Think backcountry fishing mean an endless drive? Think again. This fly-in adventure was just hours from the city

The fish were playing hard to get

Scotia didn’t exactly hand us the keys on the first morning. We moved around, changed depths and tried to make sense of a lake none of us had fished before. The deeper water seemed to be holding plenty of possibilities, while the shallow bays were still waiting for the weeds to develop later in the season.

But the 36-inch pike on Day 1 was proof of what was swimming around in there, and there were enough other fish and follows to keep us sharp and excited.

That’s often the reality of fishing an unfamiliar lake. You don’t always solve it in three or four days. Sometimes you leave with a better understanding of where you’d start next time. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing.