I will be 66 years old in a couple of weeks. I am a retired high school science teacher from Paulding County and I grew up on a small farm between Acworth and New Hope. Fishing and hunting was, and still is, my greatest passion.
As a teenager, I read every “Outdoor Life,” “Field & Stream,” and “Sports Afield” magazine I could get my hands on. I loved the stories from ou western western states and the great north c of Canada and Alaska. I would spend countless hours dreaming of the day that I could fish and hunt these exotic areas as myself. However, as I grew older, marriage, children and work took most of my time and money and my dream trips were put on hold for a couple of decades.
Fast-forward to present day. My wife and I are empty nesters and have been for many years. We now have the time and re-sources that allow me to fulfill some of those childhood dreams, what many older adults now call “bucket list items.”
This summer, I was able to check off several things from my list.
During late winter/early spring of this year, my friend Mack Martin of the Atlanta Fly Fishing School contacted me about a trip to Northern Saskatchewan that he had booked the previous year. As fate would have it, he was no longer able to go and he asked me if I would like to take his place with a group of five other Trout Unlimited members. I did not have to think long before I said yes!
Planning is part of the fun. For months I consulted with Mack and the other members of our group. We planned on which fly rods to bring, what type and how much clothing we would need, fly selection, line selection, sunglasses, sun-block, wind and rain protection, tips for the guides, etc. Unlike myself, the oth-ers in my troop of fly fishers had been on several trips like this in the past and were a wealth of information. Our goal was to have enough equipment and clothing to last for 8 days of fishing while keeping the weight of our luggage under 50 pounds.
It takes two days to fly from Atlanta to the remote lodge that would be our base camp for this adventure and another two days to fly back to Atlanta once the ex-pedition was over. The final leg of our flight to Milton Lake Lodge was in an old DeHaveland Otter Float Plane which was made in the 1950s. The vintage air-craft was crammed with 9 passengers and all of our luggage. Bucket list item (BLI) No. 1, taking off, flying and landing in a float plane.
Once we arrived at the lodge, we were assigned our rooms and put away our luggage. It was cold, windy, raining and the lake was white-capping dangerously so fishing was out of the question for the first afternoon. BLI No. 2, staying at a fishing lodge.
Day 2 was cold and raining but the wind had died down eennough to make fishing from a 17-foot open V-hulled Lund boat possible. We rigged our 8wt fly rods with streamers and set out in pairs with our guides in search of northern pike, the toothy apex predator of the North Country. It did not take long to locate willing takers for our flies. BLIs No. 3 and 4 — my first time fishing in Canada and my first northern pike.
Like an 8-pound bass in Georgia, in the pike world, any fish 40 inches and above is considered a trophy. I was blessed to catch and land two trophies’ during this trip. BLI No. 5, catching a trophy pike. In addition to a large population of northern pike, Milton Lake is also home to countless lake trout. The lakers were down deep this time of year and we need-ed sink-tip fly lines and weighted flies to reach them. Once our offerings were deep enough, the fish were very cooperative and proved to be hard fighters. BLI No. 6, catching lake trout.
One morning, we decided to go for artic grayling, which lived in the tributaries to the lake. On our way to one of the creeks we planned to fish, we were blessed to watch a bull moose as he swam across the lake. BLI No. 7, seeing the symbol of the North Country, a bull moose as he swam toward shore. BLI No. 8 would have been catching a grayling. While I had a couple of strikes on my dry fly of-ferings, hooking and landing a grayling eluded me.
But I was blessed to check off seven bucket list items in one trip. It was truly a great adventure that I would recom-mend to any angler.
Rodney Tumlin, chairman of the Georgia Council of Trout Unlimited, is substituting this week for Paul DiPrima of the Trout Unlimited Cohutta Chapter. Paul can be reached at PaulDiPrima@aol.com. Unless specified, the opinions in Talking Trout do not reflect the position of TU on the state or national level.