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| Jay, Jeff, David (me), and Chris |
Sure, our Canada trip is about FISHING. But more goes into it than just fishing.
First...there's the packing for the trip. We all know we gotta travel as light as possible...take just the necessities. Necessities include:
-Food for 1 week (dinners to be supplemented with fresh Walleyes!)
-Clothes for 1 week
-All our fishing rods, reels, tackle, cameras and other gear
-Toiletries...hey we aren't total barbarians!
We've got the food nailed down pretty good after so many trips. Jay started us out the first year with what food items we all thought we needed for the week. We've changed/added/deleted some items each year. We haven't run out of food yet!
We generally eat a light breakfast (cereal or PopTarts...but occasionally eggs/bacon). A lot of people go back to camp for lunch, but we stay out all day. We could do shore lunches and cook our catch...but its a lot of extra junk we'd have to take out each day in our boats, so we save our fish for dinner. For our lunches,we make meat & cheese sandwiches, or PB&J, and also take some pop, water, and a variety of snacks out in the boats each day. Some of the snacks include meat sticks and cookies that Chris makes for us. Both are AWESOME!!
Dinner is the highlight....when we finally get to eat the fresh walleye we've caught that day. We don't keep any to bring back home at the end of the trip...we just enjoy it while we are there. We also keep ONLY what we know we will eat for that meal. Nothing is wasted. Last year we determined that 3 fillets per person for dinner was good. For some reason, this year we pared that down to 2 fillets (1 fish), and even went from keeping 17"-18" fish to keeping 15"-16" fish. Maybe the reason we ate less fish this trip was because we had plenty of food/snacks in our boats during the day while fishing, and snacked some more before we got around to cooking dinner? Or maybe in past years we didn't catch as many 17"+ walleyes as we did this trip, so we kept smaller fish and could eat more of it? There's a lot of meat on a 17" walleye!
Fortunately, the hired help at the camp clean/fillet our fish when we come back to camp in the early evenings. And this year, at least on of the helpers was even cutting out most of the "Y-bones", which was nice. Still, there often were a few bones remaining in the fillets, and some loose scales on them. I HATE picking fish bones out of my mouth when eating fish. So, I do my best to make sure our fillets are bone- and scale-free.
When the fish is ready, we usually trade-off nights on our method-of-preparation/cooking. We'll batter and deep-fat-fry; seaon, wrap in foil with onions and basically broil it on the grill; or using a lighter coating of batter and fry. Whichever way its cooked, its is ALWAYS delicious!
After the fish is done, Chris (our grill- and fry-master) will cook us up some sort of frozen 'taters in the deep-fat fryer....like curly fries, or cottage fries, or "crispy crowns"....Its SO unhealthy and yummy!
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| Jeff is either going "gangsta" on us....or he's calling for a DOUBLE helping of the 'taters! |
We sure didn't leave the dinner table still hungry!
Another VERY important "food" consideration is....what Canadian beers should we enjoy? This year's bottled selection included Sleeman's Variety Pack (Original Draught, Light, Cream Ale, and Honey Brown Lager), Molson Canadian, Alexander Keith's IPA, and Moosehead. Grain and hops...vegetable matter. So...having a beer is like drinking a V-8, right?
So what's the camp like? It serves its purpose. As you can see from the cooking pictures above, the cabin we got this year was the smallest cabin we've been in so far, but we made it work pretty well. Below is a picture of the area from the end of one of the docks:
And below is a picture looking towards the docks/fish house from the porch of our cabin:
I enjoy a cigar now and then while fishing...or for keeping the bugs away when back at camp.
Below was a windy day, which I overcame by assuming a "fetal position" in the front of the boat. Hey, I got that cigar lit!!
Speaking of bugs...all things considered we've had it pretty good over the years. Each night is a little different, and sometimes the mosquitos or black flies or "no-see-ums" can be pretty bad. One insect that doesn't bite or try to fly up you nose (usually), is the good ol' Mayfly:
I know at the beginning of this post I said our trips really ARE about the fishing...and I did take some fish pictures to show colors or teeth. These are what my companions called the "artsy shots".
Yellow Perch:
Northern Pike:
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