"While my interest in natural history has added very little to my sum of achievement, it has added immeasurably to my sum of enjoyment in life"
- Theodore Roosevelt
It
was about time to get out of the U.S. again.
Too long in one place and a man goes stale, and because air travel has
lost its outstanding reputation, I decided to drive to Canada with my Dad and
both my brothers for Memorial Day weekend.
The trip focused on pike fishing the Richelieu River; a wide river flowing
from the St. Lawrence to Lake Champlain.
My Dad and his Dad used to fish the same river years ago, and always
seemed to have success; so we went into the weekend with high hopes and plenty
of tackle.
Day
1:
We
began fishing right after the fish had stopped biting for the day, around 9 am. Timing has never been a family quality. It was hot, and we were told that the warm water
made for sluggish pike; so sluggish in fact that the pike didn’t even amuse us by biting. That is
all but two of them didn’t, and those two that we did catch were nothing to
write home about or send to the taxidermist.
Still we trolled around, under bridges and over weed beds, into quiet
inlets and out to deep channels. We
caught nothing but sunburns and thirst so we headed back to the boat launch.
This
part of Canada was very flat. Driving
through it, I couldn’t help but think that it looked more like Iowa than what
most people would imagine as Canada.
There were farms and rivers and marshes separated by huge fields. There was just as much dust and dirt as there
was grass and trees. It was paradise for
duck, geese, and all species of waterfowl; and we hoped fish.
We
were camping in Vermont, just back over the U.S. border, and since this is a
blog about travels outside the United States, I won’t write about the camping
portion of the trip. I will only mention
that the border crossing was simple, easy, and fast. The last time I had been to Canada I didn’t
need a passport at all. Things have
changed since then, and you are required to show a passport now, but it is painless
and no trouble.
Day
2:
Unsatisfied with the previous day’s
outcome, we drove back into Canada for a second go at the Richelieu River’s
alleged pike. Once again we crossed the
border with no trouble, quickly showing our passports and answering a few
questions before we were sent on our way.
Good fortune favors those who wake
up early. We got on the river at 6:15
and immediately started catching fish.
In fact, I caught a pike on my first cast of the day. My older brother caught one soon after. We tried to stay close to the weed beds and
fish around their fringes rather than casting into them and risking snags like
the day before. There is nothing that
takes the momentum out of fishing quite like a snag when the fish are biting. It throws everything off. It’s like teeing off after a birdie and
sending your golf ball into the woods, or fumbling the football on the goal
line after an 80 yard drive. Nothing is
more frustrating.
We continued spot fishing for a
little while and then started trolling. My
younger brother was able to catch one of the biggest pike of the weekend using
this method; that is, he was dozing off with his line in the water and hooked a
two foot pike. Lucky maybe, but half the
battle while trolling is making sure your line is in the water, even if you’re
sleeping, and his was. We brought in 6
more northern pike, 3 rock bass, and a yellow perch. Not a bad morning considering our previous days
2 fish. We were finished by 10:00am and
went back across the border to relax for the day before trying our luck again
later.
It
was early evening and a thunderstorm was threatening from the south, but we
figured as long as it held off the fishing would be good. For the most part we were right too, and
added 6 pike and 1 rock bass to our day’s total. We fished until we heard thunder and saw a
dark purple storm cloud rolling in fast.
The rain held off but the drizzle didn’t and we got a little wet; but nothing
we couldn’t handle. Of course all the
fish we caught we released back into the river right away because we could not
transport fish over the border. Pike are
not the best eating fish anyways on account of their bones, so it was not a huge
loss. We counted the two days on the
Richelieu River a success and crossed back into the U.S. one last time.
