2011 Season Underway

Grab a cold beverage of choice, raise it high in the air, and say in true Bud Light commercial fashion: HERE WE GO! The 2011 NW Ontario fishing season is (with the walleye opener today) officially underway. Sorry for the delay in getting this posted it was supposed to be posted on Saturday but with the poor weather we had to delay the award ceremony (read below).

Cloudy skies, intermittent sprinkles, and easterly winds around 12 mph did nothing to dampen the enthusiasm of guests who have long awaited this week. The fish did not disappoint with good catches being reported from throughout camp on all species ( except perch for which no one fished). Lake trout, walleye, pike and smallmouth were all caught despite the dramatic change in weather from the sunny skies, light winds and 75 degree temps from last week to today's emerging front. It wasn't fast and furious, but with some hunting and pecking most everyone was able to catch plenty to eat. Water temperature is around 58 degrees.

Joining us this year, for his record 50th consecutive year is Don Strafford who wasted little time in getting in some early lake trout fishing and with good success. It is always great to have a kid (Don will turn 81 in a couple of months) in camp. Just like a kid, he and Pete were out right until 10:00 pm (it gets dark about 9:45PM) on Thursday night laker fishing and had me pacing the floor watching for them. I guess if the passion for the sport runs deep in your veins there is simply no denying it.



Don Strafford (L) and Pete Greendyke with some early season Lake Trout



To celebrate Don's 50th year in camp, we presented him the following plaque: (sorry for the rough photo)



This may not be the only 50th year award we present as we have a couple of others knocking on the door.....but until we celebrate the next one, we just want to say one more time "Thank you Don" from all of us, it is always a pleasure to have you in camp.

L-R Pete Greendyke, Steve Strafford, Don Strafford and me

Don Strafford with his 50 year recognition award

We will try to keep the blog updates coming fairly regularly as you look forward to your upcoming trips to Wabaskang. Until then...take care and see you soon.

Feels good to be at camp...

A sentiment that I know many of you would agree with. We got in late in the day on Monday after a joyous 3 hour "experience" being "processed" at the border. (Please feel free to insert your own words for experience and processed! Of course, there are always a few hiccups (i.e. flat boat trailer tire) to further slow the process, but at that point nothing could stop us from getting to camp. Just enough time to get everything unloaded and into camp and get the generators fired up for some lights. On Tuesday we headed back to Dryden to pick up Ray and Marilyn at the bus stop and to return to camp to get started.


The weather this week has been pretty tolerable overall with the exception of today which stayed in the mid 30's almost all day with some rain and sleet mixed in for good measure. Great day for indoor projects and we took advantage of it! Brand new gas ranges are installed in Cabins 6 & 7 and a new water heater is in Cabin 7 also. On Wednesday we got the floating docks all back in, along with a couple of boats and hope (weather permitting) to put more boats in tomorrow.

The water temperature for you early season bookings is now 45 degrees, but with an excellent forecast over the next seven days I would expect opening week water temps to be close to 55 degrees or possibly warmer which should result in an excellent opening week!

Looking forward to another incredible season, hope you are too!

Ice Out Draws Near

Great news from Perrault Falls, as it looks like ice out on Wabaskang is now just a few short days away. The last couple of days of temps around 16C ( thats about 61F) and some strong South winds have really started to speed up the ice out process I am being told from our friends in the area. Looks like we will get to boat in to camp this year and not have to fly! That comes as great news to all of us. Rain showers have returned to the short-term forecast also, but I think that is just to "welcome" us back to Ontario.

Lube the reels and grab a stringer, its almost go time!

Rain or shine, the next blog entry will be from the wilderness of NW Ontario. Stay tuned!