I've ever been in. I've been in lots of choppers, but a chopper going to a fishing lodge and and again, this is my first american plan experience, right. So I'm already thinking like this is swank. I'm kidding, this is catered right. Here we're, uh, you know we're in the helicopter and on the planes. We're, you know we're having some juice and a couple beers, and so, yeah, anyways, we get in this chopper and we land on a helipad on a ship. We get out and do our orientation and I'm looking around and it's just beautiful People are bringing us food and they'll ask it if we want drinks. It's like being at Earl's on a Friday night and I'm looking around and it's so majestic there's eagles flying, there's beautiful steam coming off the rainforest trees on the coast of BC and then I know we're there to whale watch and to see these grizzlies and catch a couple salmon and halibut. And you know, the trip was amazing. You know there's lots.
Speaker 1:I think I've told a few stories about that trip on here, but the bottom line is when I got to see how the service level could be, it really blew me away. Like I was really blown away by the, you know, every night having a four course meal, you know, and the guides to the level that they took care of me. You know, back then I was just tournament fisherman, I was just green tournament fisherman, you know. So this was a whole new realm to me and I'll never forget it. It was kind of what got me, you know, growing up with in that part of my life, with my grandfather being at his place and always being in that fishing world and having that desire to do that, but I knew nothing about it. That was the first time in my life I'd actually seen that American style of plan and went.
Speaker 3:I like this yeah this is nice, this is, this is exceptional well, funny enough, um, I, I had never had an all-inclusive or American plan experience until after I bought the lodge and that, I think, helped me become successful, because I had an idea in my mind about how I wanted my guests to be treated and I brought that idea to Chaudière and it turned out to be a very successful experience.
Speaker 3:So there's again, folks, there's so many different experiences out there that you can have, and that kind of brings us to what you alluded to earlier. And you know, when we think outdoors, we think hunting, we think fishing, but now there's a it's not even a movement, it was always there, but we've given it the name of ecotourism, and ecotourism is everything outdoors that really doesn't focus on fishing and hunting. And there's so many opportunities out there and a lot of them you can combine with a fishing or a hunting experience, with a fishing or a hunting experience, and I think probably for anglers and hunters out there, whether you think about it or not, the driving experience behind that is the immersion into nature and all of those experiences that you get when you're out there, whether it be seeing the northern lights or, you know, the night skies that are absolutely stunning, with no light pollution.
Speaker 1:Blueberry picking. You know how many people from the south I get up north and they're like at the Toronto Sportsman Show. When I was there, as you were saying, I didn't sell a lot of fishing trips because it wasn't the focus there. Bear hunting was big there but that ecotourism was huge. I got a couple guests out of it because they wanted to come up and they'd never picked a blueberry strainer before and they never went out to a patch on a quad with their family and picked a gallon of blueberries and ate them fresh. You know, or the like you're saying, the Northern Lights, or the just the hiking. You know, going to a beautiful, going for a beautiful hike in the bush and seeing a beautiful waterfalls and you know. Those are what. Those are the things. To be honest, I don't remember a lot of the big fish stories you know and that you forget about the gaps in there and the hunts. It's the experiences with your friends and family in those kind of environments that I remember.
Speaker 3:Absolutely. You know, one of the things that I had investigated but unfortunately I didn't implement and implement was I wanted to put a telescope like an observatory where you could put you know 10 people inside this little building and you would have TV screens and you could. It was linked to NASA and all of these stellar events that were going on. They would give you coordinates to punch into the telescope and you could sit and and and look at it and and oh, that's go on a stellar adventure, right?
Speaker 3:yeah, and at the time, you know, for me, I like capital was one of the things that, um, that I I struggled with in the beginning, but it wasn't that overly expensive I think to put one in on the island was about sixty thousand dollars and um, but I always thought, wow, what an experience for people to go on a, on a stellar cruise. Yeah, you know what I mean. You get into this, this spaceship on on an island and and you, you're, you're going on a stellar adventure that's super unique.
Speaker 3:So there's there's stuff like that. There's also, you know, like uh going and and experiencing wolf calls or seeing nature um sled, dog sledding dog, that's a huge one up by, up by andrew and red lake or sue, lookout um.
Speaker 1:I up in Sioux Lookout here with some other business doing some work and I saw two sled dog teams mushing and it was super cool. I was like man, if you're from Toronto or if you're from Texas or Minneapolis when are you going to see that, Unless you're watching Disney's Iron Will?
Speaker 3:you're not seeing that Super cool. I'll tell you. One of the things on my bucket list is to go pan for gold.
Speaker 1:Oh, speaking of, I saw a panning for gold kit at Canadian Tire the other day on.
Speaker 3:It was on sale.
Speaker 1:It was like a starter edition. I thought about you, bro.
Speaker 3:Well, the funny thing, my buddy, Ray Poole, back in the day this is probably in the 90s there was a TV show where these guys would go out and they would pan for gold and this and that and we got all pumped and I built a sluice box. I was a sheet metal mechanic. I built a sluice box. We never used it. It was probably about three feet long and I made it out of aluminum. God, it was beautiful.
Speaker 1:Is this like your forging box downstairs?
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you should see this forging box folks.
Speaker 1:Steve has this grad. It is epic. Yeah, yeah, it's beautiful.
Speaker 3:There's a lot of hours in that thing. Yeah, man, I looked at the, I watched Forged in Fire, I looked at their forges and I thought I'm going to make one of. Yeah, there was probably. All in all there was 80 hours of work.
Speaker 1:And I was impressed that you did all the machining and the lathe work. When you were telling that yesterday and describing it, I was impressed.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, yeah, it was an adventure that I haven't made a knife yet, but I enjoyed building the forge. Yeah, I got to get Mikey, my son, on that. He was the one that was really wanting it. My daughter, maddie, is the only one that's really attempted to make. Actually, I shouldn't say that mikey did make one knife, yeah, so him and his buddies got over there and made a knife, but it's, you know, it's. It's those outdoor adventures and the photography too oh yes, photography hunts.
Speaker 1:Yes, I sold one this year. Actually, there is one going up to nordic this year oh really, yeah for bear yeah, there was.
Speaker 1:There was a guy who wanted to bear hunt, uh, and he actually his wife talked him out of bear hunting and talked him into just the photography part of it, because she is a she's actually a professional photographer down the states. Yeah, so they're going to go up there and sit in the stand here in the fall for three days and they're going to fish for the off hours, but the morning and the evening, when they're you know, when the bears are more active, they're going to sit up there and we're going to bait them to come in, just so they can get some amazing images.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's, that's super cool. There's there again like I mean there's so many things and then we haven't even covered the camping side of things.
Speaker 1:No, exactly, you know, there's so many.
Speaker 3:There's so many experiences and a lot of people think, well, I got to go to a campground. Well, that's not true. No, you, you can.
Speaker 1:You can camp on crown land anywhere, and explain what crown land is for the people that don't know, Stevie.
Speaker 3:Well, crown land is, is land owned by the crown and we're, we're, we're, um, um, uh, it goes back to our association with the queen. But it's government land that nobody owns, that we all can use. And whether we talk about use for hunting, for fishing, for camping, crownland is land that is there for Canadians to experience and to use and you can go out there and you can camp.
Speaker 1:So what you're saying is there's. You know, if you had a map and for the people that don't know, you can actually look at an area let's say Bancroft, ontario and find where those crown land areas are, on a lake or on a river system or even just in the bush and you can take your own camper truck box up there or your own RV or your tow behind trailer and just go do your own thing, fire up the generator and stay in the bush fires with your family for a few days.
Speaker 3:Yeah, or be more adventurous and go and park somewhere and throw the pack on your back and go and experience nature with very little. The only thing when you're talking about using Crownland is you always use the go with the intention to leave it in better condition than when you got there. So you know when you've got to be careful of fires and you need to respect the fire conditions and check that, because with forest fires and hot summers there's fire bans that they put on. So you got to be mindful of fire bans and if there is a fire ban, you don't make a fire. If there's not a fire ban, you can have fires, but you need to make sure they're out and you need to pick up your garbage and all of that stuff. Yep, be very respectful of the land and the land will respect us back for generations, absolutely, and you know there's a ton of different guys that just and girls that go out by themselves and live off the land, for you know, two, three days, four days a week a month. There's like Survivorman.
Speaker 1:Yeah, algonquin Park is one of those areas close to here where you, I know I grew up like the Bancroft area. Like I said, I grew up in Coburg but my Bancroft area my grandfather was spending so much time there we would go up to Algonquin Park and that's one down here. That's really close to everyone. You can just throw a couple of canoes and kayaks on the top of your SUV or car and go up to the park on Highway 60 and find a great lake to go into and portage a couple back back and you know that's very inexpensive, oh for sure, to do right and and at the same time, it's supporting the province and and canada and and getting you that that quick little uh outdoor adventure that you need to, yeah, fill that need at the time and that's a provincial park.
Speaker 3:That's a little bit different than crown land, correct? And I think there's a, there's small fees that you that you would pay to the park and and just like that yeah but the nice thing about a park like that and Algonquin is one of the largest and it's a place where you've actually got a place that you can park your vehicle safely Not that it's not safe to park a vehicle on a road somewhere with Crownland, but you know it's managed.
Speaker 1:Yes, yeah, right, monitored and managed.
Speaker 3:Monitored, managed, and Algonquin is a great option for people that want to just start and dip your toes in this camping idea.
Speaker 6:Yep.
Speaker 3:Right. So again, it's one of those. Our province and our country is awesome, country is is awesome. And and you know, I'm going to throw one more um experience that I had, um, uh this past uh year, uh, and it was a shoot that we did uh in Nova Scotia and uh, we went and uh stayed in the little town of economy.
Speaker 3:We were in a bed and breakfast and we had a guide by the name of Greg Beliveau and we were right on the shore of the Bay of Fundy Actually, it's the Minas Basin, which is a little, well, a little. It's a big bay in the back of the Bay of Fundy and we stayed at this little bed and breakfast and Greg took us out striper fishing and, for those of you who don't know, the Bay of Fundy has the largest tide in the world and when we were there the tide was like 55 feet. That's insane, the water. And every 12 hours the water would go out and the bay would be near empty and then it would come back in and it would be 55 feet high and and and it, it. You know, some days we were, we were leaving at like 11 o'clock in the morning and had to be back by, you know, four o'clock in the afternoon and the, the current in that that, the, the, the, the, the tide would create, was ridiculous. Um, we'd go out, just a suction. Eh, oh, it was. It was crazy. So we were fishing stripers and not only like we didn't, we didn't get to, to, to, to experience this situation, but there's sharks out there, great white sharks, and they'll come up and eat your stripers and there's so much there and the landscape was ridiculous.
Speaker 3:And the one thing I'll never forget I was the guy that I'm a farm boy, so I'm fairly proficient at backing things up in the vehicle. So you know, anytime Pete or Ang or you know they're the pilots of the FNC or whatever boat we've got and we drug our boat out there, whatever boat we've got, and and we, we drug the, the, our boat out there, um, uh, on this day in particular, we were, we were in, um, uh, greg's boat and I was, um, I was backing in his boat and there was one ramp that we used and, um, the water was it. It was like a football field away from and it was a fairly steep incline right. So I backed the boat in, dropped Greg off in his boat and I drove the truck near a football field, away from where I put the boat in. I jumped out, I had it parked and Greg's yelling at me no, Steve, my geez, you gotta pull her up a little higher.
Speaker 3:I'm like, pull it up a little higher. The next platform, the next plateau, geez, you gotta get her up there. I thought, hmm, okay. So I pulled it right up, got into the boat with him and I said how come so far away? He says jeez, jeez, if you had left her there she would have been underwater.
Speaker 1:Oh, because the tide?
Speaker 3:yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah because we were going out the tide was out.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it was low tide when we were going out and we were going to fish, the high tide. And, sure enough, when we were going out and we were going to fish, the high tide, and then, uh, and, and sure enough, when we got back, um, you could see where the tide had come up and left all of the debris, like the wood debris and everything else, and it was just the, the, the height of it was ridiculous. And when you're in the boat on the water, we we're fishing, um and uh, the we were fishing cut bait, so that's just, uh, that's like dead mackerel or herring, and and you cut, uh, you cut chunks like, uh, a square, out of these fish. You'd either use the head side or the tail side or cut the head and the tail off and use the middle, but they're chunks that are like uh, two, three inches square.
Speaker 3:Really, you put them on a big hook and then he's got clip weights, yep and um, uh, and and it's on a slide. So you're, you would drop your bait down to the bottom and then it would, you, you would, um, you would let the bait slide through the bait. You wanted to try and keep your weight on the bottom and then you would let the bait kind of slide through the slide on the line.
Speaker 1:So kind of like a drop shot, but a lot bigger in the weight. So if the drop shot was getting taken by the current, it would just slide through. It Is that?
Speaker 3:similar. Well, what it is is, you've got your hook, you tie that. Well, first of all, you put this it's just a snap clip on a ring and you put the line through the ring so that that snap will slide up your line and down your line, yep Right, and it'll stop at the hook. But then you clip weight onto that snap ring, so when you drop the weight down, it allows your line to slide through the little eye so that you're, you can feel the bait, you can feel the fish when they nibble. And these, these stripers, they really, even though they get up to like 45 pounds, 50 pounds, it's almost like a walleye bite. But so when you start and the tide's ripping, we were using 32 ounces of weight.
Speaker 1:That's crazy. Like a pound, that's crazy.
Speaker 3:Of weight and they're like banana weights. Yeah, they were like discs, they were like big discs Catfish ones yeah.
Speaker 3:And they would go up in increments of like five ounces, three ounces, two ounces, half an ounce, and when the tide was ripping, we'd have like a 10 ounce, a five ounce, a five ounce and a five ounce on there just to get it to sit on the bottom. Wow. And then you know, as the tide starts to slow and you get slack water and and listen, when the tide was ripping, we were fishing a spot that come up into, you know, at high tide it would have been, you know, 60 feet of of water. And when that tide rips it was create, because it was a bit of a hump. It was creating, like this um wave on top of the water okay, yeah and it's.
Speaker 3:It's such a weird feeling because the boat's not moving, but yet I was trolling musky baits with the boat being, uh, in in place dragged with the current, the current wow yeah, you're talking like I forget the the stat, but it was like a 15 mile an hour current or something crazy wow at when it was at its peak. And then it turns slack. Your boat starts to drift around and then it spins the other way when the tide's going out.
Speaker 1:Yep.
Speaker 3:Right and um, the the experience of and it and it can be very dangerous, Like when we were out there, like if, if, in slack tide, if you're not careful and that rope gets caught up on something right on the back uh, gunnel or whatever and the tide turns real quick. There was one boat that called a mayday because they got hooked up on the back of their well. When the boat spun, their anchor rope got caught on the bottom end of their engine. They didn't realize it and then when the tide started going back out, the bow wasn't into the tide, the stern was, and it pulled slack and it pulled the back of the boat under the water.
Speaker 1:Right, so it's something that Did they just end up cutting it, or what?
Speaker 3:Well, they didn't have time, oh it happened that quick Well yeah, and it was like, well, they didn't have time, oh, it happened that quick. Well, yeah, and it was like I mean it was a smaller boat, but it's something that you want to go with a guide like Greg from Bass Barn Charters and experience with him, and he was using a boat called a Coastal Vokey, made in Newfoundland Cool, and it's like a really big Boston whaler but they're extraordinarily heavy and it cuts through the waves real good. Because I'll tell you what us anglers talk about confused water, when you get wind from different directions and then you get tight to a shoreline or through, you know, off an island where waves refract off of different sides and you get these rogue waves or you know where way two waves collide and and it's just, uh, it's, it's confused water. The water there was was crazy whenever we were going through islands and stuff, but what an experience it is to fish the Bay of Fundy. That's super cool.
Speaker 1:I'm actually me and Krista are going to go. I was telling you we're going to go out there this fall, because I've been out there before with work and just traveling around for fun, but never to experience everything. And Krista, now that I got her traveling, she's a traveling addict, right yeah, and she's never been to the East Coast. So we're going to go out there. I'm going to go hook up with Greg and go fishing with him this fall, for sure.
Speaker 3:Economy. Nova Scotia is where we stayed and I'll tell you what, as amazing as the experience that we just talked about sounds, the most extraordinary part for me is the people out there. Extraordinary part for me is the people out there, like, just to give you an example, we decided to stay. It was a long haul for us. The shoot. We started in New Brunswick for a week, then we went to Nova Scotia for a week, then we were scheduled to come back to New Brunswick for another week and, um, we got to Nova Scotia and, uh, wanted to stay an extra day there. And, uh, at the time it looked like the bed and breakfast that we were at was booked for the last day.
Speaker 3:And, um, the, the locals there were like ah, don't worry, uh, I've got a, I've got a, I've got a. Uh, a place over here. You know I got a trailer. I'll tell you what. I'll stay in the trailer, you guys can have our house. You know, like, and just when we're done fishing, you know we'd be sitting out and barbecuing at the place and people would just stop by and pull out the guitar and have an impromptu party. What an awesome. Oh, the, the hey guys, um, the what a beautiful country we have oh the this.
Speaker 3:It is such a wonderful, wonderful country, um, which brings me to my last point, which isn't really an experience, but I I really want to remind people of the importance of our next and upcoming election and to make sure you get out there and vote and do your research, not only the legacy media, but go outside the box and find out what Canadians are saying. And don't forget the last 11 years and where we're at now and just simply ask yourself are we in a better shape now than we were then? And maybe do we need a change?
Speaker 1:And even in this direction, in the travel and tourism area, are we better than we were before? Do you know what I mean? Like absolutely when it comes to traveling and finances, can you afford where you used to be able to afford to go to these places a little more, steve? Do we want to get back to that?
Speaker 3:I, I certainly do, and I know all of the lodge owners and and people that are providing these experiences definitely need support and I'm just not sure that that support has been there for the last, uh, the last 10 years, correct? I agree, you know, I agree. So a lot of good folks fought and died to give us the right to vote and it is so important, no matter who you vote for or how it goes down, get out and exercise that right that those people died to give us.
Speaker 1:It matters.
Speaker 3:A hundred percent. Absolutely, it matters, absolutely. So, on that note, I just love to to thank all of the people that support us, you know. Andrew um, up there in Lakeside marine, uh, wonderful uh business and great uh uh, he's so good with the community.
Speaker 1:I just bought andrew. I just bought a side by side because I had to. I left my side by side at the lodge when I got out and, uh, I needed a new one, so I bought one off andrew. The guy drove it two hours to bring it down to me. Man pulled it off the trailer, check the oil, make sure everything was great. And he's the owner. He texts me at 6.30 in morning Willie, I'm here, you're where, I'm outside of your garage. You can't beat that kind of service.
Speaker 3:That is the difference. That is the difference between a successful business owner and and somebody that that struggles. And hey, thanks, andrew, you're doing a great job. Yeah, and folks, don't forget to go over to the fishing Canadacom website. Get in on all those free giveaways. They're, they're always there. Garmin is is a wonderful supporter of that. You never know what you're going to find. Check out our episodes from the last year. They're all on YouTube, which you can access straight from the com fishincanadacom website. You can check out the episode that we did with Greg Beliveau on Bay of Fundy. You can check out all these other wonderful places that we've been Lake Obabacal Lodge. You know all of the awesome adventures that we talk about. You can see Nordic Point with Willie and I and Dean and Ange and Pete. They caught it the net, oh what a story yeah that's a great story, folks.
Speaker 1:I love that. Ange is going to have that forever and remember it was at my place. I love that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you need to check that one out. Quick synopsis Peter forgot. The net felt real bad, and they ended up catching the same style of net that had been on the bottom of the lake for God knows how long. Yep, and so they had a net.
Speaker 1:Within cast and when you watch the show. It was not meant to be. It was meant to be.
Speaker 3:It wasn't scripted.
Speaker 1:That's what I was trying to say.
Speaker 3:This is something that wow and even like I mean you'd have to be brilliant to try and think of doing something like that Right, and nevermind finding a net covered in algae and moss that that would look like that.
Speaker 1:I know, I know that net coming out of the water Save little Johnny and Pete's ass. Oh yeah for sure.
Speaker 3:So listen folks again. Thank you so much for listening Night night, nixon. And thank you, rob. We'll see you again next time. And folks. Thus brings us to the conclusion of another episode of Diaries of a Lodge Owner. Stories of the North.
Speaker 2:I'm a good old boy, never meanin' no harm. I'll be all you ever saw, been railin' in the hog since the day I was born, bending my rock, stretching my line. Someday I might own a lodge, and that'd be fine. 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 large and lived my dream, and now I'm here talking about how life can be as good as it seems.
Speaker 6:Yeah, back in 2016, frank and I had a vision to amass the single largest database of muskie angling education material anywhere in the world.
Speaker 5:Our dream was to harness the knowledge of this amazing community and share it with passionate anglers just like you.
Speaker 6:Thus the Ugly Pike Podcast was born and quickly grew to become one of the top fishing podcasts in North America.
Speaker 5:Step into the world of angling adventures and embrace the thrill of the catch with the Ugly Pike Podcast. Join us on our quest to understand what makes us different as anglers and to uncover what it takes to go after the infamous fish of 10,000 casts.
Speaker 6:The Ugly Pike Podcast isn't just about fishing. It's about creating a tight-knit community of passionate anglers who share the same love for the sport. Through laughter, through camaraderie and an unwavering spirit of adventure, this podcast will bring people together.
Speaker 5:Subscribe now and never miss a moment of our angling adventures. Tight lines everyone.
Speaker 6:Find Ugly Pike now on Spotify, apple Podcasts or wherever else you get your podcasts.
Speaker 7:Hi everybody. I'm Angelo Viola and I'm Pete Bowman. Now you might know us as the hosts of Canada's favorite fishing show, but now we're hosting a podcast. That's right. Every Thursday, ange and I will be right here in your ears bringing you a brand new episode of Outdoor Journal Radio. Now, what are we going to talk about for two hours every week? Well, you know there's going to be a lot of fishing.
Speaker 6:I knew exactly where those fish were going to be and how to catch them, and they were easy to catch.
Speaker 7: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 and Garton Turk and all the Russians would go fishing. To scientists.
Speaker 6:But now that we're reforesting and letting things breathe. It's the perfect transmission environment for life.
Speaker 5:To chefs If any game isn't cooked properly, marinated, you will taste it.
Speaker 7: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. Find us on Spotify, apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.