Note that the lakes up there are accessible only by plane. The geography of the region prevents good roads from being built. So we rode a 1944 prop plane 20 minutes to the lodge and back. It was pretty neat, even though I didn't always feel that safe. But, whenever I got a feeling up being unsafe, I just thought of how many trips this plane had made since 1944, and that this could not be its most dangerous or its last one.
The area up there was formed by glaciers and looks pretty unspoiled - at least, until you see the cleared patches of forest. There are areas of water 10-40 feet deep (in some places down to 100 feet), separated by limestone rocks and cliffs and a mossy type of vegetation and soil.
The fishing at Ses Lodge, as we call it, was pretty good. I would not say this lake has never been fished - we pulled out fish that had hooks and jigs in their mouths from previous encounters - but it certainly has a healthy population of game fish, guaranteeing pretty much anyone with the right tackle a couple of large adult fish every day (or more, depending on skill and conditions). Speaking of skill, we ended up catching 75% of the fish (mainly walleye) on jigs tipped with minnows (the leeches didn't seem to be bringing them in this year). All the rest of the tackle we bought (mainly at Cabela's giant super store near Minneapolis) was not used. However, the Rapala deep tail dancer lure - a balsa wood imitation minnow which dives to the depth of 30 feet - was the one that brought in Roman's trophy northern on the third and last day of fishing.
Speaking of which, the best fish story was no doubt Roman's trip record northern pike. We were trolling around a certain spot that the lodge owner had pointed out as being a good area to catch fish. We were talking about relatives we both know, just passing time, when Roman's rod bent double and he said "this one is a fish" (often when you're trolling you don't know if you have a fish or a snag). Seeing how he was bending the rod so hard to pull the thing out of the water, I got my net ready. The fish seemed very tired. Roman did not lose much on the drag. He was using "spider wire" which no doubt did make a difference in how fast he could reel it into the boat. The fish was pretty exhausted by the time it reached us. When the fish saw the boat, and we saw the fish, we were at first kind of dumbstruck at seeing such a large thing attached to a fishing line (it was after all almost 4 feet long!) The fish then dove once, and not very far away. When it came back to the boat, it paused next to us. I leaned over with the net and "scooped" it into the boat like a bale of hay. It flopped around a bit until we managed to pin it down. Both of us were breathing pretty hard.
The next task, getting the lure hooks out of this large fish's mouth, seemed like it would be tricky. But luckily, this one had not really swallowed the lure too much (also I think it's easier to remove hooks from bigger mouths). I then took the honorary photo of the fish.
Roman put this one back in the water and went about reviving it. It took a long time - like 15 minutes. Long live the great northern!
In the end, we caught a total of 181 fish. For all 6 people, that averaged 30 fish per person (or 10 per day, more or less). With concentration and effort we could have caught more (using the fish finder more, less trolling / more jigging, etc.) But it was not all about the number of fish. We were sometimes trophy-hunting, sometimes trying to catch lunch, and sometimes, sleeping in the boat (Matt). The last day we wanted to fill our limit, esp. for walleyes, which are good eating fish. Here is a picture of that night's catch (I am holding up both my fish and my boat partner's) :
What other animals did we see? Unfortunately, no moose or caribou, which apparently sometimes like to swim across sections of the lake. However, we did see plenty of loons (which are loud at night - makes you think of wolves), a couple deer and a bald eagle. One day, one of the boats threw back a small injured northern, which was on its way to expiring in the water (we tried to avoid this happening but invariably it does, esp. with barbed treble hooks). Anyways, after about 3 minutes, the bald eagle dove from the sky and plucked the 14 inch fish right out of the water. An impressive sight.
Well, those are my fish stories for the summer. I would like to hear some of yours!
