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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 119: First Season At Two Rivers Lodge
A northern lodge season can turn on a single moment: a kid’s jig drops to a LiveScope mark and a 41.5-inch pike surges from the deep. We ride that energy across a year of big fish, bigger decisions, and the quiet math of winter planning that keeps a remote camp alive. Willie the Oil Man joins us for a no-filter catch-up on Two Rivers Lodge—what worked, what broke, and what we learned while chasing muskies in 55-degree water, stacking 100-walleye days a mile from the dock, and filming fly anglers who make a boatside figure-eight look like art.
We dig into the nuts and bolts of remote operations: mapping safe ice around current to tow 500s and drums, cutting barge runs with smart logistics, and leaning on customer-first partners who keep fleets humming. On the water, we talk fly fishing for trophy pike with Orvis talent, boatside eats, and the patient mechanics of a cast that becomes a strip and then a perfect figure-eight. Off the water, we take cabins from good to elite by following one rule—every arrival should feel brand new—and back it up with professional visuals that finally match the experience.
The wilds push back too. We break down a bull moose encounter at ten feet, deer that treat town like a buffet, and coyotes smart enough to lure dogs. Most importantly, we walk through Ontario’s Bear Wise protocol step by step—who to call, what to report, and how to act when a bear turns from curious to dangerous. It’s a frank look at safety, responsibility, and the judgment that keeps guests protected without grandstanding. We wrap with show circuit plans, rehab progress, and some pure fan joy—Bills Mafia highs and Blue Jays postseason grit—because up here, community matters as much as any catch.
If this story from the North hooked you, follow the show, share it with a friend who loves wild places, and leave a quick review. Your support helps more anglers and adventurers find their way to the lodge.
We have good fishing at Nordic. Um, we have good fishing at Lake of the Woods, there's good fishing all over here, but like I'm not like I used to talk about the muskie fishing up at my old place. It's like that for every species here. It's wild. I mean, it's nuts. Like we had multiple 40-inch pipe caught off the dock. Like off the and I didn't even have docks for the air. You know what I mean? Like it was like guests would like fish off the shore we eat to have dinner. And all of a sudden you hear someone screaming, and Adam's running down there because this guy's got a 42-incher on off the point, right? It's like, what's going on?
SPEAKER_07:This week on the Outdoor Journal Radio Podcast Networks, Diaries of a Lodge Owner, Stories of the North. We're heading back to the wild country where the lakes tell stories, and the bears sometimes try and write their own. It's a place where great company, cool mornings, and the sound of an outboard means you are right where you're supposed to be. And today we're catching up with our great friend, Willie the Oil Man. On this show, Willie and I talk about his first season at Two Rivers Lodge. We talk about the fishery and some familiar guests that came to visit, and how to handle the nuisance bears that always seem to show up when the stakes hit the grill. It's a classic northern ketchup, full of stories, lessons, and laughs from life at the lodge. So grab a pint, pull up a chair, and settle in. As we trade a few tales from the bush, swap a few tricks for keeping bears out of the camp, and celebrate the spirit of hard work and good humor. Because up here, the best stories aren't written, they're lived and then told one cast at a time. Here's my conversation with Willie the Oil Man. Welcome, folks, to another episode of Diaries of a Lodge Owner Stories of the North. And I am very excited. I'm always very excited in these uh situations, but this time we have a very familiar voice on the other end of the line. Welcome to Willy the Oil Man. Woo woo. Woo, woo, woo.
SPEAKER_09:Willy. What's going on, buddy? How you doing?
SPEAKER_07:No, not too much. Doing great. Doing great. I'm just uh, you know, it's been uh it's been a very busy last seven weeks, that's for sure. I've uh spent a lot of time on the road with the uh Fishing Canada crew and uh spent some time at the cottage working away up there, and uh, you know, I'm just home for a week and then going back to the cottage to chase some muskies.
SPEAKER_09:Nice, nice. Is that your your annual trip you do up there every year?
SPEAKER_07:Yeah. Nice. Yeah, nice.
SPEAKER_09:That's gonna be fun.
SPEAKER_07:That's gonna be uh it's gonna be a lot of fun.
SPEAKER_09:It's a lot warmer this year than it was last year and in previous years, from what I remember through our talking and friendships, I believe.
SPEAKER_07:Water for sure. Like, I mean, I was just talking to uh Kyle Guerron, a buddy of mine who's up there right now, and he was saying the water's like 55 degrees, which wow is pretty tough uh fishing for muskies at that uh water temperature, but they're they're managing. Yeah. So uh what's new with you, buddy? You're your your season is now uh uh found uh uh uh is complete.
SPEAKER_09:Yes. Season one in the books, Two Rivers Lodge. Nice, shut the door on it. Yeah, no, it was uh nothing, man. I've I've kind of been uh, you know, we were busy, busy, busy with the lodge. We got her shut down now. Um, you know, the normal stuff like we've talked about lots. The the um you know, blowing our lines down, getting all the taxidermy put away, cleaning up our cabins, getting our mattresses vertical, putting all the laundry away, all the kind of things that we have to do.
SPEAKER_07:Um did that take you?
SPEAKER_09:Uh this year it was pretty quick because we only had seven cabins up, right? So um in the main lodge, and we we had lots of help out there um with buddies, kind of local. That's the nice thing about this place now, is I'm so much closer to Kenora. So, like, yeah, if like example, you I mean, if you were in a around the area in Orangeville and I was 40 minutes away, I'd be like, Steve, what are you doing tonight? You want to give me a hand? And you know, it's like it's so fast for you to shoot up there, right? So yeah, that's awesome. Yeah, I just it was pretty much like an extended weekend. That was it. Um beautiful. I really didn't uh this year, I uh I wasn't really involved in in pulling out this year. I had my shoulder rebuilt here actually uh two weeks ago, two and a half weeks ago. I saw the pictures. Yeah, I didn't know like the bionic man. Right? Right. I'm 45 years old, I got a double knee replacement, now a shoulder done. Um I do not suggest working taking the pass that I was a young man, no. But yeah, so I was kind of laid up, and that's Adam's kind of department now, anyways. He's kind of takes care of the operational end, right? So um, yeah, he uh he got everything buttoned up. Um they're still fishing, like they're crazy, man. They'll fish, right? This Adam, my partner, will fish. Like, I'm like you, I'll fish cold. But he'll fish till like he has icicles on his face, and there's six inches of ice rolling off this front of his boat that's freezing from going down the lake of the woods, you know what I mean? Like but he catches like you know multiple 50 plus and has seen fish up to 60s, you know what I mean? So that's why he's doing that, right?
SPEAKER_07:So yeah, wow, I I get it. Crazy, crazy to me. Dress dress proper and and go, especially when you can, you know, you're you're you're in this business now and you've you've come through your first season and you've got it all shut down, other than the one wee cottage that you're staying in because you're still out there fishing. Now, is he staying at the lodge when he does all this? No, but he's traveling back and forth.
SPEAKER_09:No, he's not. He's just traveling back and forth, right? But um And that's that's awesome too, right?
SPEAKER_07:Because you can shut the lodge down, you don't have to worry about keeping one cottage open and uh and you can good travel back and forth from home.
SPEAKER_09:Well, we can check on it, right? Like that's key too, right? Like to it's you know, to have a remote camp, like you know, like you like you know from Shaudi Air, to be able to have eyes on it all the time, and that's not just for people going there. I'm talking about like for a tree that may fall down, you know, or a yeah, you know, really bad windstorm in the winter that lifts some lifts some steel on a roof, you know. We can um the accessibility to be able to go out there. Um we we're not sure yet if we can get right to our lodge. We're almost certain we can from talking to the local local um Native fellas out there. We've uh they've shown us kind of a path we can get through that they use locally. Um because no one's ever that's owned this lodge before has ever gone out there in the winter. They've never they've been Americans that own it, right? So they've never had a reason to come up here and go out there.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah, gotcha.
SPEAKER_09:But with the current on the English River and the Winnipeg River where it being where they meet, it's gonna be tough. But we think right a straight shot in front of our lodge, there's about two miles of kind of like deep, deep open water. So we think, you know, January, February, we should be able to get in there with. I mean, if we could get across with a sled at any point doing 50k, right? 60k, right? But yeah, I'm talking like we want to bring a side by side across, right? And we want to haul our we want to try and get all our propane hauled across the ice because the propane, those those big 500s, if we can just if we can just lay them on the ground and drag them on the snow, yeah. I mean, the weight is nothing and the cost is zero, right? Like it's it's a little bit of fuel. So it would be nice to get all our fuel tanks filled up this winter, you know, if we can, even the slips, get all, you know, maybe get 50. I have a buddy of mine who um who works for a fuel company down here, and uh he used to do my stuff at Nordic as well. And uh he generously gave me 50 barrels. Just uh Oh, no way. Yeah, he had like a hundred sitting in his back of his plot, and he's like, Willie, take fifty of these. And uh so now having them out there is an extra that's an extra month and a half of operation for me, right? For sure. So if I get two months of fuel already out there, and now I got a month and a half in drums, you know, really my barge, you know, now I might have to run my barge twice in the season. That's it.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah. So yeah, like using the um the ice as a bridge um and and getting prepared for the following uh season over the winter, that's that's a great idea. Like, I mean, especially when it costs you less. And now, does it get solid enough that you could actually drive a vehicle across? Well, that's what I'm saying.
SPEAKER_09:We don't know in that spot, but I I'm Steve, like so this season, we spent a lot of time within a mile and a half of the lodge. And I'm not joking, as I've said on the prior podcasts, it remained like the way all the way all through the season. We would catch 75, 100, 120 fish a day and kind of in a max range with salted shiners, frozen shiners, or plastics. And I didn't we called it the aquarium. My my chef with my my or my kind of my backup cook and my his wife that was a house cleaner, and they were like laughing, like you know, don't even we can see you all day, like all three boats. So, but it's just so good in those certain areas at the time, and the it hasn't been fished in a while. We don't have to go. So, in saying that, I spent a lot of time there, and I just from sitting there stagnant, like the current doesn't really move there too heavy, you know. And and the I relate it to kind of Kenora here. If I'm in Kenora Bay, okay, um, where the outflow is for the Winnipeg River and all of the islands that like you're familiar with Kenora, like all of the islands that are tight in the community here, um, there's lots of current through them. Well, in the wintertime, we go on like our ice road is I would say no more than 500 feet from open water for sure, all day. Like it's it's not further than that at all. And that's where like I'm talking 2,000 people a day probably go out onto that ice road. And the ice there is three feet thick. Yeah. So it all depends, right? And I I think we're gonna be in an area there. I think we're gonna have a spot where we can get across and have safe ice, and I think we're gonna have a spot come the end of February, starting of March, where it's gonna be we're gonna be able to. I don't know about trucks, but I think we'll get side by sides or quads tow it being able to tow shit, I think.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's great.
SPEAKER_09:Yeah, that's the plan anyway.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah, that's awesome. Well, maybe that's a good time for me to come up. Although not a whole lot of uh is there good there must be good ice fishing up there, of course.
SPEAKER_09:It's northwestern Ontario. Oh, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah, like I'm talking right out in front of your lodge.
SPEAKER_09:That's what I mean. Yeah, fifty fifty yards out in front, like yeah, yeah. Like we have it was crazy this year, man. It was for that stuff. Like it was honestly, it's like uh we had good fishing at Nordic. Um, we have good fishing at Lake of the Woods, there's good fishing all over here, but like I'm not like I used to talk about the muskie fishing up at my old place. It's like that for every species here. It's wild. And I mean, yeah, it's nuts. Like we had multiple 40-inch pike caught off the dock, like off the and I didn't even have docks for L. Like it was like guests would like fish off the shore waiting to have dinner. Yeah, all of a sudden you hear someone screaming, and Adam's running down there with a pair of side cutters and pliers and and spreaders, because this guy's got a 42-incher on off the point, right? And it's like, what's going on? So and we had so Ryan, here's a good story. This here's an old story that only Willie could tell for sure. So Ryan Bonin, who uh I've talked about out here lots. Um video age is all my work for me. Yeah, you're a cinematographer. Yeah, yeah. Fantastic man, great human, one of my one starting to you know, he's a friend like I am with you. Um he uh he donated his time to come up and uh hang out with us for a week and or five days and do a shoot. And uh we had a great time. We got some amazing footage. Like, so I brought Jason Ditmer up, who's Diddy. Diddy Diddy, exactly. Diddy's been on the show on your show. That's right.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah, yeah. Oh, he's a he's awesome. I uh I gotta give him a call.
SPEAKER_09:You do. You should get Diddy back on.
SPEAKER_07:And folks, if you haven't heard that uh that um podcast we did with him uh earlier, uh, you gotta listen to it. What a what a what a man. Like, I mean, we we did, we were, I was just getting ready. You remember well, I was getting ready to wrap up the podcast. Yeah. And then I asked him something like, uh, what's one of the coolest things that you've ever done? And he starts going on about um he started talking about these samurai Japanese World War II subs, and then goes into telling us a story about how he was the camera guy who was going down in a little submarine that was weighted by steel lugs and baskets, and how they empty the baskets to pop back up. And oh man, it was ridiculous.
SPEAKER_09:Well, and this is after he'd already told us like that he pretty much climbed Everest and all these places in the in Pakistan and and the east and like yeah, buried his buddies. Like he just pretty much rolled him in a cavern, like you know, I know see you later. We kick him into it, and down he went. Yeah, that was after you gotta hear that if you haven't heard it, folks.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah, it's a it's a great, great.
SPEAKER_09:It was one of the best ones I think that you've done that that that we shot together for sure, but it was one of the better ones on your on your network.
SPEAKER_07:One of my favorites for sure.
SPEAKER_09:Yeah, so Diddy. So Diddy comes up there. Um Diddy is uh he works with Orvis um uh in the fly fishing world. And because our pike fishing is so extraordinary uh for our big fish, um we really wanted to focus a lot of the video on a fly fishing segment, along with getting everything else like a normal promotional video would have. Um second of all, we want to try and we're really trying to target that market because it's a it's a market that doesn't get targeted a lot, and they have to you have to have fish, the quality of fishery for them, and we have that. So when we can say that it's uh uh to hopefully have them work with us and um and to help us would be would be fantastic, right? In the long run. Sure. But uh so yeah, so Diddy comes up and we had some great stuff. Um his son was up. It's so cool, Steve. Like I can't even express the beauty in watching male or female a fly fisherman when they really know their art. Like, so like Jay, even his boy, like his boy is is equally as good. He really is, he's just not as tall. So he has a his stroke into a figure eight on the fly is a little bit more horizontal than it will be vertical, right? So like yeah, um, he would have a hard time dipping away, you know, if you were trying to get a muskie to chase down and away, um, yeah, he would have a harder time doing that. But it's so beautiful, like you know, you see that five or eight or ten back casts, one, two, a little bit further, a little bit further, and then all of a sudden, boom, that fly is 60, 70 feet out and hits the water. And it by the time it hits the water, he has his rod. So what he does is he slides it so he'll open his palm and let the reel go, and it slides down his forearm into his armpit. So he's just like opens it, slides down, and this is all in motion. It's like taking a snapshot right on ice. He does it all in motion, and then at the same time, his left hand will start moving forward to grab the line, right? So now picture. So he went from a cast, like a motion, into now the rod is in his armpit, and his line is in front of him, and he's starting to strip back hand over hand over hand over hand, and he's working this bait, working this, he can control the direction with his palm of his hand. It's so cool. And then he gets it to you're like, okay, well, he's coming into the boat, and the first time you see it, it's really wild when he strips into a figure eight. Like, think about that. Like, think about how many guys have a hard time doing a figure eight, even to learn it to get into it a proper one, and it you know, yeah. I wouldn't say one is proper, there's a ton of different styles, and it depends the kind of fishing you're doing, what kind of bait you got on. But to get to learn that stuff, you know, it's it's it's not easy. And this guy makes it look like it's easy, dude. And he does it with a fly, comes in, and that fly is just like beautiful. It's like an angel floating through the water up around on the figure eight, back down, and I watched him hook a fish on the figure eight. Really, dude. It was it was like a like a 34-inch northern or something. It wasn't a it was just a little, it's not rocky on this, but it just happened to be at this time, but but Steve, like to see it is something else. It's something else. That's awesome. So yeah, so we end up uh we fished um four days, kind of similar scenario to our muskie story that I had over in Nordick, right? Like we we caught, we probably put in two days 800 walleyes out of three boats on the on. It was stupid on film. Lots of big ones, but we needed big pike and we were catching 38, 39s, 38s, 39s, 36. And I know those are big and it sounds snotty. But me, I want a 40, 42, I want a big, big one. Yeah, I want like that 51-inch tiger that I put on the camera for the Nordic video, right? That's what I want, right? Just like you, when you're filming with Ange and GP and Dino and the boys, you want to get out there and you want to, you know, no matter how good fishing is, because everywhere you go, fishing is good, or you wouldn't be promoting them. But yeah, but but you always want a bigger fish for the camera.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah.
SPEAKER_09:So we worked, it worked, it worked. Sure enough, anyways. The biggest one we had on camera was a 39 and a half. We got a couple askies on camera. We got a 48 muskie on camera, we got lots of big bass, several 28, 29-inch walleyes, uh, like several. Um great, it's insane fishing. So the last morning we're there. Holton, my boy, who you know, yeah, Holton. Uh he'd be bugging me because all week, obviously, with Bon in there, my focus is on the lodge. So my son got put to the back burner on the parenting end for the four days, right? It is what it is. And so day five comes, and I'm like, okay, buddy, let's let's go out, me and you. And I said, we got to film some kid stuff. And he was the only kid there. So I'm like, let's go get some kid shots and and uh we'll take you out. So me and Ryan take him out, and we hit a couple humps and half a mile from the lodge and smash a bunch of walleyes and he shoots them for like 45 minutes. He probably caught like 30, 35 walleyes in like 45 minutes. 14 to like 22, like not big, but like, you know what I mean? Like stocky, but good fish for a kid. Perfect shoot. So I'm I'm in the back playing with the Garmin, and I'm like, so Adam and the boys are kind of like a couple hundred yards away on another hump. And I'm like, I turn the live scope and I'm like, oh, dead stop, and I go back. And it's like there is a blob sitting in like 15 feet of water.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_09:And I'm like, Holton, reel up, reel up. So Holton reels up and says, Cast it over there, buddy. And he casts it over. And just like, just like we've all learned through, you know, guys like Ang and you, right? You know, learn how to do this now, falling our baits down. And so Holton's on it and on it and on it, and he starts reeling, and this pike comes to him. And so he's only got a little walleye outfit on with like eight-pound fluorocarbon. And I'm like, but I'm like, we gotta try. So sure enough, the the the this big giant northern charges his his uh jig with a little um got a little salted debt minnow on it. Like it's not even alive, right? Like yeah. It's like it's like going into Camela's or or uh or any of those any of the big stores, you know, and um the sales, and you sell you know they see those big bins in the middle at sale. Yeah, and the by baits are like$2.99, and you know they're like the bulk getting rid of. Well, that's kind of what this looked like. Nice. So, anyways, it grabs it, and Holton's a really good fisherman. Like, he's like for 13, like so his big 30-inch wall, it ran around the boat twice, and he'll get up there and he'll go around. So the same this same thing happened with this big northern. It's so Bonnen's in the back and he's got all this on film, right? Oh now, yeah. Well, this was that was the whole point to get him out. Yeah, so now it's on video, and Holton is like, Holton's going up on the deck, he's going around the trolling motor, he's got his hand on the line and he's stripping it out. And I'm like, buddy, but and I'm trying to give him tips, and I'm like overcoaching him, obviously, because my parents do. And but he honestly was like, he handled that fish like a champ. So sure enough, it comes up and it's like a couple yards from the boat, comes up, berries back. I'm like, dude, that's a big, big pike. Like it's that's over 40 all day. Come up again, and uh, it came swim to the back of the boat. It chart, it kind of charged towards the side of the boat, and as it did, I was able to get the net under it. Like it's scooping before it hit the boat, and uh I couldn't believe it. And then with the line, so we get the lineup and it's frayed, Steve, like like another run and it was gone. So we get and it's all on camera and Holton's freaking. So, anyways, it ends up being a 41 and a half, it's his personal best. And the whole point of this shoot was just to go get a couple walleyes for some kid fishing, and now Holton smashes the big fish on that. So when you see the promotional video, you'll come out when you see him holding that fish. That's the story behind it.
SPEAKER_07:That's awesome. Is the video done yet?
SPEAKER_09:Maybe a week.
SPEAKER_07:Oh, in about a week.
SPEAKER_09:It'll drop, yeah. I got all the all the stills and everything from the from the shoot, and I've started kind of dropping them and putting them into my website a bit. Yeah, the work that they do is incredible. Yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_07:Not just uh Facebook.
SPEAKER_09:Uh no, I've been putting out on my blasts. Um like I have an email blast. If you go to my if if any of the listeners go to my website, um 2Riverslodge.net, you can actually you can just sign up for my mailing list.
unknown:Gotcha.
SPEAKER_09:Right there. So you just pop your email in quick, and then I send out a blast like every 10 days, 12 days, anytime there's a holiday kind of thing.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_09:Yeah.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_09:But that was a pretty cool story. I thought it was pretty cool.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah, no doubt. Well, it is a pretty wild story. And uh I like I say, when I had a look at the place there earlier uh this year or last year, or whenever it was, I couldn't believe it.
SPEAKER_09:That was like a year and a bit ago, Alm, a year and a half ago.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah, I can't, I can't, I couldn't believe how nice the cottages were inside, even though they hadn't been used for so long.
SPEAKER_09:Well, you know what? Our motto was all year, Steve. I didn't mean to jump in here, but it's something that that you taught me, and you got taught it by Anch was um, and my cabins were always good before. They were good. I didn't realize the difference between good and elite. Now I have elite cabins and they're elite, and then my whole premise this offseason, what I've taught Adam, as him kind of coming up behind me here, is I was always taught a cabin when you walk into it should feel like it's brand new.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah.
SPEAKER_09:Every time. And I said I've heard that from two of the best people that I know in the lodge industry and in the fishing industry. So it's gotta be true, and it works. So, and uh, so anyways, thank you for that. I just wanted to hop in and say that's that's how I've made my cabins, me and Adam made our cabins feel now.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah, that's great, and especially when you can start with um gold, you know, some places the the cottages are are you know okay, and then you work really hard to make them good. Yep your cottages are excellent, and you work really hard to make them feel brand new. Yep, and that's the difference. That's uh it's it's really very cool for sure.
SPEAKER_09:Like on my on our on our Facebook, on our website, any of the images you see right now on there, like like before, some of them I've had before, and I just took quickly and had to take special angles because it was June right before the fire came, kind of thing, right? And and you know, we had to get something on a website. But now that Ryan's been here and shot this professionally, and and we have the property back in shape and everything is back to that elite status, and or more, then now when you see that on the like that's actually how it is now. Do you believe that that's how that place looks compared to what it looked like when me and you went there? No, no, I it's not even the same property, you wouldn't even think.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah, yeah, I know. Wow, I could see well. You you're you're you got vision and you've seen this stuff out. I could see it, I knew it was there. Yeah, I knew it was there, and it's uh it's amazing that you were able to to bring it up and uh polish it so quickly.
SPEAKER_09:Yeah, that's we brought it back to life, that's for sure. And it was a lost gem up here. Like it was yeah, it was one that just got unfortunately kicked to the boots and it was just left to rot, right? So um there's lots of these old lodges like that, the old gems, right?
SPEAKER_07:That are unfortunate that well, I don't know if there's many like that one.
SPEAKER_09:Maybe not like that one, but I'm saying there's lots of them just got put to the side, I guess.
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SPEAKER_01: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 Oulette, 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.
SPEAKER_07:So what else is new, Willie? You heard anything from the All Patch or any new stories from old buddies or anything going on like that?
SPEAKER_09:No. No, not really. I've talked to Brad a few times and a couple of my old buddies, but nothing really. Just family stuff. Nothing really new in that area.
SPEAKER_07:Um about our bush pie bush plane buddy. Wayner? Wayner. He's good. He was selling baits.
SPEAKER_09:He's doing yeah, he's doing good. He opened he's opening up a gas station in Vermilion Bay. Another one. Yeah, right at the corner there. Like right by Bobby's. He's a mover and a shaker, that boy, eh? He's a yeah, he won't stop. He's he's a hustler. He's a hustler, baby. Um, yeah, so uh Andrew, our buddy Andrew there up at uh Lakeside Marine. We uh Yes Andrew does all my stuff still. Um he's actually quoting me some boats right now for next. I got a I got a decent fleet. Not that I have a really good fleet, but I only have as size because because I was getting going, I only had X amount of boats. So I gotta buy buy a few more boats, and Andrew's gonna be sounds like he's gonna be my man.
SPEAKER_07:Great, yeah. We're at Lakeside.
SPEAKER_09:Well, I man, he's like two and out, he's like two hours from me, and I but still it's yeah, his service is too good, and he treats treat his pricing and he treats me too good.
SPEAKER_07:So that's uh that's great to hear. Well, and we all know that. Uh like I mean, we uh we've been promoting uh Andrew now for almost a year or better. Yep, and uh he's uh there when I met him. I knew that he was one of those business guys that is gonna succeed no matter what, because he's customer service based.
SPEAKER_09:For sure, for sure. That's what it's all about, right? Yeah, industry too, especially.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah, a hundred percent.
SPEAKER_09:Yeah, you're never gonna, you know, you like so many things can happen in that industry too, right? Like, you know, it's and and and it and you just have to take the blunt brunt of it, right? And keep rolling. And that guy, he's he does a great job of it. He's a superstar.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah. Well, customer service is customer service. You don't know what is gonna happen with the market, yeah, with the uh with the tariffs and with the the US uh um administration and all of the restrictions they're putting on our country and blah blah blah blah blah. COVID, this, that. But at the end of the day, if you have great customer service, you're always gonna have people to service because well, it's just a percentage game of how much you're servicing based on the economy, right?
SPEAKER_09:But you're but that makes you stable all the time to be able to accept that work, right?
SPEAKER_07:Well, and it's and it's holding on to those people that need things done. And if you're not good at customer service, then those people are not gonna come back, they're gonna go find somebody else. But if you are extraordinary at customer service, those people are gonna come back and they're gonna tell their friends that hey, you know, you need your you need the your quad serviced. Listen, uh uh um Lakeside is uh is like two hours from here, man. But I'm telling you, it's worth every bit to go up there because they look after you. Yeah, for sure. Right? Yeah, that's how you build a great business. Absolutely, for sure. Yeah.
SPEAKER_09:Well, and there's and I know, I know there's camps here. There's camps on Lake of the Woods here that go all the way up there. I know of a few of them already. Not it's I'm not the only one, right? Um there's several. So personal friends and personal people I've met that uh have now said that they use Andrew, and that's great. So um, yeah, we got to keep supporting him. He's doing good though. He just went moose hunting. Um that's the big thing up here right now. All the boys are moving. I'm not a hunter anymore. Like I said, I've I kind of got I had a buddy killed and I kind of turned me off of it. Um he just had an accident. Uh he he actually he actually got taken by wolves. Um if you want the honest answer. He uh a gentleman, his name was uh over in Saskatchewan. He uh up by the Tovin area, he was baiting. And uh he broke his so he was baiting wolves on a on a section of land on the opposite half section was the wolf bait, and on the other half section back corner was his deer stand. So he went out to to go up his deer stand one day, told his wife he was gonna be home in a few hours, kind of thing, go hunt dusk. Got up to his third rung and it broke on his ladder. He didn't do a check, his walk safety check or walk around, and just knowing hoppy, right? He was just he's an old school guy like me. He just would have rattled something together and threw it up, and he wouldn't have uh I could see how it happened anyway. So it broke and he fell backwards. And apparently that this is all speculation from this point forward, right? And from video, because he had trail cams out there, but apparently on the trail cams, they saw him come too, and he was it looked like he was paralyzed from the from the chest down. So we could he was just kind of cinching like a worm in essence, and the wolves got him. Wow. So um, but I wasn't enough of a hunter. I've shot a couple moose and deer in my day, you know, some birds and you know, one bear. I I've done a little bit, but it's not enough to. I'm not the guy that goes and sits at hunting. I go sit at hunting camp and I'll fish and I'll cook for the boys. You know what I mean? But I'm not in enough like I am fishing like you, you know what I mean? So it's um, but that's what everyone's doing up here now. They're all they're all hunting all the boys.
SPEAKER_07:I just got back from moose hunting.
SPEAKER_09:Ooh, tell me a story. Hey, tell me a story. Do you got one?
SPEAKER_07:Well, yeah, I got a bit of a story. Okay. Um, we had a cow calf tag uh over um in Area 41. And uh my buddy Scotty and I were pushing um pushing uh uh a bush uh towards a swamp where we had a couple of guys sitting. And uh the one guy, John, was um was uh sitting at the uh north end of this swamp and uh Scotty and I we could see all kinds of sign, right? And uh we were hoping that a cow or a calf, because that's what we had a tag for, would come out into this uh swamp where we had our our other fellas sitting.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah.
SPEAKER_07:And um on the walkie, because you have to have walkies, you've got to always be in um communication when you're uh when you're party hunting. Absolutely. And on the walkie, we hear from Jonathan Big Bull Boys, big bull, big bull in the south end of the uh of the swamp. So we're like, oh well, usually when there's a bull, there's typically a cow, right?
SPEAKER_09:Well, he's nearby for sure. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_07:So we continue to push, and then and then we didn't hear anything on the radio at all. And um we finally come around, got uh got through this, got through the swamp, um, and um the Jonathan met us out on one of the one of the logging roads, and he was vibrating. Like, I mean, he's like, Oh my god, you'll never guess what happened to me. You'll never guess. And I and I said to him, I said, You you saw a bull. He said, No, he said, I saw a bull. Yeah, I saw a bull. He ended up that bull come up to the north end of the swamp, crossed it, and he was sitting on a trail that it was going to walk up. And he has a video, literally, of this bull moose walking through the swamp coming straight at him. And he at one point in the video, when this animal is like eight feet away from him, he reaches for his gun because he thought that he was gonna get run over, like stepped on.
SPEAKER_05:Oh my god.
SPEAKER_07:The bull sees the movement, it kind of it kind of jumps a little bit, moves four feet away from him. So now this bull is like ten feet. Like, yeah, no, you know what I mean? Like, yeah, I know, I know, and because the movement kind of scared him a little bit. This scared the bull, but he he turned, he kind of took two steps, two quick steps or one gallop, like five feet away from him. So now this bull is like 10 feet away, and it turns and stares him down. He's got this all on video, and then it just over the next four minutes, which seems like an eternity, it just slowly walked away. It was ridiculous. Yeah, if we had had a cat, uh, a bolt head.
SPEAKER_09:That's the ultimate god for a bolt hunter. Oh yeah, he might as well just shoot itself and tie it to your rack.
SPEAKER_07:Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Like, I mean, he could have hit him with the butt of his gun.
SPEAKER_09:Oh my goodness.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah, it was ridiculous how close this animal comes.
SPEAKER_09:Oh my goodness. I'm gonna have to see.
SPEAKER_07:And I'm pretty sure if he hadn't moved, like he might have got stepped on.
unknown:Wow.
SPEAKER_07:Like the bull wasn't didn't even know he was there until he moved. Crazy.
SPEAKER_09:Yeah, he knows exactly what he's doing when it comes to no scent and his direction of his wind direction to shit that because that's pretty wild. Yeah.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah. I'll have to send you the video.
SPEAKER_09:You did, you did. I just haven't had a lot of fun. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I I gotta watch it for sure.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah. Yeah, I know. So that was uh that was our uh our uh the extent of our moose hunt. We saw well, John again saw two more bulls, and then that was it.
SPEAKER_09:Crazy that you didn't see any cows, though. That's usually the that's always the the tag is you see cows before the bulls are around the bulls, huh?
SPEAKER_07:Uh-huh. Nope. Weird.
SPEAKER_09:I wonder if there's a kill-off or something. That's weird.
SPEAKER_07:I don't know. That is weird. I have no idea. I'm I'm kind of new to this uh moose hunting thing, you know.
SPEAKER_09:Well, I'm not a specialist by any means, but I know that I know enough to know that there's the cow numbers are a lot heavier, I know that than the bulls. Really? Oh, yeah. Yeah, oh by far. Yeah. Like I know up by Ear Falls, like um like I would go to town every day and I would see a cow and a calf every day. Different, and I don't mean same one, like sometimes it was the same ones, but majority of the time it was different, different sets are a different cow. Um, and I think up there they speculate from what I've seen in the numbers and from what I hear from locals that even the local locals, that it's like three to one. Really? Yeah.
SPEAKER_07:So that's why it's so hard to get uh bull tags.
SPEAKER_09:Yeah, there's lots of guys that get cow cow tags for up our yeah. Interesting.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah, it is very interesting. Speaking of uh moose hunting, how is our favorite moose caller and firefighter?
SPEAKER_09:Oh, Ricky, he is um he is doing great. He uh he guided for me a buttload the summer. I uh I owe him a lot.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah, yeah, and Rick Payne. We're talking about uh our uh good friend of the show who uh actually won uh the Nordic Point giveaway uh last uh well almost two years ago now, wasn't it?
SPEAKER_09:It's crazy to believe well not too sorry, Steve. That's how that's how fast time flies. It wasn't two years ago. I I own Nordic Point for two and a bit years. It's almost three years ago.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah, that's a long time. It's yeah, time flies, eh?
SPEAKER_09:It is. And I know that um, oh no, he's doing great. He's uh he guided for me a bunch this summer. He had a great year. He's got a would have been the updated all his equipment, so he's jacked up now. He's got garments going everywhere, and he's now the yeah. On his boat. That's perfect. Yeah, he's good though. He uh he's moose hunting right now, too. Um his son uh his son actually got in a pretty bad car accident here. He's okay, nothing happened to him, thank goodness. But he same thing, he got moose ran out in front of him and uh going up to the moose camp, and he went off the road, shot into the trees, and he cleared 50 trees that were eight inches around.
SPEAKER_07:No shit.
SPEAKER_09:And he didn't have a scratch on him. Man, I was like, Rick, but Rick called me right away, and he sent me a picture, and I was like, oh my god. But everyone was okay, thank goodness, and God bless. And um, but he's hunting, that's the last time I really talked to him. Uh what else is going on up here in the north? Halloween? Everyone's getting ready for Halloween. The deer up here are like do you guys have this issue outside of the GTA where the deer like come into town? Does that happen there at all?
SPEAKER_07:Not much.
SPEAKER_09:Okay, so here they're like they're like gray squirrels down there, then I guess. Like the deer are everywhere here in Kenara. It's stupid. Like they'll you have to put you have to put a cloth over your garbage bag. You know, like when you put it on the road, because the deer will we call them dumpster deer. Like they'll destroy it to get it to garbage.
SPEAKER_07:And they'll yes, it's the craziest thing. It's so why does a cloth make a difference?
SPEAKER_09:Because they because they won't they they can't they'll see a bag, so they won't go under it and take a look for it. It's not really a smell thing, it's a visual thing, I think. So the guy, everyone in town just puts a cloth over it and then they won't bother them. But now what happens is it's bump, gets so like deer are a nuisance here, is what I'm saying. Like I'm talking if you drove down Valley Drive, down did a loop downtown Kenora, and then back out like the Rabbit Lake Road, you would see 20 to 25 deer minimum. And I mean big bucks, dude. Like I can send you a picture, like when you and you and your boy were hunting that big buck last year on the bow. Like, man, you could come and sit here in Kenora, and guys do it just outside of town all the time here. And they can sit there, and there's like five by five, six by sixes all day. Some of the biggest deer you'll ever see. Huge deer, Steve. But in town you can't shoot them, you gotta shoot them. You can shoot them on the outskirts of town with a bow, and that's what the guys do.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah.
SPEAKER_09:But now is pumpkin season, and all the kids carve pumpkins. So my goddaughter is over here the other day carving a pumpkin, and she does a great job, and she's super happy, and it's a moment, right? Well, don't we put the pumpkin outside and the goddamn deer eats the pumpkin? So then the my So now it's like it's like the fish that dies in your kids' bowl, right? And you gotta keep replacing it without them knowing. So now I gotta get a pumpkin and carve it to look the same before she comes back and freaks out. Uh no, you're gonna have to put a cloth over it, right? Man, I was so mad. I was like, you gotta be kidding me.
SPEAKER_07:Uh yeah, no, we don't have deer problem, but yesterday I had uh uh I think I had told you that I had uh coyotes uh coming into uh um and uh taking my chickens. Yeah.
SPEAKER_09:Well I only heard that you you only said you had coyote problem with the chickens. I didn't get into details. Tell me what happened.
SPEAKER_07:Well, the for the last couple of I I like to let them out in the backyard. I've got a nice backyard back onto a farm. Uh I like to let them free range, but the the coyotes, and it might be one in particular, I have no idea, but at least on uh three occasions in the middle of the afternoon, there would be a coyote in the backyard chasing down my chickens. And the last incident, uh, he got five. I had to he got five. Yeah, yeah, he got five.
SPEAKER_09:That's a pretty fast coyote because chickens are fast.
SPEAKER_07:And there was probably multiple coyotes at that at the time, but I only saw one. Um, and there was like piles of feathers all over my neighbor's backyard, so I had to go out and rake all that up and you know, clean it up.
SPEAKER_09:Like just a massacre.
SPEAKER_07:Well, yeah. And yesterday, when I was talking to you on the phone, I heard the chicken start to squawk a little bit. And after I hung up, I looked out the window, and there he there he was. The the coyote was chasing the chickens up here.
SPEAKER_09:Like I can do that up here. Okay.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. So um that coyote uh run into uh two uh four ten slots. Oh nice. Oh, so you did a good oh yeah, nice, yeah, yeah. Got got him. Nice, got him. Yes. So I can I'm I'm gonna let the chickens out and and see uh uh see well, and I got him, but not before he got two or three of the chickens, but you know, and it was mangey looking, it was just uh an ugly.
SPEAKER_09:We had to shoot a couple at the at the lodge um at Nordic when I was building there the a few years ago, because they would try and call my dogs out, like two of them, and they were manged right out. One looked like it had like a broken leg at some point, it was like hopping, and the other one was just was sick. And it was two different occasions. But what they would do is they would they would like run in the halfway through the bay and they would play, like frolic and play, and then what they do is uh your dog is like oh, and then it rips out there, and then they tackle it, right?
SPEAKER_07:So like yeah, but that happens here too.
SPEAKER_09:Oh, does it? Okay, oh yeah, yeah. We griefed a couple of logs.
SPEAKER_07:One coyote'll kind of try and lure your dogs out into the field, and then um they'll get out into the field and there'll be a pack there.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_09:Smart?
SPEAKER_07:Yeah, no, they're they're they're they're smart uh uh pack animals, that's for sure.
SPEAKER_09:We had to get rid of a we had to get rid of I don't think I told you this. We had to get rid of a bear at the lodge this year. Oh yeah? Yeah, man, I had to do the whole so this is a good topic. Because a lot of people probably actually didn't know. I don't know if you know what to do if you have to shoot a bear, like the legal precedents around it. So how how it goes down is okay. So we had we had three, sorry, four bears. I'm assuming these bears were coming to the camp. We didn't have bears all year, not all spring, not all season. Third week of August, all of a sudden, and we don't our gut pail goes to the island uh from the kitchen and our ourything else. We have no reason to have bears there. If we do, it's just because they're wandering through, right? Or whatever, right? So um for about a week, we had uh uh a small uh yearling with a mama, um, kind of roaming around the back, and there was like our dry pile where we burn our stuff, like we're a bird of dry stuff. They would like rummage through that, or like blue there's a blueberry patch up behind where my septic is or my uh my my pawns are. So like maybe up there, whatever. We saw them a few times and blasted a few shots over their head, right? And and you know, let off a couple uh flares, you know, bear bangers, bottle rockets, that kind of stuff, right? So, anyways, those ones got away, and then we had a couple comeback, different ones, and then we had this big mamma jamma coming in, and she was coming in with a cub as well, a yearling as well. And she would stay down below, and the the yearling would come up at night. So, like as in below, I mean like down where my beach was. You remember where the beach and the barge were? All down. Okay, so like that's where she would kind of stay, and that's where my burn area was, was on the beach. I won't burn anywhere where there's not sand. So yeah. Um, so stay, she would stay down there, and the the young the the young one would come up and go through camp. So like flip the barbecue. It happened about six, seven times, you know, rummage through something that you know the the popcans, because they'd see all the sweetness, right? Or or a bee, uh bee, um, you know, those bee bags that you're or wasp bags that you have the sweet stuff in and the nectar to draw them, they'd rip them apart because they're so stupid stuff, but enough that we were like, okay, we got guests here, so now we gotta do something, right? So yeah, for sure. So this is the procedure. And this came from the MR. Like I had it because I was pretty sure I was gonna have to grease one of these bears. Yeah, was the reality behind it. Um so your first call is to the MR, they advise you to call uh the MR Bear Wise line. Okay, so there's a number, a 1-800 number designated to Bear Wise, okay? And that is the phone number where you call all over Ontario to report bear, bear problems. Okay, so no matter if you're down your way, if you're in Cochrane, you know, Kenora, wherever, that's what you do. The number for that line is 866-514-2327. I'm looking at it right now. So you call into this line, you tell them your scenario, you give them the grid numbers of where you are, like the longitude and latitude, because a lot of these places are remote. Um, or you give them directions how to get to your place if they need to look into it. Um, or if there's a problem in case the bear turts somebody. Um, so you report, so I reported the scenario that these bears, you know, they were they've been hanging around. We've done everything we've done to try and move them. But with the young one being sent to camp, you know what I mean, and the mama still below, it was kind of a risky scenario with my guests. Yeah. I wanted to let them know about it. You know, we were gonna monitor the situation, you know, we did have a couple slugs um in a shotgun in case there was some kind of aggressive effort. Um, blah, blah, blah. So we report it to bear wise. That's the first step. At that point, they tell you, no, just to continue monitoring it or do what you can to not. But if there's a situation where it calls for it, call back and let us know. And and and you're you're allowed to take the bear out if you stay in contact and you're letting them know when you're reporting it. So sure enough, the next day, it was like 25 hours, 26 hours later. We had seen him once or twice, but nothing big. Well, Adam is coming in with his boat with the guests in the boat, and this is how aggressive the bear got. The bear stood up on its back legs and was pounding, like you see on the TV, like like pounding on the sand on my beach and charging like 20, 30 foot runs to the beach. Like, and I mean this bear was probably 450, 475. Really? Yeah, like it wasn't the biggest I'd seen up here, but it was a big, right? Like, so she's charged Falls charging Adam and his guests while they're in a boat on the water. And I was like, okay, that's enough of this shit. Right? So I was done playing. So I called the bear wise back and told him I'm gonna grease this bear. I waited till the night. She came out, sat up top, uh, came down to wherever she liked to hang out at the beach. So I put a bear banger over her head, and she took two steps towards me, and I just and I let her have one right. Um then at that point, you if it's a threatening bear, you take the bear and you shoot it. You're not allowed to touch it. You're not allowed to skin it, you're not allowed to take pictures with it, you're not allowed because it's not a harvest, right? It's a it's a nuisance animal. You have to get rid of it. So if you're on crown land, you're allowed to leave the animal, or you're allowed to dispose of it onto the queen's land, onto crown land. Okay, yeah. So we have 14 and a half acres, uh, two rivers lodge. We were allowed to dispose of it outside that area, or you could take it to the dump to dispose of it at the dump site. Um, yeah. It uh it disposed of itself. Um, so we didn't have to, which was good.
SPEAKER_07:And uh how did it dispose of itself?
SPEAKER_09:We never found it. We could we fought it right before we we tracked this bear for it went off the island, is what happened. Gotcha. So it went to the river and must have and it only there's like there's sections that are 30 feet, and where we came to where we figured it was, it was about a 30 or 40 foot swim due to the mainland. So I'm assuming that it just went back to the mainland and then probably died, right? So yeah. Um, but anyways, if anyone needs to know that.
SPEAKER_07:Because when I had a bear problem at Chaudi Air, now this is going back at least 10 years. Um, nobody knew what I was supposed to do with the bear. I called the ministry. Yep, they told me to call the police. I called the police, and the police laughed when I told them that the ministry told me to call you. Um, and they said to me, Listen, if this bear is doing anything that is uh threatening your business or the people um around your business, you have to do what you have to do. And that's the only instruction I got.
SPEAKER_09:Exactly. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_07:Right.
SPEAKER_09:Crazy. Well, I think I don't I to be honest, I I've had to call uh like personally, living in um living in in Kenora and in the north here. Um, this was quite a few years ago, but I had a problem bear in my backyard. I had an apple tree there, and I couldn't let my dogs and my kids out, and it would just like it would actually push my dogs. So, and that's kind of I just kind of called in the OPP. This was before the bear wise line was around.
SPEAKER_07:And uh gotcha. So this is a newer this is a newer thing from what I understand.
SPEAKER_09:And I was told the same thing as you just you know, I was given misdirection as to call here, call here, and pound salt. Yeah, deal with it, right? So um, but it was very so. I'm glad that I got to bring this up because it was really they were really good. Like the the the Ministry of Natural Resources people that I spoke to on the Bearwise line were great to deal with, they were informative, they were professional, they didn't treat me like it was I was doing anything wrong. They actually made me feel like it was a positive thing because I'm sorry, but I'm not the guy that likes to shoot shit and let it die. Yeah, so yeah, I mean they they were very good. And um after after we had shot, we called them back, we gave them the coordinates again. They told us if there's anything that they question or if they want to do any more research or or or or investigating on the topic, they would send an MR guy out and um or give me a call in my cell, and we never heard from him. And um yeah, so it was dealt with really good. It was really it was the way actually something should be dealt with, like that. I was impressed.
SPEAKER_07:Awesome. And what's that phone number again if it's in front of you?
SPEAKER_09:I just closed it.
SPEAKER_07:Oh, no problem.
SPEAKER_09:One second, no, no, I'll look it up here for our for our peeps for your peeps. I miss being here every week, buddy. I know, I do, I do. Okay, it's 1866-514-2327, folks.
SPEAKER_07:And that's uh bear wise.
SPEAKER_09:The bear wise line operates from March 17th to November 30th, just so everyone knows. Obviously, because they're hybrid.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah, there's not much uh there's not much bear problem in the winter.
SPEAKER_09:No, no, no.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah, right on. So, what have you got planned for the next couple of weeks?
SPEAKER_09:Uh no, I'm just gonna write, I'm rehabbing right now, you know, doing some doing some website stuff, some marketing stuff. I gotta uh getting ready for a couple shows we're doing this winter. We're down in Chicago, uh Iowa, uh Minneapolis. Uh I can't make Toronto this year. I the Toronto Sports World is my favorite show in the world, but I will be there next year. I just can't this year with my injury and with everything going on, and it's just uh having to step about from the podcast before. Like there's just some things I can't do. Um, so that's gonna be next year. So that's what I'm getting ready for them. Not a boy. That's it. I'm gonna hopefully get down and or see some buddies like you. Um, I don't know, just kind of just kind of get ready for Christmas, I guess.
SPEAKER_07:And that a boy. Yeah, Christmas is coming.
SPEAKER_09:It is, buddy. It is. It is. I got uh something I didn't tell you. I got to go to uh so I'm a huge Bills fan. Like I am a crazy football fan. CFL and NFL. I'm a Rough Riders fan, Saskatchewan Rough Riders fan in the CFL, and I'm a Buffalo Bills fan in the NFL. And just like our Toronto Maple Leafs, Steven, the Bills have given me a lot of heartache over the years.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah, I can imagine.
SPEAKER_09:I freaking love them. So when I was down there last when I didn't get to see you when you were on our shoot, um me and my wife, we weren't visiting kids and visiting friends and old cousins. And blah blah blah. And then we woke up one day and something canceled on us. And we were like, we have nothing to do. What are we going to do? So we went across, uh, went across the border and went and watched the NFL game and just did a day for us. And it was super. It was the first time in a long time that we just went and did something for us, and it was just like last minute. It was uh it was fun. It was fun.
SPEAKER_07:Nice. Did they win?
SPEAKER_09:They did. They did. They beat uh the New Orleans Saints. It was great. And Josh Allen's like my he's like my you know my boy, uh my fanboy guy, you know what I mean? Like so that was cool. I got to see him get a score touchdown, run one in, and uh party with my uh my Bill's mafia fans down there. So that was kind of cool. Um that was probably the highlight of what I'm gonna do in my offseason, and then besides sell some shows down in the States and recover. That's it.
SPEAKER_07:Beautiful. That's beautiful. Wow, and um um for the first time in 32 years, we get to watch our Blue Jays in uh the World Series.
SPEAKER_09:What a game. Like two nine. So just to put in perspective, I'm not a sports analyst like my buddy Chris Johnson that I grew up with, you know what I mean? Or like but but I'll tell you right now, like I know sports. You know, I played sports since I was four years old and competitive. Like I paid, I played double A baseball all the way up till I was 15. You know, I played uh I played double A hockey all the way up till I was you know 14. Um I played junior C for two years down at Colburn and Coburg, you know, like I know sports and I know this that some teams are expected to win when they're bought teams, and some teams are expected to have a season. And what those guys are doing against that salary cap that spent down in LA is insane. Like I know. Like if you step back, like we should be if if one guy hits a dinger in that extended 18th inning game, we're up three to one going back to Toronto potentially.
SPEAKER_07:I know.
SPEAKER_09:Like, that's a crazy thing for these young men to be how I'm so proud to be Canadian for them to be down there kicking ass like this. I love it.
SPEAKER_07:I know. Wow, and and they're doing it in such fine fashion, they're doing it like the the 93.
SPEAKER_09:Like old ball players.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah, they're doing it as a team from top to bottom, and the pitching has been very good. And I'll tell you, a lot of these players, they uh they they weren't even on the roster at the beginning of this season.
SPEAKER_09:No, like I mean this Addison Barger, he's crazy. Like the kid was a stud.
SPEAKER_07:He's a study. Yes, yes, and Trey Yoske, uh uh Trey uh Yosavage.
SPEAKER_09:He's pitching tonight. Yep.
SPEAKER_07:Yes, he is. He's got more starts in the um in the playoffs than he does in the regular season. Like, isn't that a good one? He's only got three regulas old three regular season starts, and the kid now has more starts in the playoffs than he's ever had in the regular season. It's it's insane. You know what?
SPEAKER_09:My wife my wife watches, I'm I'm fortunate enough, she loves watching hockey and football with me. My wife loves fishing, as you know. Um, she's not she doesn't do them herself, but my my my father-in-law, God rest the soul, he's he's not with us now, but he was a big football. He actually played for the blue bombers on the practice squad. And uh and so she's been around game f sports her whole life, Krista. So she watches them with me. Well, like now it's to the point now the blue days in the world series, like she's like she's like throwing shit at the TV with like shit right into it, man.
SPEAKER_07:Melissa is not a sports person at all, but she um she wants to watch the game tonight. So that's uh that's good.
SPEAKER_09:That's awesome. That's awesome.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah, no, looking forward to it. Go Jays go. Go Jays go and uh Willie, thank you again. This has been awesome catching up. I'm sure everybody appreciates uh uh finding out uh how things went and uh and where you're at and everything else. And uh I just want to thank you again for coming on the show.
SPEAKER_09:Brother, I uh I uh I really do mean this that I miss uh I miss being here every week. I'm hoping eventually in the long run we can we can get back doing something, but uh it's just a busy life right now, and I can't wait to see you again in person and all our all of Steve's and our uh the fans out there and uh the Diaries family, you know, keep kicking butt and living on. And I'll see you guys on the next podcast. One more thing. I want to give a shout out to my cousin first cousin, Derek Lupal. Derek uh we had a we had a kind of gone different ways in life when we were younger. Our parents moved away. And Derek, I'd grown up with since I was like three years old. He was at my grandfather's fishing lodge with me half my life. Derek heard me on this podcast with you on the last one and reached out to me on my birthday. I haven't seen him in 20 years. And when I was down there, we went for dinner. So I just want to give a shout out to Derek, and I want to thank you, Steve, for that. And uh that's it.
SPEAKER_07:Well, that's a pleasure. And thank you, folks, for getting to this point listening. And also a big thanks to Lakeside Marine and Red Lake, Ontario. You've gotta check that place out. Um, when it comes to customer service, uh, they're they are they set the bar. And um uh tell them that uh Willie and Steve uh said to stop in and say hello. And um head on over to fishing canada.com, get in on all them free giveaways, and as always, folks, uh drop me a line, let me know what you think. If you've got any questions, fire them off to me. Um, you know how to get me, steve.n at fishingcanada.com. And thus brings us to the conclusion of another episode of Diaries of a Lodge Owner, Stories of the North.
SPEAKER_06:I'm a good old boy, never meaning no harm.
SPEAKER_05:I'll be the whole you ever saw been reeling in the hog since the day I was born.
SPEAKER_06:Bendin' my rod, stretching my line. Someday I might on a lodge and I'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. About 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: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, Ann and I will be right here in your ears, bringing you a brand new episode of Outdoor Journal Radio. Hmm. Now, what are we gonna talk about for two hours every week? Well, you know there's gonna be a lot of fishing.
SPEAKER_02:I knew exactly where those fish were going to be and how to catch them, and they were easy to catch.
SPEAKER_04: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.
SPEAKER_02:Me and Garchomp Turk, and all the Russians would go fishing. The scientists. But now that we're reforesting and letting things, it's the perfect transmission environment for line. Chefs, if any game isn't cooked properly, marinated for you will taste it.
SPEAKER_04: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.
SPEAKER_03: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_00:Our dream was to harness the knowledge of this amazing community and share it with passionate anglers just like you.
SPEAKER_03:Thus, the Ugly Pike Podcast was born and quickly grew to become one of the top fishing podcasts in North America.
SPEAKER_00: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_03: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_00:Tight lines, everyone.
SPEAKER_03:Find UglyPike now on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever else you get your podcasts.