THE REEL THING                                                                                                                September 2007

 

Hi Y’all………..well we made it back from this year’s Broadback River trip in one piece without the excitement and adventure we experienced last year, but still have a few things to tell you that you may find interesting. But first a couple of fishing reports we received from Rick Matusiak and Rui Medeiros.

          A few days before Ray, Jurgen, Paul and I took off for Northern Quebec, Rick, just out of the hospital himself, decided to head out and wet a line for Brookies with another friend for a bit on one of his favourite streams. He returned home in three or four hours and called to report a catch of a dozen brookies between nine an fourteen-inches. Not bad for less than an afternoon’s work, but this fellow weaves his magic whenever and wherever he is fishing.

          Rubbing it in further for the rest of us, Rui also dropped us a note that he hit a few streams just outside the city while we were flailing away in Quebec and took several fine catches of specks and browns, with one of the browns a beautiful five-pounder from the Credit River.

          Re: our Broadback venture…..we left Toronto on Friday morning, August 24^th and only managed to get about seventy miles out of the city when my ‘Green Machine’, our older Jeep, broke down after belching fumes and spraying oil all over the place, almost enough to replace the worn out undercoating on the old car’s bottom. It had to be towed back to Toronto while we sat around and moped for Jurgen who went with the tow truck so he could bring back the ‘Red Wagon’, my other and one-year newer Jeep.

          A couple of hours later the gear that had been removed from the first car was replaced, the big trailer re-attached and we were once again underway. I forgot to mention that old buddy, Rick Matusiak, who was unable to go with us this year for his fifth or sixth ‘Broadback’ because of his own medical problems had come all the way from his place to ours to help us that morning load everything up. His reason, “I just want to feel that I’m still a part of the trip.”

          We drove all night, wondering if we were going to make it on time for the booked, 8:00 departure, plane ride to the river or would the plane be put to some other use in our absence. About 3:30 Saturday morning and only a couple of hours away from Chibougamau in Northern Quebec and the tiny airport, we had to come to an abrupt halt with flashing lights, police cars (from the nearby Cree Indian Reserve) an ambulance and men simply standing around on the road in the dark, blocking our progress.

          One poor unfortunate chap from the reserve had been walking down the middle of the road in the middle of the night after too much partying and had been struck and killed by a hit-and-run driver. The entire area was taped off while the local police waited for detectives and inspectors to come by helicopter and car from Chicoutimi, several hundred miles away. This is dead in the middle of northern bush country and there was absolutely no way to circumvent the area……..nothing to do but rest on our heals and grin and bear it. Very tired, hungry and frustrated, it was mid-afternoon before we were allowed to continue on our way. Fortunately one of the police-women had called the airport for us to report the situation and we were told that they would be waiting for us anyhow.

          It was after four when we finally arrived then had another hurdle to undergo…..we were told that the ‘Powers to be’ had ordered the bush airline to once again weigh all passengers and gear, with the total not to exceed 2,500 pounds. That had not been observed since the nineties and we could not sweet-talk our way out of it. We were 360 pounds overweight. With one eye on our watches (worrying if we were going to get to the river, make the trips up to our territory and set up camp before dark) we began stripping gear with all of us complaining like mad, but finally getting down to a little over a hundred pounds overweight. With the sky darkening, the pilot and dispatcher finally took pity on us and the remaining gear and the exhausted crew, us, piled into the big, beautiful Cessna Caravan plane after scrambling up on its giant pontoons.

          An hour later we landed, unloaded everything into the blueberry bushes lining the shore, made the two four-mile hikes up-river and somehow managed to get camp set up before dark, devour supper and hit the sack, utterly exhausted about eleven, but happy to have finally made it, intact, back to the our territory on the Broadback, God’s country.

          Eight days later, this was the score: almost two dozen wonderful breakfasts, lunches and dinners, a couple dozen pickerel up to five pounds or so, two or three dozen speckled trout, the biggest this year though, only about twenty-inches, oodles of ‘great’ northern pike to fifteen or sixteen pounds and 38 inches long, no injuries, one dunking in the river (backwards, from shore), one camera (and pictures) lost, dropped in the river and watched going over the falls, numerous tackle and gear repairs and a damn good time had by all.

          The plane came in Sunday, the 2^nd, an hour or so past the scheduled pickup, giving us enough time to fill plastic Ziplock bags with blueberries to take home and all went well until in the middle of the night, September 3^rd, Labour Day until driving through Rouyn, about half-way home, the transmission went on the ‘Red Wagon’. Two Jeeps expiring on one trip! Ridiculous! Being a holiday and four o’clock in the morning, we were in big trouble until a couple of lovely local fellows came to our rescue, however with everything closed we were still stuck there in Rouyn, Quebec, more than four-hundred miles from Toronto until the next day, eventually getting home a day later.

          Oh well, we’ll have to see if we can top that one - and last year’s ‘JUST A LITTLE BUMP IN THE NIGHT’  experience next year when Rick again joins the crew. We’re contemplating moving a little further up-river for that one into virgin territory.

        I’ve been to the hospital a couple of times already since getting back for pre-op stuff and will be going in next Wednesday then out of commission for five or six days, but our club’s shop activities will re-commence with the fall and winter program on Tuesday, the eighteenth with casting in the gym a couple of days later on the twentieth. I expect a good turnout that week to see the results of our seven or eight rolls of film and hear the individual tales of the trip from the rest of the crew. We also accumulated more than an hour of video with both Ray and Jurgen shooting film of just about everything. Hopefully, we’ll be getting that to our superb cinematographer, Rick Matusiak to edit into another of his classic Broadback epic movies.

          If we are to have a weekend club fall fishing trip on the weekend after Thanksgiving, we will have to know soon now who and how many of your folks would be going and your preference, cottages, or camping. Please respond S.A.P. so we can begin making arrangements. Here’s another bit of good news for you to contemplate; we may have a second Sharon in the club shortly. Can you imagine two Sharons. Sheeesh!

          Our club has submitted a provisional bid to host the 2009 or 2010 North American Casting Championships. We last hosted this wonderful week in 1995 and it was considered by all to be one of the best in the past 25 years. Of course, if we are to pull this off again we must have at least a half a dozen of our club members willing to devote a full week of their time to assisting and participating in the endeavour.

Next year, the 100^th consecutive of the ‘National’ championships, it will be staged in San Francisco at the beautiful Golden Gate Angling and Casting Club’s facility and pond in the middle of the famous Golden Gate Park. Already a number of our casters have indicated their interest in joining Sheila and me for the fun and excitement of this very special event.

          September means our annual club dues are now payable and we have added a little incentive to try to get them in a bit quicker than in the last couple of years: the first ten folks to pay their dues (Rick Matusiak’s are already in) will have their names tossed into a hat for a draw. The winner will accompany Sheila and me to their choice of either the super Imperial Buffet, or the club’s favourite and classy restaurant, the Neptune for dinner. One, who shall remain nameless, suggested that the final ten folks to pay their club dues have their name tossed into another hat for another draw in which the unlucky winner will have to take Sheila and me out to dinner, but that thought was quickly put to rest. 

          That’s all for now folks, got a pickerel breakfast on the go and waiting for me…………..

          Gord

                                                                                            

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