8 hard-earned lessons for fishing a backcountry lake you’ve never seen before

#8  ACCEPT WHAT THE LAKE GIVES YOU

I once asked an angling acquaintance who’d recently returned from a far-north lodge if he’d had a good trip. “It was terrible,” he said. “I didn’t get a single 40-inch pike. I had half a dozen 38s and 39s, but that was it.” I almost laughed at his deadpan wit, but then realized he was serious. Immediately, I mentally and permanently crossed him off my list of outpost candidates.

I’m not sure how many three- to five-pound lake trout we caught, since we stopped counting around the third day. I know there are some trophy-class fish in Dayo Lake, and that they’ll still be there next time. All things considered, consistent action on a species as mysterious and elusive as lake trout, on water we’d never seen, was a better result than we had any right to expect.

Every time I think about that trip, I smile (not counting the one night when the boys’ hours-long technical discussion about municipal politics sent me to bed early, but everyone deserves a freebie). Everything about our adventure just worked. Our gear was pretty much right. Our fishing plan more or less survived contact with the water. We had consistent action on beautiful, hard-fighting fish. And our decades-long friendship grew and evolved in new directions—on the water, and around the table after dinner, talking until long after dark, as the huge northern sky lit up with a million stars.

BACKCOUNTRY SERVICE

White River Air has been flying anglers and hunters around northern Ontario since the 1950s, with modern outpost cabins on numerous backcountry lakes offering fishing for brook trout, lakers, northern pike and walleye. The airbase in White River sits just off the Trans-Canada Highway, about a day’s drive from Winnipeg, Ottawa or Toronto, and roughly three and a half hours from the U.S. border at Sault Ste. Marie. Learn more at www.whiteriverair.com.