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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 116: Winds, Wolves, and Walleye
A glass wall, a dozen yellow-eyed timber wolves, and a wind that wouldn’t let up—our northern run from Wawa to Timmins had all the ingredients for a trip that teaches more than it takes. We hit record in the truck ride home to unpack what really worked: turning ugly chop into a pattern, trusting shade over sunshine, and letting a leaky tin boat and a pair of deep-diving cranks do the heavy lifting when cameras—and anglers—couldn’t stand.
We walk through the surprising spots and exact setups that changed our week. On big, windswept basins, we drift-trolled crystal minnows over 30–40 feet to target suspended walleye riding mid-column, no kicker required. When LiveScope lit up with fish that wouldn’t move on a rattlebait—after it crushed the day prior—we swung around the corner into the lee of a cliff, dropped live bait in 30–35 feet, and watched a neutral school switch on. Think of wind as moving structure: riprap gaps that funnel flow, single boulders that pin crayfish, narrow channels that compress current. We also dig into tools without the hype—Kraken/Spot-Lock anchor mode, five-foot jog moves to land precisely on marks, and the critical cross-check between traditional sonar and forward view to avoid chasing “mushroom” bottom returns.
Threaded through the stories are the small choices that keep you fishing: wearing auto-inflate PFDs, picking routes you can run back, and knowing when to call a windy hump and find softer water you can fish cleanly. We shout out local guides around Timmins, the bite heating up on Horwood Lake, and a can’t-miss sequence from Airdale Lodge you’ll see on Fish’n Canada. Come for the wolves, stay for the wind logic you can use this weekend—no matter your boat or budget.
Enjoyed this one? Follow and subscribe, share it with a fishing friend who fears the breeze, and leave a rating with your go-to wind bait—we’ll read our favourites on air.
This week on the Outdoor Journal Radio Podcast Networks, Diaries of a Lodge Owner, Stories of the North. I'm sitting in this truck right now with good friend Peter Bowman and Dino Taylor in the backseat sleeping.
SPEAKER_07:He's gonna say, you're awful loud for Dean to sleep, Stevie. This is a second and a first for me. This is the second time I'm on the diaries, and it's the first time I've ever podcasted in a vehicle. Really? While driving. Wow. You know what I'm saying? Which maybe I shouldn't be seeing that. Maybe that's illegal, is it?
SPEAKER_09:No, you got both hands on the wheel.
SPEAKER_07:I guess you got her, buddy. You know it.
SPEAKER_09:Oh, Pete. So we are on the way home from a 12-day.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah, it's a double shoot. So, I mean, no, we got four, seven days on the water and and three days traveling. You 11 there, right? Yeah. I think, yeah.
SPEAKER_09:Yeah, at least.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah, somewhere in that neighborhood. In that area, anyway.
SPEAKER_09:Yeah, almost a two-weeker. I've got a question.
SPEAKER_07:I ask a simple question. Yeah.
SPEAKER_09:You ever forget what day it is?
SPEAKER_07:I know, right? I know today is Friday because I always remember Fridays. I don't remember a whole lot after that, bro, but Fridays I like. As a working man my whole life, Fridays are good.
SPEAKER_09:You know, when I worked at the lodge, I used to keep track of the days of the week by what the chef was cooking. That's perfect.
SPEAKER_07:I love that.
SPEAKER_09:Yeah. Yeah, it's steak night tonight.
SPEAKER_07:So would you was that uh constant every for 10 years, or did you ever change the day of the week steak turkey day?
SPEAKER_09:There were changes, but there were two constants throughout. Friday night was always prime rib night.
SPEAKER_07:Nice. Rick Delusna likes that stuff.
SPEAKER_09:Oh, it does the other. Oh, yeah. I know Rick, our cameraman. Yeah, he uh that uh that prime rib looked delicious that yeah. Yes, it did. Uh Cedar Meadows. Cedar Meadows Resort, yeah. Resort Timmins. Yeah. Yeah, we got to stay there. Yes, sir, we did. That was pretty cool. We saw some wolves in the backyard, too.
SPEAKER_07:That's their uh, I think that's their claim to fame. Sleeping with the wolves. You can actually rent a cabin. Um, and it's got a full glass enclosure in the back where the bed is. And literally you are looking at about a dozen timber wolves throughout, you know, they don't show up there all the time, but yeah, throughout the the day you're gonna see them for sure. And it's quite the quite the experience, I had to say. It was pretty cool seeing these wolves frolicking, playing, you know, sneaking around, ominous-looking creatures, they're friggin' eyeballs on them, or you know, darts, like just dart right through you. Oh, yeah. Well, that black one with the yellow eyes. Oh my god.
SPEAKER_09:That was crazy.
SPEAKER_07:Freak show, yeah.
SPEAKER_09:That was real crazy. You have to go over to the uh outdoor journal radio podcast. I think Dino's gonna put on some pictures. We uh we did a podcast from the glass room. Well, you got it's on video. We'll see.
SPEAKER_07:You'll see the wolves right through that, yeah. Frolicking in the background. Yeah, behind us. There was that was crazy. We were doing the podcast, we were thinking shit, they're not out here. It was morning. The guys told us we're gonna be out in the morning. And then all of a sudden, Steve and I got uh doing the podcast in Dean, and uh, and all of a sudden, boom, Rick was freaking out and pointing behind us. We looked behind us at the glass, and there's about six wolves all kind of play fighting right right off our shoulders, right between us. We said, Okay, you cannot script that any better than that.
SPEAKER_09:So but folks, the one thing you're not gonna see is Rick's face when whenever the wolves were w walking in behind us. Oh yeah. Oh my god, it was. It was hilarious. Yeah, yeah, pretty sure about it. Oh yeah.
SPEAKER_07:That was a that was a good trip. Yeah, it was a neat trip. Very uh uh, we did a lot of uh scouting around different lakes, shooting the mines in Timmins, the gold mines in Tim's. Wow, that gold mine was very cool. Yeah, that's all that kind of stuff. Doing that uh sleeping with the wolves, and that'll all be featured on a on a fishing cannon episode next year in 26. Uh, you know, we're we're not this one wasn't a lodge, this was actually the Timmins area. And working with uh J and B Cyclamarine, um they did a they helped us immensely in that. Uh Rob and Cameron, both from there, and uh Craig Salmonson. Selmundson? Yes, yes, but salmon is cult salmon with the L's pronounced. Selmonson, I believe. Yeah, great guy, I uh he's a a guide, a local guide, and he guys at Horwood Lake, Horwood Lake Lodge. If you're ever at Horwood Lake Lodge, look up Craig because he's uh he's a stick man, he knows his stuff. So his beautiful wife met their beautiful dog, uh it was a great trip. It was really cool.
SPEAKER_09:And apparently Horwood is on fire for fish. He said it's getting better every day.
SPEAKER_07:And and I used to hear it was good before. I think we fished it, I think Reno fished it many years ago. Like, I mean many years ago, but we have not been back since. So we're gonna try and get in there too, if we can uh set up a trip in the near future for another fish and can I show there. So yeah.
SPEAKER_09:That'd uh that'd be very cool. Yeah, that'd be cool. So one of the things that we dealt with a lot on this trip in both spots, because before we did the sleeping with the wolves, we were at um Airedale Lodge in um uh Wawa. Hop junction. Hot junction, yeah, just outside of Wawa. Yeah, and one of the things we dealt with was wind.
SPEAKER_07:One of the things Dean and I talk about every day at work is wind. Even when we're in the building, we still say, shit, that wind is nuts again today.
SPEAKER_09:Yeah. So what are some of the strategies that you use when you have to deal with wind?
SPEAKER_07:Oh wow. Well, that's a great question because there's I have two sort of processes that I do. The first process would be fishing on my own for fun for whatever, and the second would be fishing for fish in Canada, TV, because the totally different. Although the fish are gonna be the same, uh reacts in the same areas or whatever, you have a cameraman on the boat and it's too windy, you can't shoot, right? So you have to kind of pick and choose your areas. It makes it very difficult. Like like yesterday, for instance, in the boat there, you could see the wind was up, but Rick was very comfortable with shooting, like comfortable-ish. Yeah, aside from trying to break the windshield with his arse twice or three times on the console. But but uh um other than that, he wasn't bad. I I as you know on Lake Niposing, and you know, everybody knows on these bigger waters, there's days where you just can't stand. You could a cameraman couldn't hold a camera, so you either have to call the shoot or go in in behind uh an island or you know, a point of land or the mainland, wherever the lee of the wind is. So that's that's a difficult one because you gotta remember that wind often helps the fishing. You know, we want these flat, calm conditions. Everybody, oh, I love that for my top water bite. It's gonna work so well. Probably the worst conditions you can get, you know what I mean? Because wind breaks breaks the sunlight, breaks your silhouette. It gets bait fish moving up into the water column, it gets everything stirred up. The zooplankton gets more on the windy side of a lake. If there's a windy bay in that side and a calm bay on the other side, there's more activity going on in that windy bay, right? So it's all pushing in there and everything's going, and these fish, they're not stupid, they're just they're instinctively uh feeders and hungry, and they just go in there to find food and do, you know, little fish to the big fish included. So um you you look for wind, and then and then once you have the wind, then you don't have to be so finessey. So you know, have to worry so much about everything being perfect. That's kind of better than it's a good thing.
SPEAKER_09:There's all kinds of stuff going on down there, yeah.
SPEAKER_07:And it's even dirtier water, right? Because of all the zooplankton going in there. And the sediment is in there, so sediment, yeah. Yeah. So you think them that way, and then you work off it from there, sort of thing.
SPEAKER_09:Yeah. You remember, so for the for the average dude that's that's out in a tenor, yeah, I want to uh this this whole um as you were talking, it it um reminded me of a time that we had together. And it's a perfect illustration of what you what you should do in the wind and what we had to do with our shoot. You remember when we were at Kyle's uh from Brace Lake? Yeah, and we were so so just to set it up.
SPEAKER_07:Classic example here, yeah.
SPEAKER_09:We um we flew out to the Albion River. Albany. Albany. The Albany River, yeah, and we were fishing uh big Makokabaton, if I remember correctly. That's correct. Correct.
SPEAKER_02:That is correct, yep.
SPEAKER_09:And uh from where we were in our outpost camp, we we had to go from little Makoka Batten and go through a uh little wee shipball channel and then uh a reef. You remember when we went out into big Makoka Batten? Yep, remember well well. So we got out there with um with Kyle, the uh the the owner. Kyle Polski. Kyle Pol Polowski, and uh he uh he uh basically guided with us, and uh we were out with uh Vova. That was his first year of shooting. Yeah, yeah, Vova. Oh because that that day we got onto some decent fish, but and again, it it started out typical. We hear all of these stories about these massive walleye. Oh, yeah, all the stuff. Should have been here last week. Uh absolutely and we got out there and um it proved to be true. The first day we went out. Remember, we went to that big sandbar area and we were fishing all shallow. Yeah. Oh, yeah, the little current area. The current area up in that river. And and we never, I don't even think we caught a walleye up in there for the first day.
SPEAKER_07:No, up in that. We did, remember? We did, we caught some. We were we were found on big white swim baits, those five-inch swim baits that Kyle put us onto. And it was that it was that shallow shit, right? Really, really shallow. We found one little area in there when we started clocking them. Uh, you don't remember that.
SPEAKER_06:I can tell you don't remember that.
SPEAKER_09:No, I don't remember that. But what I do remember is the fishing being tough, and then and then you saying, Well, let's go to the because Kyle had talked about this shorelunge spot, and they called it, I forget what it was.
SPEAKER_07:Fish Island?
SPEAKER_09:Fish Island or Fish Factory or Walleye something. But it was a spot and he kind of described it as um uh being deeper, and so anyway, we we messed around in the shallow stuff, and you finally said, let's go deeper. And I was all in for that because I'm like I'm I'm used to fishing walleye, especially in the daytime in deeper water.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah, you're used to really deep walleye, yeah, like nobody else's deep deep walleye.
SPEAKER_09:Yeah, I'm I'm comfortable in you know, up to 60 feet, although we never really target walleye in 60 feet because it's just too hard on them.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah, if you're gonna keep them, that's fine.
SPEAKER_09:That's that's a different story. Yeah, um, but this wasn't that deep. We were talking like 25 feet. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And we got in there and and our boat leaked a little bit. Um we basically had a live well uh on the floor.
SPEAKER_06:You were putting a few in there, that's for sure.
SPEAKER_09:Um, and it was the day that we we were gonna do a shore lunch, and we went in there and uh we we hammered them deep. And then we did our shore lunch, and then we went back out in the afternoon, and the wind picked up, and a storm started to kind of brew, and Kyle said, Well, you know, uh we had talked to we went up to that one spot uh and fished there, got a got a couple. The far end? No, it was uh right just uh just past that shore close. Yeah, yeah. We just pass that shorelunch island area.
SPEAKER_07:But he gave us that waypoint or something.
SPEAKER_09:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then it started to kick up, and Volva was like, uh, uh, this is uh can't shoot. And and I'll give it to him.
SPEAKER_07:We were in a little tenor. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_09:Like, I mean, and it was uh it was in ideal conditions.
SPEAKER_07:Like I said earlier, sometimes you can't shoot in it, especially in little tinners.
SPEAKER_09:Yeah, so Kyle um said, Okay, well, why don't you jump in my boat, Vova, and I'll take you back. And and we stayed out and fished. Yeah. And we were in this little tenor, and again, like I mean, it it had a fairly solid leak.
SPEAKER_07:But it never. Oh, no, no, no.
SPEAKER_09:Yeah, we had to pull the plug several times every time we drove.
SPEAKER_07:You ever had wet feet pretty much that whole trip, let's just say.
SPEAKER_09:Oh, yeah. But the wind kicked up, a storm blew in, yeah, and at that point, we were probably in what do you think, two and a half foot rollers? Yeah, they were big.
SPEAKER_07:At least they were yeah, they were rocking.
SPEAKER_09:Yeah, it was it was uh it was rocking. So, like, I mean, there was no way that we were gonna be able to stand up to do anything. Nope. And it was too rough. Like, we had a, I don't remember what was on it, maybe 15 on it. Yeah, I think a small engine. Yeah. So there was no way we were gonna get on top of these waves to to drive on them. So we just said, you know what? Let's just troll.
SPEAKER_07:Troll the big water, yeah, open water, which I do a lot of that now lately. Like what well that last shoot, all good, we can get it on. Well, I caught one over 300 feet of water wall over top of it. So yeah, I do a lot of it now. So we just decided to hit the open water stuff in that wind.
SPEAKER_09:And we caught, and and half the time I didn't even have the engine in gear.
SPEAKER_07:No, we were drifting. We were just drifting. We were using we were drifting at one and a half, two mile an hour. That's how big the wind was.
SPEAKER_09:Absolutely. Yeah, dragging crystal minnows out the back. That's when those crystal minnows were new.
SPEAKER_07:That's right.
SPEAKER_09:I think that was the first shoots with them. Yeah, and uh dragging crystal minnows back uh behind, well, it was actually to the side of the boat. It worked out beautiful. Yeah, and uh we caught our biggest fish of the trip doing that.
SPEAKER_07:Oh my god, and we were shooting on our phones, and this was over 30 to 40 feet of water. We were we found the the magic number, and I can't remember what it was. We we had to go past 20 and 25, and then it was either 30, it was in the 30s because 40 was almost too deep. They weren't seen, there was a number there, I don't know why, but they were over top of that number, and we could we could see them everywhere else, but they just were biting in that one section. Yeah, we were drifting so those crystal minnow deep diver walleyes on a troll would go about 20 feet deep. You know, ish is what I've been finding. They're going, you can get them deeper if you work with a lighter line, et cetera. But what Steve and I were using there, I'd say we were probably running 15 feet-ish. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_09:Yeah, ish, maybe not even 30 feet of water.
SPEAKER_07:Over 30 feet. We're less uh less than halfway, maybe around halfway down the water column.
SPEAKER_09:Yeah. And they were coming up and cracking it. Yeah, they were easy. Or already suspended. Like I mean, oh that's what I mean.
SPEAKER_07:Sorry. Yeah, they were coming from behind, they weren't coming from the bottom, those are. I don't think we got them all suspended.
SPEAKER_09:And we had no live scope. We had uh we just had the uh traditional sonar, and that is a perfect example of sometimes when you don't have big equipment, uh, you don't have the trolling motor and the and um anchor mode and all of this other stuff. In a little boat, if it's too windy and you want to you want to brave the conditions, yeah, you want to stick with it, you gotta you gotta search for a way that is that uh is conducive, uh a way to fish that's conducive to the conditions that you're in. That's right. And that's all we could do. I remember you looked at me and said, Well, we might as well troll. I'm sure. Yeah, yeah, right? Yeah, and um, and that that's uh that's sometimes what you gotta do with the wind. Yeah, and again, you've got the the option to troll, just like the uh at the Lodge 88 trip that uh Dino and uh uh Anj and Nick and myself got back from. Yep. Um, there were a couple of guys, a group on the way out, who um and it and and we had Ange convinced before we left that this is gonna, there's gonna be two boats. We're fishing, we're fishing live bait, this is what we're doing. It's it's gonna be the segment is sponsored by God, creator of minnows and worms. We get off it. We get off the plane, we didn't even get off the dock, and there was a group of guys heading out, and um, everybody there recognized us, which was cool because yeah, and um the one group uh the fella came up, he says, Oh, how you doing? Nice to nice to meet you, Ang, and Angie introduces me because nobody recognizes me.
SPEAKER_07:Well, the odd you know the good-looking girls seem to recognize you. I don't know, I don't know. Well, it's not fair.
SPEAKER_09:They used to until Dean started.
SPEAKER_06:And now Nick stealed them all. So there you go.
SPEAKER_09:It's just a vicious circle. Yeah, it is a vicious circle. But um, he pulled out his phone and started showing us pictures of you know, 28 inch, 30-inch walleye, and and probably half a dozen of them. And you know, like I mean, all of a sudden now we're we're we're we're God has gone out the window. Our our life comes back into the game. Oh, absolutely, 100%. But this is another another testament to conditions. When those guys were trolling, it was two degree mornings, ten degree afternoons, yeah, overcast, rain, wind, and to the point where when I asked him, because I'm listening now, yeah, yeah. I see these fish, yeah, yes, and I'm at and and I'm listening to all the information that Ang is getting, and then picking up on things that I did that I want to know, but didn't hear. One of them was uh how fast are you going? So I asked the fella, how fast were you trolling? And he said, Well, he said, I don't know. He's the he said, uh, and and I mentioned as slow as your motor would go because they're they're 13 tillers. Yeah and he said, Well, no, he said we had I had to give it a little bit of gas to get up the wave and then get off the gas when we come down the wave. Uh yeah. So you know, there were significant waves and cold. Yeah. And all of the pictures were, you know, they were in winter gear. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_07:And we get during a warm front right before that, too.
SPEAKER_09:Right, yeah. J right before we got there. Yeah. Our first day it was like 25 degrees, and the water was flatter than piss on a pile. Oh but we and the Ange and and Nick, they pulled Yo Zuri's the whole trip. Well, good for them. Yeah. They stuck with it. They stuck with it. Now the fishing was the fishing was tough that week. Yeah. Right? Yeah. And you know what? Shit happens with the weather. I um over the over the years at the lodge, you know, I when I used to go to places, I used to, I, I would cringe when the the owner of the establishment would say, Oh, wow, last week, boys, you're in for a good week. Last week was on fire. Yeah. You know, but the weather's changing. Oh, we got it. You know, the weather's changing. You know how much we get that.
SPEAKER_07:Oh, I know. All the time. Just like that Lodge 88 trip. Yeah. Yeah. This is what we did uh two days ago, quarter yesterday. What can what can you do? Uh, you know.
SPEAKER_09:Yeah. And there were there were days like that at Chaudiere. Don't get me wrong.
SPEAKER_07:You're on defensing in the French River, which is a long open stretch of a water uh uh or wind tunnel, basically. You know what I mean? That's yeah. I've been there on that water too, and that is nasty. Oh, yeah. The uh another example on this last shoot, the first shoot of this trip, the Wawa shoot, uh Hawk uh Hawk Junction shoot, Airedale, Airedale. The last day um Steve and Dean were in the big print trap, and I was in a little tenner again uh as a lodge boat, a camp boat with a tiller, and the wind was scheduled to be huge. And I said, Boys, I can't go the direction you're going because I will just get killed down there. There's no way I'll get back. Yeah, I would have gone annihilated. So I says, I'm going up wind to the lee side, wherever I can get protection from, and I'm gonna look around there for some small because we hadn't even looked at that side of the side. No, it was the last day of the trip. My first trip up there ever. And I went over and I looked at a bunch of riprap, uh, um rip wrap because there's dams there. Uh so they make these riprap banks that are perfect because they're nice and high and a big windbreaker. Go ahead.
SPEAKER_09:Rip wrap is just is just screens full of big rock.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah, it's not even screens, it's just open. It's just a big wall made of rock. It's man-made. That's what they call it. Rip wrap. I don't know where where that name came from. I call it riff rap, and then when I was doing an uh an on-camera segment accidentally, I didn't mean to do it. I said, Oh wait, rip caught. Anyway, so I was felt I went along all these walls. I was live scoping too, of course. Um I mean, we take advantage of our tools looking for activity, looking for fish. But quite honestly, um, I was working along and the wind got stronger and stronger and stronger in this little tinner. And the the protected rip rap area was all I could basically, if I was gonna find fish, it kind of had to be in there. But I went through all this rip rap and then I finally got to the end of the almost to the end of one rip, and there was a an opening. So it wasn't big, a man-made channel going into another area, not big, yeah, maybe uh 50, 100 feet long, uh widening.
SPEAKER_09:Yeah, not even 50, maybe.
SPEAKER_07:And then and then another rip-rap bank, it's a mouth of a little rip rap, uh uh a hole in the rip rap dam, or whatever you want to call it. And um, and I cracked a smallmouth on a rock that was beside the riprap. It wasn't part of the riprap, it was like a big natural boulder, um, not in the channel, so a boulder wouldn't hit it. I said I cracked a smallmouth really quick. No, I know it was the tip of it came out of the water. Oh, okay. The waves were bad, and it was this opening, the wave, the wind was ripping through this opening, but I was in the protected right beside it. And I caught a small thing real quick and I said, ah, okay. So from then on, light bulb. Yeah, from then on, I went around. I tried more right there, and I couldn't get anything. So I went around that one single rock, and on that right hand side, picture me looking to the two rock walls with the you know, this in this opening, and I caught, I don't know how many small moths I caught in that little spot right there up. Right in the opening. On the what right side of that opening, I had one bite on the left side, which is exactly the same, but the wind must have been hitting it differently. But on the right hand side, I put the boat, the tinner, uh, I'd back troll or well, I just hold myself, I bring it up with the back with the motor in reverse, and the waves were hitting the trans and boom, boom, boom, boom. And I, if I got a fish, by the time I landed it, I was halfway down the lake, I'd have to come back up. That's how much the wind was. You know what I mean? But that's you know, that's what you got to do, is kind of deal with the wind. And those fish were definitely using that wind on that day in that spot for whatever reason. I think it was crayfish. Uh because they were spurting up crayfish, but I don't know if the other side didn't have crayfish or not. But whatever the reason, the the I caught the fish there, and that's I just stuck with it until I couldn't catch anymore. You know what I mean? I cycled through some baits, and then finally I said, Boys, I think I'm done here. That's when you guys come along, and we moved back to the other rip rap and couldn't find anything else. I said, That's a that's a wrap, boys. Let's go. Yeah. So but I used the wind, you know, the wind told me where those fish were, and then I tried to use the boat as best I could. No live scope on that one. I have to say, I was uh I did not need live scope whatsoever on that. I just you know just ran on instinct and cast to where I thought the fish were, and it was and it worked out.
SPEAKER_09:So but it was wind for sure. On that same day, Dean and I, we were lucky enough to have the uh the big rig, the Princecraft. Yeah, uh it's got the 250 on it, it's a 2021 almost footer.
SPEAKER_07:Yes, 21, uh 20 and a half, yep.
SPEAKER_09:20 and a half, yeah. Um, and it and and we've got all the bells and whistles, especially the anchor, you know, that cracking mode with the anchor mode. Oh my god, I'm gonna go. Such a game changer. I love that boat. It's fairly similar. I run um I run um a um Altera uh with the it's got the same stuff. Yeah, they run they call it spot lock, right?
SPEAKER_07:Spot lock.
SPEAKER_09:Yeah, on the Ming Code.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_09:But uh I'm buying a Kraken. Oh, they're such a nice like I I've got an old art Altera, one of the first generation where they where they have the self-deploy, right? Which is nice, but when it when it messes up, you're screwed. You're you're yeah, you're done, right? So but I uh that Kraken's a beast. Kraken was a beast. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_07:They have the the new, by the way, the force is their new force pro. It's got the same features as the Kraken, but it's just on the Bas Bowl Hound style, too. Oh, yeah. That's a new one too.
SPEAKER_09:So yeah, well, and the remote control I find is a lot more intuitive. Now, I'm comparing the remote control from the Minkoda from you know 10 years ago compared to today. Yeah, but the jog uh options on that five feet left, five feet right, ten feet ahead, ten feet back, are were ridiculous.
SPEAKER_07:Now, do you know that? So pitch her across, everybody listening, pitcher across. Steve says you're on a you're looking straight down at your boat from above on a drone, let's say, five feet forward. But so if you want to go between the two, angle, angle like that, you go one, two forward, one two side, and it goes like that. Yeah, sideways. Like that's that's how good these things are.
SPEAKER_09:So like it takes you on a 45 or whatever you want to do. Really? Yeah. I wondered because I was doing that. Like I tried to go up and then go over like that. I was doing it at the same time, expect expecting it to go in an L shape. No, no, but it does that right now. Oh, really? Yeah, yeah. Well, it always got me to the right spot. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Right? Because now, this is this is uh an aside from the point I will make in a minute about what we learned. But um, when you have that live scope and you can see a school of fish, the live scope is telling you how far away they are, right? So you you can you point the live scope at your fish, which is a fairly thin slice of the water column from from uh top to bottom. Yes, and it'll tell you, okay, I see I see a school of walleye uh 30 feet um and in whatever direction you're pointing. So then at that point, you can go to your your um kraken and your remote, and you can say, okay, so I'm pointing uh at two o'clock, so I need to go up um 10 feet and over 30 feet, and I'll be right on top of them. And you press up twice and over three times, and boom, you're right there. Yeah, it's crazy.
SPEAKER_07:That's awesome, it's a great feature. I use both. I use the foot pedal and the hand control uh uh always. So when I'm on my boat, I gotta I gotta force on my boat with the same remote. Yeah, and although I don't use the remote much, the jog feature is what I use it for. Once I anchor, then I start using the remote. When I'm not anchored, then I just use the foot pedal. I love the foot pedal on that.
SPEAKER_09:Well, on this last couple of days, when when I'm when I fished Porcupine Lake in Timmins, um, I was using the foot pedal and the remote. And um great, eh? Yeah. The two of them are great. In my boat, uh, you know, it's older technology. I gotta pull the foot pedal out and set it on the deck and you know, uh hook it up, and it and and it's not as comfortable. It's wired as well. It's wired.
SPEAKER_07:These ones, the the Garmin foot pedals are cable. Either you can wire it if you want for power only, yeah. But otherwise you can run two double A's and they last all year. Right on anywhere you want to be wireless, yeah.
SPEAKER_09:Wireless. Yeah.
SPEAKER_08:When you're in the wilds of northwestern Ontario, you need gear you can trust and a team that's got your back. That's Lakeside Marine in Red Lake, Ontario. Family owned since 1988.
SPEAKER_05:Hi, everybody. I'm Angela Violet. You might know us as the host of Canada's favorite fishing show, but just now we're hosting a podcast, and that's right every Thursday.
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SPEAKER_05:Now, what are we gonna talk about for two hours of repeat?
SPEAKER_07:Well, you know there's gonna be a lot of fishing.
SPEAKER_01:I knew exactly where those fish were going to be about and when they were easy to be done.
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SPEAKER_09:What we learned that day, Dean and I had been out and uh found a spot. Actually, uh it was um Jesse, the guide. Yes. Uh, and Jesse took us out, uh, the three of us, and kind of took us on a a bit of a uh milk run of uh and he showed us a bunch of his spots to give us an idea of where to go. And um that mor uh the day before our last day, we had gone out to check out one spot for walleye. And then off the actually, to be honest with you, we were looking for Lakers. Um, but I I had a feeling that they weren't Lakers.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_09:But um Dino um um wanted to go and it was a great, it's a great spot. It's a that hump out in the middle of the channel. Oh, yeah, I remember it. You remember the community that not the the the one for the long faces? They've got a spot, Jesse says, this is where we bring people with long faces because you catch a hundred fish, but they're all babies. Yes. But this was a different, yeah. This was a different hump, and it topped out in about 30 feet of water and then dropped right off into it, might have been might have been shallower than that, maybe 16 feet of water, but it dropped right into 60, 70 feet of water around it. We headed out there that first morning all excited to get to that spot, and um, there were three boats sitting on top of it. Yeah. But there was a spot on the point leading out to that hump that we had marked, and nobody was there. And Dino and I pulled up on that spot, and there were tons of fish. The graph, the like I mean, the traditional sonar, the live scope, the side scan, my spidey senses, everything lit up on fire.
SPEAKER_07:I pulled up, I pulled up on these guys so that I realized I pulled up on Dean and Steve one day to say, What are you on to, boys? And I looked down and said, Holy shit, what what are you on to? My traditional was covered on you guys from 40 to 60 feet deep, they were just loaded. Yeah. Go ahead, it was just loaded, yeah.
SPEAKER_09:But we couldn't find any fish that were in shallow water. Right, right. They were all in deep to the tune of you know 40 to 50 feet. And um Dino was all cranked. He's like, oh fuck, certain Lakers for sure. Because Dean's the resident lake trout um fanatic. Yeah. And I said, I don't, I don't know. And I said, I hope so. I hope so. Oh no. And Dean, and uh, I was using Lidebait because I had a feeling they were walleye. And um Dean dropped down his Laker uh, well, his bass lure Laker jobby, which is a uh Yozuri one knock. And to to give you an idea of what it looks like, it's a rattle bait. It's like uh it's like a rattle trap. You know the old rattle traps? Exactly. Yeah. Anyway, and he dropped it down, and uh Dean's been fishing lake trout with that rattle bait, that uh Yozuri one knock um vertically. He's got uh lead uh lead wire wrapped around the the hooks and uh and another uh uh stick-on lead uh piece on the belly of this bait so that it's heavier so it drops straight down in deep waters.
SPEAKER_07:Yes, give it weight. It's down quicker, that's all.
SPEAKER_09:Yeah. And he dropped this thing down, and I'm fishing my live bait, and I'm you know, not much is going on. And uh all of a sudden on the on the scope, Dean's got her going. And Dean is a master at running that scope. He, you know, you see the fish react to it, and he plays cat and mouse with it. Well, he hammered uh probably the nicest walleye of the trip, doing that on that first drop, thinking it was a lake trout. And when it came up, it was a walleye. It's like, oh my god, I can't believe how deep that walleye was. And um and anyway, we uh Dino did an awesome on camera, dropped it down, and now I'm thinking, all right, these are walleye. I'm gonna turn this on. That's my game. I got live bait here. I'm gonna, I had worms, and I had the green light. I had the green light to use the live bait. So I dropped my jig. I'm fishing, I'm working these walleye, and they wouldn't eat it, they wouldn't eat live bait. Dean kicked the shit out of me to the point where I put down worms and minnows to pick up a rattle bait to try to catch these fish. And I did. I caught a few on the rattle bait and everything else. Oh, that's awesome. So we moved off that spot, and this is the day prior to our last day, which was really windy. Today, not so much, wasn't windy. We we toured around after that. We kept looking for lake drought, but had no success. Come back in, made our plans for the for the last day because of the wind. You went to the um area. To the dam area. We went back to our hot spot. Yeah. And first thing in the morning, it was breezy when we left. And in the morning, it doesn't, if it's breezy in the morning, folks, that means you're usually screwed. You're euchred. Yeah, because rarely does the wind die out as the day progresses. Sometimes there's the odd occasion, but not typically.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_09:By the time we got out to these fish on that same spot I was just talking about, there was two and a half foot waves. And on that big boat, and I gotta say, that Princecraft did do a good job in the waves. Yeah. Rick could shoot. It was sunny, it was fairly warm. Like, I mean, it wasn't cold, and um, but and the and the fish were there. There might have been more fish there, but the rattle didn't work. I dropped the rattle down because live bait didn't work yesterday, so why would it work today?
SPEAKER_02:Yep, yep.
SPEAKER_09:Drop the rattle down, and usually on the live scope, you can watch your bait falling down to the fish and you see the fish react. Yes. These things might as well have been bricks. They did not a bit, they didn't react a bit. And um, so I said, okay, well, that's good. It's uh this is my game. I we're good. Back into the live bait again. Right in the big, yep, right into the live bait. And I put a 3/8 ounce uh jig and a minnow, dropped it down, nothing. And Dean's still fishing with the uh rattle. So, and I fished live the the minnow for, I don't know, solid half an hour. And the thing is with LiveScope, it's not you're you're never second guessing whether the fish are there. You know the fish are there, yeah, right? There's no excuse. So I decided, okay, I don't have all the rods that I want set up. So I took a uh 15-minute break, had a cigar, and I tied up a drop shot. I tied up um a um uh well, I call it a Pat's rig because Pat used to use them all the time with uh with guests. Uh and it's just uh uh Carolina, so it's a it's a weight on your line, you tie a swivel on it to stop the weight, and then a leader off the swivel, and then that swivel will slide on your line just with a with a uh bear hook. And I I tied one of those up, and I tied, um, I tied up uh I took the three-eighths ounce jig and went down to a quarter ounce jig. So I downsized and and went more finesse on three separate rigs, and we spent another hour as the wind is building to the point where the kraken was holding us in the wind because when you hit anchor mode on a trolling motor, always it points directly into the wind. It has to change.
SPEAKER_07:Laws of physics.
SPEAKER_09:Yes. So we speared a wave with the trolling motor, and the and and it was popping up, and you could hear the the the actual prop of the motor going and I looked at Rick and I knew that Rick wasn't very happy with the conditions, but he was a trooper. Yeah, yeah, so and on our podcast, I give Rick credit for it. But I said, we something this isn't working. We can't do this, we can't shoot. If we get one on, you know, we can't shoot. Yeah. So Dean and I sat down and looked and hashed it out, and we found right around the corner from this spot, and by looking at the map on the um uh on the Garmin unit, you can get a sense for where you're sitting and where the wind is coming from. And there was a spot round the corner that the wind should have been coming straight over the top of the hill, so we were in the the direct lee of the wind. Yeah now on this lake, and especially lakes up in that area, you know, um uh Timmins, all the way up to um to uh Cochrane uh and beyond, up to uh the a lot of these lakes are in uh the Canadian Shield and have very high walls. Yeah. And the wind will funnel.
SPEAKER_07:Yes, like a big wind tunnel.
SPEAKER_09:It's it's a wind tunnel. But we left our beautifully sunny, warm-ish wind spot, went round the corner, and it wasn't very far. It might have been, you know, half a kilometer away. Right, right. And it was still windy, but it was definitely fishable. But we were in the shade. We were on a um uh a rock face. Actually, it was another waypoint he gave us. Um, I don't know if you remember, there was one big boulder on the uh shoreline. He said, I troll from here to the mouth of that bay.
SPEAKER_06:No, I don't know. I didn't hear much what he said that yeah, Jesse.
SPEAKER_09:Jesse. And Barb, his wife, what a beauty. The desserts she made were ridiculous. And she's gonna be uh, she's uh gonna be um managing the lodge next year.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah, look out to all the guests.
SPEAKER_09:Oh my Airedale Lodge. That is a um, I don't want to say up and coming, but they uh they really have a beautiful facility. And um listen, if the food is any even half as good as what we experienced next year, my God. But anyway, that's beside the point. We come around the corner, into the shade, into less wind, on a rock face, and drop down that live bait and lit it on fire. Isn't that crazy? Yep, from from that school that was sitting out in in 40 feet of water, 40 to 50 feet of water, we could not, we couldn't even get them to move. I think, I think my weight hit one on the top of the head and rolled off the side of the fish, and it still didn't move to going around the corner into conditions that are just a little bit different, right? It's not two and a half foot waves, right? And and there's and it and I don't even know if there was an we were far enough away from the point that there was no eddy. You know how when on a point it'll it'll the the wind will create a current, yep, and then it'll eddy and drop shit right there. Yeah, and slack and slack water. We were away from that, and we were in about 30 to 35 feet, so it was a little shallower, but they still didn't go in 30 30 feet around the corner. And there was no question. You couldn't you couldn't drop your line without getting hit. Wow. Whether you caught them, whether you didn't, and they were decent, like they were good eaters, 14s to you know, maybe, maybe 16s were the biggest on that at that point. Now, the other spot the day before, Dean's big one was 25. Yeah, 24, 25.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_09:Right? There's big, there's big fish there.
SPEAKER_07:But again, we did notice that too. Remember, I told you that island spot? Yeah, because we're always thinking walleye are are so wind-oriented, that's a walleye chop and all that. Yeah, maybe it's these types of lakes, these, you know, uh are they uh oligotrophic or eutrophic? I think it's a eutrophic lake.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_07:Um maybe because I found them in behind this in the behind an island where I thought it'd be the last place I'd find walleye. Same thing as you had 30 feet of water. There was a school of about a dozen walleye. Boom, boom, boom, they were cracking it. It was the only protected spot I could fish. It was behind the island, because otherwise I couldn't fish it. And I said, Wow, this is crazy. So maybe uh maybe there's something to do with those lakes or that the bait or but that calm water, that's a you know, something we always learn stuff, right? And that's one of the things I learned on this trip too.
SPEAKER_09:So yeah, yeah, it was it, and it would, it was such a an inconspicuous-looking spot. Yes, they always are that if Jesse hadn't dropped a waypoint on it that first day and said, I sometimes troll here, and and folks, we weren't trolling. We we we were actually scoping and dropping on schools. I would have never stopped. Yeah, and even on traditional, it was it the it the one thing that I'm learning having live scope and traditional side by side, and this was another great example up there. Um, traditional sometimes doesn't pick up the fish, or there's confusing looking shit on the sonar that you're not sure if it's a fish. It looks a little wispy, it looks a little this. Yeah. Um, these fish that we were fishing on scope in that spot in the shade and in the lee of the wind, we weren't seeing well on traditional sonar. Really? Yeah, yeah. And another phenomenon on that lake that Dean and I run into, we started calling the mushroom caps. Because you know, up on the up on the end where the uh the river, that beautiful waterfall is where you cracked out those fish and that one day. Yeah, at the far end. On traditional, because I like to drive with uh the big motor with the traditional on. And I and and you know, even before I drop the uh the live scope, I'll I'll search with traditional and look for, especially with walleye. With walleye and in deeper water, you know, 15 feet and deeper. I'll just leave the traditional on. And as we're pulling into an area, you know, get the auto right set up so I'm I'm recording the bottom on on a even on lakes that are mapped, which this one was, it was not even close.
SPEAKER_07:Oh no, you gotta record your own if you can.
SPEAKER_09:Yeah. Set that up, leave the traditional on, even before you get to the bow and and look for schools of of um of fish. Well, I marked some racker jack schools of like three and four big hooks. And on traditional, you know, you get you get the hook. Uh looks like a um uh banana, upside down banana. Yeah, exactly. And uh these hooks, Peter, were the classic, perfect hook. And there was they were usually in groups of two or three.
SPEAKER_07:Yep.
SPEAKER_09:And I thought, oh my god. Um and I'm marking them. Merc, Merck. We do, and this was when we were first scoping around, and we hadn't even wet a line on day one. Yeah, and uh, I'm like, oh my god, Dean, this looks really good. We are in the big fish. So anyway, we get everything kind of mapped out enough that I'm confident to drive the boat around a little bit, drop this the trolling motor, drop the scope, go back to the mark on the scope, and we're looking, looking, looking, looking, looking. And there's these weird things on the on the bottom that aren't fish. Like they kind of look like fish, they look like mushrooms, you know, a nice fish blob on the on the scope. They were there were beautiful blobs, but then when you adjust the scope to to to scope it a little bit, all of a sudden you'd see them connected to the bottom, attached, just attached a little bit.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_09:And we're like, God, that's weird. And I and and I wasn't marked because we were scoping them in front, the transducer for the traditionals in the back. Yeah, I'm not I'm like, I'm not seeing these fish, right? Well, as the week went on, we had probably, if not a dozen, pretty damn close to a dozen occasions where I'd be like, whoa, we gotta stop here on the traditional, and then turn around and sculpt the spot and find these mushroom-looking structures on the bottom.
SPEAKER_07:Were they stumps?
SPEAKER_09:Well, they could have been, but at the top end? Is it up at the top?
SPEAKER_07:Everywhere.
SPEAKER_09:Well, from the dam to the top end.
SPEAKER_07:Okay.
unknown:Okay.
SPEAKER_09:From the dam to the top end.
SPEAKER_07:I don't I noticed stumps at the top.
SPEAKER_09:Indeed. Some of them were in like 30 feet. Yeah. Yeah. Right? Yeah. And without the live scope to confirm that, yeah, no, those things are kind of connected to the bottom. I don't know what they are. You thought they were fish, right? Dude, I would have spent hours on them. Why aren't these fish biting? Yeah, no kidding. Right? Why aren't these throwing marker buoys out all over the place? But no. Yeah, wind and conditions, brother.
SPEAKER_07:That's uh for sure. Those are and then, you know, like I'm not when I said wind is your friend and when it's great for fishing, and that I'm not saying the calm conditions aren't good because, well, up at that sunken dam.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_07:Oh, go look at the walleye and the pike. We got that in that uh kidcom.
SPEAKER_09:That's gonna be the best. That sequence. That sequence, yeah. Yeah, folks, uh, we're not gonna get into it because we're running a little short on time, but you have to watch the um the Airedale episode of the Fish in Canada television show uh coming up. Uh it's gonna air between January and March, sometime in there at uh eight o'clock, Saturday mornings, Global Television Network, or our YouTube channel to see this. Yeah, and I'm gonna tell you it was a team effort and it was a gorgeous, gorgeous pike, and that's all I'm gonna tell you.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah, it was it was very unique. It's never been done on the Fishing Canada show before, that's for sure.
SPEAKER_06:And we had a great laugh out of the half of each, that's for sure. It was the best.
SPEAKER_07:I hope it I hope when we go back to the look at the footage, Dean and I this week, it turned out as much as we think it turned out, you know what I mean? If it did, we got we got gold on camera there.
SPEAKER_09:Oh, for sure. Yeah, it was funny, but yeah, you know, conditions as anglers, I think we have predisposed thoughts in our mind about what conditions we like because you remember the conditions that you were successful in. Yeah, you remember those conditions, but it's about it's more about getting out as often as you can, even when the weather isn't perfect. Now you gotta be you gotta be mindful of actually crossing that line where where it might not be quite safe. Right.
SPEAKER_02:That's right, that's a big one.
SPEAKER_09:Because and uh I we just had this converse, I had this conversation, well, we did really, with uh my son Rayburn, who's uh a muskie fanatic, and uh he wants to go to the cottage this weekend by himself and fish. Now he's 20, right? But the rule is you go with you go with somebody else, number one. And if and if you don't, you have to have to have to have to have to wear your life jacket. Like you gotta wear your life jacket.
SPEAKER_07:So anyway, um he's it's a shame you have to say that because really you should wear it all the time. All the time. Well, we get that people don't want to wear it, yeah. Umbersome, whatever. Yeah, yeah. I'm not gonna tell everybody what to do, but it'd be nice if everybody wore PFTs, it'd be a lot less depth.
SPEAKER_09:Well, you know what? I gotta admit, until the Fish in Canada television show, I didn't wear one all the time. Me too. Me, too, buddy.
SPEAKER_07:Fish in Canada taught me.
SPEAKER_09:Yes, they're expensive. I just actually I'm buying one for Rayburn for his birthday, so he has it. But the the Mustangs or the uh Hallie Heli Hansen uh Auto Deploy's any of those auto deploy life jackets that um you throw on and you see the they're the the the ones that you wear on your chest. They're they're vertical, um tiny little vests. Tiny little vests.
SPEAKER_07:They look like a vest.
SPEAKER_09:Now that now that we get in the boat for these shoots, it's second nature. I don't even know, I I don't even realize I have it on half the time.
SPEAKER_07:That's so true. You get used to everybody's there, right?
SPEAKER_09:So anyway, the point is get out and fish as often as you can because if you can figure it out, I have no doubt that they bite. Pat, oh yeah, Pat has told me on many occasions with muskies he loves an east wind.
SPEAKER_07:I I have heard that with Pat.
SPEAKER_09:And he loves an East Wind in particular because he's fished so much there's a structural situation out on out on the river where an east wind affects what goes on. And um you don't catch a whole lot at this spot, but when you do, they're the biggest fish that that he's ever caught. And it's and it's always on an east wind.
SPEAKER_07:Not funny.
SPEAKER_09:And an east wind is, you know, the old adage is when the the wind is from the east, the fishing's at its least.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_09:And uh and a lot of times it proves out that way.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah, many times it does, but you can't bank on that either, right? So you gotta think poor people have most people, unfortunately, have only one day a week to go fishing. It's either a Saturday or a Sunday because that next day off you want to spend your family or whatever. So most people have one day a week, and it's set uh, you know, so if it's windy that day, you gotta deal with it, right?
SPEAKER_09:Come hell or high water, we're going fishing, baby. Yeah, and you know what? That that's a good thing. And and you should value the time that you're not catching fish as much as the time that you are. Because if if you can uh use that mindset and learn from what goes on on the days that you're not catching, sometimes that's as valuable as the information that you get when you are catching. Yep, yep. But the key to the key to that is um is uh is something that uh the best angle and I'm I'm guilty of not doing it, but I should. But the best anglers in the world, they they use a diary and they write all of that information down.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_09:And they do it daily.
SPEAKER_07:Yep.
SPEAKER_09:Right? And um every trip.
SPEAKER_07:All every detail absolutely, yeah.
SPEAKER_09:All conditions will set up for a wonderful day in the outdoors.
SPEAKER_07:Because then you'll remember your those east winds that work well, yeah. And uh yeah, northeast. I've had some cracker days on largemouth, you know, in the fall, and a nasty northeast wind that you think, why am I even out here? Yeah, and I'm still on largemouth. If you can catch 15 fish in one spot, like boom, boom, as soon as it hits the water. So, you know, sometimes it just goes against the rules, but you can't you can't use the water. But who made the rules? Yeah, you can't use that. You have to, if you've got an east wind and you gotta deal with it, you want to go fishing, you go fishing and you try and do the best you can. The one point I'll make though is that when things are bad, let's just say you're on Lake X and everybody says the fishing's really good on Lake S and X in this area, and you go there, oh it sucks. It doesn't mean it sucks that one day. That's the bad part about it. It's if you if you only get to a spot once a year, you might never go back there again. You know what I mean? So I'm not sure you're you could be excluding some good fishing too, right? So that those bad days are you learn them on them, but sometimes you learn something good. It's very hard.
SPEAKER_09:It really is. I've that's that's another thing that I've learned, um, especially since I've started shooting with you guys. Um fishing with the with that kind of when you put pressure on yourself, number one.
SPEAKER_07:Oh my god.
SPEAKER_09:Fishing becomes um a very humbling experience.
SPEAKER_07:It doesn't ever.
SPEAKER_09:And um if you if you if you let that get to you, um it it's it's gonna hinder you from learning. It it might even turn you off fishing, but you can't let it get to you. Don't you just stick with it? The best, like I mean, the best guys, and and I've seen a lot from the perspective of a lodge owner through my guides, through guiding, through now shooting TV shows. Yeah, there are days where you just don't figure it out. Absolutely. Like you just don't figure it out. And maybe there's nothing there to figure out. Who knows? Yeah, right. That's a good point. So you you you you take it with a grain of salt, smile, give yourself a high five in the mirror next morning before you try it again, and uh get out there and do it.
SPEAKER_07:You think uh if you think a Kevin Blandam in the Bass World has got the perfect day every day, you're wrong. He's got bad days just like you do out in the water when you have a bad day. So yeah, we all do.
SPEAKER_09:So well, on that note, Peter, Stephen, thank you very much. I really, really, really appreciate it. It's been too long since we've done this.
SPEAKER_07:You have got a captive guest right now. I can't go anywhere. I'm just I'm stuck in this truck with you. So you know wonder, you're good, man.
SPEAKER_09:I I saw my mic. Oh, yeah. I uh I learned.
SPEAKER_06:It was fun, buddy. I love it. I love these trips with you and Dino and Ans and Nick and everybody together and Rick or Boba or whatever it's for camel.
SPEAKER_07:We have yeah, I I enjoy these trips a lot. So uh yeah, it's work, but it's it's play too. So well thanks for having me on the podcast again, buddy. No problem. Do it again sooner.
SPEAKER_09:Absolutely. I'll tell you, you mentioned you you love these trips. I've never had shorter 20-hour drives in a vehicle.
SPEAKER_06:That's right. Like this right now.
SPEAKER_07:We just did we just sucked up a nice little hour-ish or something like that. It felt like five minutes, right?
SPEAKER_09:Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_07:And I'm thinking, why are we in it so quick? But you're right, we have to end.
SPEAKER_09:Yeah, you got it. And listen, folks, thank you so much for listening to this point. I really appreciate it and love getting your feedback. Uh, you can uh get me at steve.n at fishingcanada.com. Uh, tell me what you like. If you've got any ideas for topics, always shoot them over. Or guests, if you know any awesome uh guests that uh that think you think you would love to hear from on diaries, uh send me their information.
SPEAKER_07:If you think Pete Bowman's a deckhead, then yeah, let him not too.
SPEAKER_09:I want to hear about Peter. Sorry, buddy, I interrupted you. No, that's okay. That's what you're good at, Peter. Interrupted. Yeah, yeah. You'll be the first one to give me shit for it, I'll tell you that.
SPEAKER_06:Hey, we're then on a quick note, okay. On a quick note for the audience, okay.
SPEAKER_07:I am, I should be called Peter the Interrupter because when Stephen gets talking to somebody, I am telling you you have to tie a rope around his ankle and pull him in like a calf roping contest, because otherwise he won't stop. You have to interrupt this guy when he's talking to somebody.
SPEAKER_06:So I'll leave it at that. I love people. I know you do.
SPEAKER_09:Especially when they recognize me. Exactly.
SPEAKER_06:I get you. I get you. You just don't know when to tap out. That's all.
SPEAKER_09:Well, you know, sometimes. Sometimes. Anyways, I'm fine, buddy. And uh listen, head on over to fishingcanada.com for all that good stuff that we talk about on your podcast. The uh shirts and the sweaters and all of the uh good stuff in our e-commerce side of the website.
SPEAKER_07:You can go to shopping.fishingcanada.com as well for that. So either way, fishingcanada.com or shopping.fishing canada.com.
SPEAKER_09:There you go. Or just Google. ShoppyFishing Canada. Why not? Google machine should get you there. Absolutely. And uh Lakeside Marine in Red Lake, Ontario. Thank you. You guys are awesome. And and guys, the service up there is second to none. If you're ever in that area, drop in, say hello, tell them Steve sent you. And uh always thank you. And Nixon, if you're out there listening, night night, little buddy. This brings us to the conclusion of another episode of Diaries of a Lodge Owner, Stories of the North.
SPEAKER_10:I'm a good old boy, never meaning no harm. I'll be the whole you ever saw been reeling in the hog since the day I was born. Bendin' my rug, spent in my life. Someday I might on 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 plows. While I'm a good old boy, I bought a lodge and live my dream. And now I'm here talking about how life can be as good as it seems. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Back in 2016, Frank and I had a vision to amass the single largest database of musky angling education material anywhere in the world.
SPEAKER_03:Our dream was to harness the knowledge of this amazing community and share it with passionate anglers just like you.
SPEAKER_04:Thus, the Ugly Pike Podcast was born and quickly grew to become one of the top fishing podcasts in North America.
SPEAKER_03: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_04: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. Subscribe now and never miss a moment of our angling adventures.
SPEAKER_03:Tight lines, everyone.
SPEAKER_04:Find Ugly Pike now on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever else you get your podcasts.
SPEAKER_00: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 Olette, and I was honored 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. 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. 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.