© 2021
In touch with the world ... at home on the High Plains
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

More fishing from the Cree River in Canada

In last week’s column we visited about my recent five-day fishing trip with Cree River Lodge to the remote waters of northern Saskatchewan. This week, I’d like to recreate a typical day up there, if there is such a thing as “typical” in the most awesome part of the world.

Since there is no real darkness this time of year this far north, getting on the water at “first light” is impossible. It’s always light! We headed out to fish each morning at 8:00 and many of the folks at the lodge slept until seven or so and then enjoyed a great breakfast. I was still on “Texas Time” and was usually one of the first to wake up and head to the dining room for some coffee. By 7:00, I had finished breakfast and was eagerly awaiting the time to board one of the comfortable Lund V hull boats and head out in quest of big northern pike, walleye or arctic grayling. Each day, we would fish with a different guide, but the results were always the same: steady action on the target species for the day.

The lodge sits on the bank of the Cree River and it’s the only structure, other than a trapper’s cabin or two that I saw during the entire 5 days of fishing. This is a remote area and I’m sure that the majority of the fish we caught had never seen a lure. Our guide for the day would have a game plan as to where to fish and what species to target first. The river has a strong current and actually pushes water continually through Wapita Lake, where Cree River Lodge has exclusive fishing outfitting rights. The current runs to the north toward Black Lake and Cree Lake before eventually turning back to the south.

I will never forget the first morning of fishing. John, a native to the area and of Chipewyan descent, was a storehouse of knowledge not only on the fishing but the history of the area. John is in his early seventies and has spent a lifetime fishing, hunting and trapping in this area. John and I had a ball fishing together and fifteen minutes into the trip, we each began kidding each other.

When we pulled up to the first area to fish, John suggested we tie on the mid-size Mepps spinners and target walleye.  John wasn’t the first guide I’d fished with in my 26-year career as an outdoors writer and I have learned to ask plenty of questions when fishing for new species or when using techniques that I am not accustomed to.

John set the anchor along a beautiful shoreline and we broke out the spinning rods. 

“John,” I asked, “which direction do we need to cast?"

He grinned and answered, “WATER!”

He was not wrong. There were fish everywhere and catching them was basically a matter of getting the lure into the water and cranking it fast enough to make the blades turn!

Phil Zimmerman and I began catching and releasing walleye immediately. This was fun and the action was much like being on a big school of stripers or white bass back home! I had a preconceived idea that the walleye and grayling were going to be my favorite fish to catch.

Oh, I wanted a northern pike or two for the experience and pictures but I thought the nonstop action on walleye would be next to heaven. Well, catching all those walleye was exciting but then it happened. An “average” size pike about 28 inches long nailed my downsized Mepps and the fight was on! It took only one pike for me to become a self-confessed PIKE ADDICT!

These are by far the most aggressive, hardest fighting freshwater fish I’ve landed and once we rigged for them, they were every bit as plentiful as the walleye. We caught several pike on the smaller spinners and I think John could easily see that these two old Texans he had in the boat liked catching these brutes of the north.

“Tie on big baits,” says John. “Plenty pike around here.”

We quickly replaced the smaller spinners with big, flashy Mepps Aglia spinners. In the clear water, you could see these big colorful baits flashing from several feet away. The pike could see them as well! With the bigger baits, we instantly began catching bigger pike; fish in the 28-35 inch range were hitting our baits with regularity. At Cree River Lodge, it takes a pike over 40 inches to rate as a trophy. I’ve talked to many devout pike anglers from the US that has never landed a pike of this size. Up in these northern waters, if you keep a big flashy bait in the water long enough, hooking one of these monsters is a given.

So that first morning went, almost non-stop action on pike with occasional ‘rest’ periods of throwing grubs on lead head jigs or downsized spinners for walleye. Since a child, I had heard of the shore lunches that were an everyday occurrence when fishing northern waters. Being the veteran of many, many fish fries, I was anxious to see how it’s done up north. But I noticed we had released every fish we caught that morning. Around 10:30 I began wondering when we were going to begin keeping fish for the noon fish fry. At precisely 11:00 a.m., John began putting pike and walleye in the cooler for lunch. I’d never eaten a pike but knew walleye were one of the tastiest of freshwater fish.

“Pike the best when you know how to remove the Y bone,” says John as we left the seclusion of a remote island we had been fishing around. A ten-minute boat ride took us to another island with a little natural beach that was ideal for docking boats. In a few minutes, two other boat with guides and anglers arrived and I observed several master outdoor cooks in action.

The fish were promptly filleted and washed in the cold pure water. In less time than it takes to tell about it, kindling was placed in the cook fire pit and smaller spruce limbs were ablaze. I wanted to help but knew I was out of my league here. These guys knew exactly every orchestrated move. Big, steel skillets were placed on the grill over the flames and generous amounts of pure lard hit the hot metal! Potatoes were cut into frying size pieces, along with a double hand full or chopped onion. Cans of pork n beans were opened. An awesome fish fry was happening right before our eyes and there was not a wasted effort by our guides/fish chefs.  John threaded a couple of walleye on green sticks and leaned them into the coals. He wanted to offer us some fish cooked the native way!

Franks hot sauce was poured into a big freezer bag and the snow white fillets added; another bag held the flour. Fillets were dusted with flour and promptly placed into the hot lard. Around Cree River Lodge, it’s all about the lard. My friend, Brad Fenson and his wife Stephanie were sitting beside me and Brad instructed me to observe the amount of lard that is left in the skillet after the fish was fried. MOST OF IT! Here in the states, we’ve been conditioned not to cook with lard. Lard can take a lot of heat and the fillets don’t absorb it like they do when using vegetable oil.  My next fish fry will be with lard. When I was a kid, it’s all we had to fry with.

After spending the prescribed six or eight minutes in the hot lard, the crispy snow white fillets were removed and more added. Potatoes were sizzling in another huge skillet and a couple minutes before they were done, the onions were added. Thirty minutes from the time we launched our boats on the island, we were enjoying one of the best fish lunches imaginable. And I’ve enjoyed my share of fish lunches!

I discovered that pike are now not only my favorite fish to catch but to eat also. The white pike fillets are a bit coarser textured than walleye but truthfully, both were excellent eating. After lunch, we rested a bit on the island and then, back to the fishing.

I can see Part Three of this adventure will have to wait until next week. I want to tell you about the remote trappers cabin we discovered and the rather unorthodox (to me at least) manner in which I landed my 41-inch pike! Stay tuned!

Outdoors writer, radio host and book author Luke Clayton has been addicted to everything outdoors related since his childhood when he grew up hunting and fishing in rural northeast Texas. Luke pens a weekly newspaper column that appears in over thirty newspapers.