Canada pt 2

Thursday
Got up and flew to Fletcher. Beautiful day to fly. Watched a number of float planes take off and land, got some pretty good pictures. Caught a total of 107 fish, I caught only 30 and was clearly low man on totem pole. Flight back was equally beautiful. Got a picture of Culloden lake from the air, we will see if I can identify it when I can rename pictures.  Once again I find something about the iPad that I cannot stand. 

Not going out fishing this afternoon which is fine with me.  Going to work on sermon for the 28th and the next sermon series. 

Completed a rough draft of the sermon.  Probably going to wait and finish it when I get home and after I hear what Nathan has to say this Sunday.  

Friday
Planned to go to South Scott Lake this morning.  Storms all night, lots of lightning and a little rain, but I never heard thunder.  The sky was full of lightning!

Windy in the morning, but we decided to head to South Scott.  We got 3/4 of the way there when we remembered that we forgot the gas for the boat engine, so we had to turn around and get it.  Had to add gas to the plane as well.  Headed back to South Scott and got tied up to the shore.  Jimmy and I got the boat that is stashed at the lake into the water and emptied the plane of all our gear.  Unfortunately we were unable to start the boat motor, so after about 1/2 hour we headed back to Lac Lu.

Jim and I went out fishing for fish to bring home.  I caught 6 (4 keepers) and Jim caught 5 (2 keepers).  We fished until about 1:30 and headed in for lunch.

This afternoon we will need to take the plane to Redit where it is stored for the winter.  Before we could do that, Jimmy and I flew to Kenora to fill the plane up with fuel.  It is really windy and he had to fight the wind in turning the plane.  We had a hard time getting back to the dock when we returned to Lac Lu.  Jim and I will drive to Redit while Jimmy flies the plane, we will meet him where the plane is being left for the winter.

Saturday
Left Lac Lu at 6:45 am to begin the journey home. According to the weather reports we might be in for a bumpy ride home. Should be home around noonish.  

Flight was good until we got about 15 minutes from home. Jimmy is a great pilot and did a great job getting us around a very large and potentially dangerous storm. 

Got home about 1 pm. It is good to be home!

Canada 2011

Monday
Jim picked me up about 5:15 am and we headed out to Griffith Airport to meet Jimmy.

Lots of low clouds initially, got some great sunrise pictures and pictures of the full moon.  We flew up the lake but it was too cloudy to really get pictures of Chicago.

Very uneventful flight, actually made it about 30 minutes ahead of schedule.

After  stopping to get groceries, airplane gas and bait we headed out to the cottage.

Got to Lac Lu, and went fishing for our dinner.
Fishing was slow and I went a long time without catching anything, eventually Jim caught enough for dinner.  I caught:
2 walleye
3 northern pike
1 croppy
Took a couple of pictures, but nothing spectacular

Tuesday
In the morning we headed out to Fletcher, about 50 miles north of Lac Lu by airplane.  Very low ceiling, lots of clouds at about 2,000 feet.  We arrived and headed out with 4 or five dozen minnows with the goal of catching 100 walleye.

We were catching them like crazy, but after having been out for less than an hour we got soaked by a huge thunderstorm.  We headed for shelter to ride it out.
After it was over we got back to work.  Within 2 1/2 hours we were out of minnows, and had caught 105 walleyes.  What was weird is that we did not catch anything else.  I caught 35 Walleye.

We headed back to Lac Lu, while we were over Minaki, it started to rain, and there were very dark clouds in front of us.  We landed a few minutes later at Lac Lu and it started to really rain.  As we pulled up to the dock, it came down in a torrent.  It would have been a disaster if we had been just a little slower (we would have had to land on a different lake and wait out the storm).  The storm lasted about an hour.

Later that evening (at about 4:00 pm) Jim and I went out to fish on Lac Lu.  We should have stayed home!  I caught 1 northern, and didn't have many bites.

Had a delicious spaghetti dinner and Jimmy had even baked a birthday cake for me.  I would have liked to have been home, but it was a very touching gesture.

Wednesday
We were supposed to go to south scott, but way too windy
Went to Culloden instead.  We took big boat to Bennett's because it was so rough.

With such rough conditions, it was not surprising, but the fishing was real slow.  I managed to catch 4 walleye and 2 Northern.  We got enough to bring back for a fish dinner tomorrow night.

Went back via Kenora to get more bait and Jim decided to get the oil changed in the van
we ate lunch at crappy chinese place while oil was being changed.  Got bait and gas and headed back to the cottage.

When we got to bennett's we saw one of the workers bringing a boat up out of the water and realized that it was the big boat.  About 30 minutes earlier, the boat had swamped and flipped over from the heavy wave action.  We had to borrow a boat so that we could get out to the cottage.  They are going to try to dry it out and get the motor running again.  

It is still very windy at 4:30, so we are not going to go out and fish Lac Lu tonight.  Instead, once the waves settle down Jimmy and I are going to take the borrowed boat back and try to get online.

Laclu

Greeting fron Kenora, Ontario Canada.

I am up in Canada with Jim Dye and his son in law Peter from Ct.

We have had a great trip so far.

We left Griffith Airport in Jim's Bonanza airplane with Peter flying. We took off about 5:45 am and arrived in less than four hours to Kenora. We then got in a car that Jim leaves at the little airport here to drive to Laclu where his cabin is. The cabin is actually on an island in the lake so we had to take a boat out to the island with all of our stuff.

Last night we had an early dinner and then headed out fishing. We are fishing for Walleye and I caught the first and the largest of the day. Also caught lots of Northern Pike and Perch but we have thrown all of those back.

Today we got Jim's sea plane and headed to a lake about 10 miles away. We got there and a thunderstorm came up. We tried to beat it, by jumping in the plane and heading back to the cabin, but all we did was take off in a torrential thunderstorm. I guess I have determined that I am not going to get airsick!

After about an hour or so, we headed back to the lake and fished again. This time the only problem was that I burned by legs! I wish I had taken my camera, but I didn't. I did not have a lot of luck with the fishing but we caught 6 or 8 nice sized Walleye. Peter caught a monster of a Walleye, easily over 2 feet, but since it was so big he released to to live another day and make more Walleye.

It is just 4 in the afternoon, but I am beat! I slept great last night (except when I got up to go to the outhouse and got locked out of the cabin at 3am --- that's a story for another day). Jim stayed at the house taking a nap, Peter had some work to do and wanted to find an Internet cafe, so here we are in downtown Kenora.

Tonight, I think that we are going fishing for Crappie, but I am not sure. Tomorrow, if the weather holds we plan to fly the float plan about 1 hour north of here to Fletcher Lake --- it is a fish camp fly in lake. Should be fun!

I got some great pictures of Chicago as we flew past yesterday, but I have not had time to mess with them and I may not until we get home.

I will try to update again.