Turning a rainy day into a sunny day
Rain. I was getting tired of all the rain I had experienced lately. This seemed to me to be the wettest June around. I was fully prepared to waste my day moping about camp. Sean changed all that. "C'mon... Come with me, let's go fish - You'll have fun".
I hopped into the canoe with Sean and we paddled over to where the Petawawa emptied into Cedar Lake. By the time we arrived, there was already a few motorboats there blocking access to the rapids. Sean blinked an eye and kept us going, we headed for the Nipissing River instead.
Well, it started to pour rain and about halfway up the delta into the river, we were both soaked. Then I perked up as we spotted a bull moose. As we approached the moose a motorboat came roaring to life and headed out of the marsh back towards the lake. This startled the moose and it immediately headed deeper into the marsh making it's way to the marsh edge, heading for the forest. Oh well... We paddled onwards heading up river. We paddled till we could paddle no more and hit some rapids at the beginnings of the 915m portage. Here we began to fish and we both started to get bites immediately, but they were all whitefish.
We drifted back fishing some more and not catching much... Just the odd perch and a few more whitefish, which were all were returned. We headed back to a campsite to rest and have some lunch while it started to pour rain again. Here in this small bay, there was another bull moose feeding in the marsh next to the campsite. The whole area was very moose-ie. After lunch we decided it was time to head out and try the Petawawa again.
It rained again and as we arrived at the rapids a motorboat was leaving, giving us the chance to move in. Immediately I got a really good strike, reeling the fish in as it nearly broke my wrist with the fight it put up. I hauled in the fish; It was a nice sized walleye with Sean nodding his head in approval. As I went to unhook the fish, it jumped off and was gone.
Sigh. "Ya gotta be quick", Sean reminded me. I was surprised at the strength of the fish, to me they were like fishing for bass, only the walleye seemed to fight much harder than any bass I had ever fought. It was my first time fishing for and catching walleye. Sean caught a walleye too, but it was too small in his mind and he threw it back.
After that all we caught was whitefish after whitefish. Then around 5:00pm the sun came out and dried us off. We fished for another half hour to no luck and decided to head back to camp. On the way we trolled for lake trout but caught nothing as we fought a strong wind all the way back to camp amid moderate waves.
Sean was wishing he hadn't put his walleye back commenting that it would've made a good meal. We arrived back at camp at 6:20pm to a sunny beach where Jeff was sunning himself. It turned out to be a beautiful evening as the clouds broke up. Sean was right; I did have fun. It was a terrific day after all.
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