My Favourite Fishing Spot

Location Undisclosed

'So lovely was the loneliness of a wild lake'. Peaceful moments watching the mist rise from the lake, as the sun disappears and reappears from behind the clouds.

I’ve loved fishing since I was very young. There’s a cute home video in which my family was spending an afternoon at the neighbours pond. Mom, Dad and Grandmother whom I call Nanny. I don’t think that my brother was even born yet, making me less than 5 years old. It was a goldfish pond and we were just playing around until I hooked a small catfish.

“I caught a fish!” I declared. However being so young I pronounced it more like ‘I caught a fiss’ not having the ‘sh’ sound figured out yet.

I took my little black catfish over to Nanny to unhook and she declared ‘it swallowed the hook!’ then very promptly bonked the fish dead. Right in front of my young eyes. I being the fearless toddler that I was, wasn’t particularly phased.

My dad, however - was mortified.

After everyone has gotten over the fact that Nanny had killed the catfish in front of me we took it home. Nanny breaded and fried my small trophy. Being from Nova Scotia fish and seafood are in her blood. I remember enjoying everything about eating that little catfish. Even learning to spit out the bones at such a young age. It was both a fun day with the family - and I got a tasty snack.

What’s the old adage? ‘Teach a boy to fish, and you’ll feed him for a lifetime?’

Many years and much life later I was introduced to fishing in B.C. Getting to the camping spot was a lot of fun and involved driving up a dry creek bed. The man-made lake was created nearly a century ago for loggers or miners working in the area. It was made simply by damming part of a river then stocked with trout. The only evidence of its creation were the stumps that poked out of the water.

I could see fish rising but figuring out how to catch them took time. I lost my favourite lure before I figured it out. I won’t say exactly what worked but I will say that these fish are LAZY. The lake must give them a ton of food and they didn’t seem to work very hard to eat. Once I had that figured out I got to take home some lovely rainbow trout. I learned all kinds on ways to cook and eat them. I had them smoked, in chowder and simply cooked with lemon juice.

I’ll take this over jewelry any day

In the morning I’d watch the sun warm the mossy flat tops of the stumps, cooking moisture off of them in little clouds of steam. The lake was surrounded by tall mountains and had a waterfall cascading into it. From where we camped you couldn’t see it but you could hear it. It was a truly magical spot and one that I’ll never forget.

Moving to my mountain meant moving away from my favourite lake. A few months ago a neighbour invited us to come out ice fishing and we eagerly joined him. It was a quiet day with no one sharing the end of the lake with us. In the distance you could see people enjoying themselves, but too far to hear.

The lake is long and narrow with very tall mountains on one side. Luckily we had beautiful sunny weather with the occasional cloud. There were already ice fishing holes that we reopened and dropped our lines into. In a few hours we caught many brook trout and some really nice rainbows. I of course, being ecstatic to have gotten some fish, took them home. I look forward to many more trips there with my fishing pole.

I think I might’ve found a new favourite fishing spot!