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The Sheepshead Incident | Outdoor Journal Radio ep. 130
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Apr 15, 2025
This week on Outdoor Journal Radio, Pete and Steve are coming to you LIVE from the dock at the legendary Chaudiere Lodge! Topics discussed included: Steve's love for the French River; how it feels to be back at the lodge as a guest; weird summer weather; bass transitions; finding smallmouth in big water; the evolution of fishing guides; guiding for blueberries; messy sheepshead stories; and much more! To never miss an episode of Outdoor Journal Radio, be sure to like, subscribe, and leave a review on your favourite podcast app!
View Video Transcript
0:11
I like that I like that welcome to the podcast The Outdoor Journal Radio
0:17
podcast ladies and gentlemen come on now thank you very much Dino uh Pete Bowman sitting in Angel's not here uh we are on
0:23
the road so there's Dean myself Eva and our special guest for those of you that are not uh on YouTube watching my uh my
0:31
buddy our good buddy Mr Steve n wikii give me a hell yeah hell yeah hell yeah
0:36
brother and uh one of the reasons Stevie is here the main reason Stevie is here is that yeah we're on the road and we
0:43
are actually shooting a fishing Canon episode at Shier Lodge and Steve is the
0:49
former owner of shaer You're Going to Hear by the way that's a boat going by in the background you're going to hear some boat right on the water here at the
0:55
docking area so uh this beautiful establishment yeah we thought we'd bring Steve along because now we have the
1:03
former Lodge owner now basically here as a guest and that's probably as unique as
1:09
it gets right well I guess yeah it's it's fairly unique for me no kidding and
1:14
I just want to thank you uh off the top Peter for calling me a very special guest I feel like I've been hanging
1:22
around you long enough and everybody around that I think you deserve it by now they all know I'm very special oh we
1:27
know you're special ah absolutely yeah so we're uh we're set
1:33
up here it's U early early July early to July third yeah so yeah that's right
1:40
right off the long weekend so um we thought we'd you know what are we going to do we're going to showy so here's the
1:46
way it works with the Ontario tourism so Ontario tourism we have a set amount of shows that we got to shoot for them with
1:52
our contract and U and through Ontario tourism and
1:58
ourselves we choose the lodges so what happens is I'll call our lovely friend
2:03
Carol Caputo uh we love you Carol the Queen of the North she's the best and
2:09
I'll say hey Carol there's Lodge a b c and d uh we'd like to shoot at this year are they available and what that means
2:15
is that uh they haven't been shot by any other television shows in the last set number of years I don't know what the
2:21
number is Ontario has but they'll say yes no yes no so we get a lot of NOS from Carol a lot of access denied from
2:29
Carol but she says oh by the way and she gives this little nudge of this says by the way sh ear is coming up real soon
2:35
and I think she said to me next year and then all of a sudden at the Sportsman show we were talking you know what I think you guys can pull it off for this
2:41
year sort of like that so tell me as a as a former Lodge owner and now you come
2:46
back because I know I have an opinion already of your opinion uh which I can you'll probably state it throughout what
2:52
you're talking about what do you let's let's hear what you think and I'll I'll see if it's right so as uh cuz Steve as
2:58
a lodge owner he came in very raw very new but he learned through 10 years was it 10 years through 10 years he learned
3:05
what worked and what didn't work and one of the big things about Steve is uh if
3:10
you went to his hotel room it'd be as messy as hell right now but as he had a
3:16
lodge it was not messy it was [ __ ] and span it was clean and everything was good and I noticed that you are really
3:21
looking around a lot and saying oh my God I'd had that fixed oh my God i' have had that that is you know I mean there's
3:26
little we things that I didn't even notice coming in here that you'd have fixed but yet you'd say God the food is
3:32
still fantastic that looks great my God they did a great job on that you're really looking at stuff from past and
3:37
and goods and bads and uglies and all that kind of stuff right from living it yeah and truly living it in a way
3:46
where I had to be successful because if I wasn't I was going to lose everything
3:52
um including um my parents Farm as security
3:58
to the business right huge right you know you can't screw up man that's it at
4:03
the end of the day uh you you make it work and um the fastest way that I and I
4:11
and I learned this from listening to every guest that come through the door
4:17
for well my whole tenure yeah but um towards 10e tenure tenure tenure wow get
4:24
that one that's a good one ten ten yeah it's a song there okay sorry I learned
4:30
that um by listening to people they see the little things that you don't see
4:35
right um one of my goals when I bought the place was to sleep in every bed uh
4:42
but um there were 44 beds and and 15 cottages and over 10 years that actually
4:49
did not happen wow but kid um there were guests that did sleep in all of the beds
4:56
and um use the cottages and I made sure
5:01
that I had a good the one I was I was not a good Lodge owner in the beginning
5:06
because I didn't know how to do it right um but the one good thing and the one thing that I was very good at was
5:13
feeling how people felt and um the dining room was the best place to gauge
5:19
that so if I would walk through the dining room and I would make a point to talk to everybody and find out about
5:25
their day and and um I could tell no nobody would unless it was really bad
5:33
would breach any kind of conversation about something negative in the dining room but I knew I could feel it you know
5:42
when you say to somebody how was your day and Nancy says it was okay well that
5:48
that wasn't uh that's not good enough answer for you that wasn't uh an answer that I was willing to accept but it
5:54
wasn't something that I would um um attack in the dining room what I would
6:01
do is I would say oh okay well listen um Nancy Bob uh would you mind if I brought
6:09
a bottle of wine over to your cottage and we'll sit in the screen porch and have a couple of drinks and uh and you
6:15
can tell me about your stay as a whole and 10 times out of 10 they say
6:23
well yeah that would be good and sometimes it was because they wanted to have a glass of wine and sometimes it
6:30
was because they wanted to in private tell me what was going on what they were seeing and what they were experiencing
6:38
and it was through those conversations that I learned and I
6:43
learned a lot about the small stuff wow that's a good idea actually the little
6:49
stuff and you get the odd sip of wine too right excuse and not only that it builds a relationship between your guest
6:58
who then becomes family yeah and um it's the small things
7:05
that you you realize like yeah you know Steve it was raining today and we come
7:10
in with all of our wet clothes and you know if in this screen porch we had half
7:16
a dozen hooks on the wall to hang our wet clothes so we could go into the cottage dry simple things like that make
7:24
a huge difference and then the magic of the situation is is once you build that
7:32
relationship nine times out of 10 they're coming back ex I was going to say that repeat customer is huge in this
7:37
business right but the magic is if you can execute on a couple of their ideas
7:43
and they come back the next year and see holy [ __ ] we've got hangers in our Cottage now that is the magic that
7:52
people really um really love and and all of a sudden if you
8:00
take um a person who comes to a place and they're just coming to a place to go
8:06
fishing but then you can Empower them to make that place their own and make them
8:12
feel like my thoughts and um wants matter
8:19
that right there is the magic and and I was the the other the other thing that I
8:25
learned and to this day I'm very cognizant of is verbiage and the way I
8:31
spoke about the lodge and I was very very intent on not saying my lodge
8:40
because it it it obviously now it's not my Lodge um and uh I had a guest um
8:46
Chris shock actually I had uh him and his family on the podcast Chris had been coming since
8:52
1964 and we just missed them they left last week okay and um Chris said to me
8:58
one day when I said uh we were talking about the lodge and I said our place and he said wow Steve it's not our place
9:05
it's your place and I said no Chris what what makes this my place more than your
9:13
place me the guy being the person who's um the curator and paying the mortgage
9:21
or you the person who's been here for near 50 years you know why why is it not
9:28
more your place you've seen this place long before I did and you'll see it long
9:34
after I have it so when you can take a a place like this and you can perception
9:42
give ownership to the people that come and make them feel like it's their place
9:49
um you've built relationships in this business that last long Beyond yourself
9:55
and uh that is that's the key that's it's an interesting way of going about
10:01
it well you can look at it in many different ways you can look at it financially for me because without those
10:08
people coming to the lodge and coming year after year my books look like [ __ ]
10:13
right and I can tell you right now if you get into this business and you expect to get 100% turnover with new
10:20
guests every year you're sadly sadly mistaken you will not last every Lodge
10:26
we go to is is a high percentage of repeat cust customers every lives we go to an Ontario at least even in BC it
10:32
doesn't matter I bet you braon well yeah braon the guys are coming back every year too so it's a lot about repeat customers you have to have them if my
10:39
repeat customers Dro below 70% I started to get worried and looking internally
10:45
and asking people why right right right right right and sometimes it it
10:51
sometimes the the um answers you get are answers you don't want to hear and the
10:57
one that I didn't want to hear was the fishing wasn't very good because that
11:02
was really the only thing that I didn't have full control of I had some control
11:08
over it and the control that I have over the fishery is making sure that I employ
11:14
a number of good guides that are on the water every day that's right uh because
11:20
when the guides go out and catch fish even if an unguided group comes in and they they go out and they fish and they
11:27
don't have a great day when sitting in the dining room and they hear the group at the table next to them talking about
11:33
going out and catching a 100 walleye and having a wonderful Shore lunch with Billy the guide all of a sudden then
11:41
their the thought process in the guy's mind that didn't do well is well I guess
11:47
there's fish out there what are we doing that can that's that's not right and how
11:53
can we improve and nine times out of 10 when I'd go to that table of guys or
11:59
girls or couples that would uh had been out on their own they'd be saying oh my
12:05
god did those people really catch a 100 walleye yeah and I would say well I
12:10
wasn't with them but I'm sure it must be close because they would have was the
12:17
best absolutely but I would say they're not I don't think they're making it up and even if they kept caught half of
12:24
what they say yeah might not had a clicker on doesn't matter you got you're all day
12:30
F all day do you ever have guests or just to finish that thought all of a sudden those people at the table that
12:36
didn't catch fish that day they were like oh how do we get Billy and then you
12:42
would sell guides in the dining room because people want to catch fish right
12:48
and then that that gives me the ability as the curator of the of the facility
12:56
the ability to go out and hire more guides to get more information and that whole cycle uh uh continues but there
13:04
are just some days that the fish don't cooperate of course I was going to ask you on top of all this do you ever have
13:11
uh you know these guests they've been there forever they don't get guides because they just want to go out on their own and do you ever have either
13:17
guides or yourself go right down to the boat their boat with them and put way points in their GPS always yeah I think
13:22
that's a good thing to do you know what I mean always Now The Guiding Community is a different Community yeah
13:29
and and depending on on where you are and how you build the community within
13:36
your your business some guides can be very guarded over water and um and not
13:43
want to share um amongst anybody amongst even the your own guides are amongst you
13:49
this is he wants to go out there he wants to get his tip because he's got the guy a 52in Musky 100% and you can't
13:55
blame them for that but it doesn't work well in a team right well what tell them and the way that I I run my guides is I
14:04
told them I'm paying you to be here in return you need to give me the
14:11
information that you're getting from the water but we also had an understanding
14:16
that I was not going to give up those a spots there's always two or three spots
14:24
where guides need to go and get a Shore lunch to to go and and produce some fish
14:31
but the upper French River and Lake nipping is a massive expanse of water
14:37
with thousands of spots to catch fish so there was there's no the the the guides
14:44
didn't have a problem going out and telling people where they can go and catch fish oh I saw fish here why don't
14:51
you try here and do this and try that and we also turned the fleet of guided
14:59
people at the lodge into a source of information for us and it and if you can
15:05
if you can build that relationship with your guides with myself and with the guests and go out and as a team try and
15:14
figure out the fishery it works well for everybody oh my God it's a lot easier with 30 people than it is with three
15:20
people well information is information and it's sometimes hard cuz the fish they can move fairly quickly from spot
15:27
to spot and absolutely you know what I mean that's right and um the more people you have
15:33
out there and sometimes the information that you get from people you don't think is significant at the time but when you
15:39
start looking at a bigger picture and you you have more pieces of the puzzle all coming in at the same time it makes
15:46
it far easier to be able to say oh well this is happening here and here and then
15:51
you'll think oh well Chris and Sue were out and they said that they saw they caught uh four Smallmouth on this spot
15:58
when they were kept looking for Pike and then you can take that information and you can say okay well it makes sense
16:05
here it's all about getting as much information in one time as possible and
16:11
and following the the trends of the ecosystem and uh when you convince
16:17
people to buy into that uh All Ships rise with the tide so it it was a it was
16:25
a good way that I found to be able to help protect the guides in a sense that
16:32
they always had that one or two Comfort spots uh they always told me at least
16:37
they said they told me and for the most part usually all of them most you know for the most part there were some guides
16:44
that were truly 100% honest and shared everything with me because they trusted
16:49
me um you get uh if I trained the guides that's the way they were trained you get
16:55
Contract guides that come in obviously that's that some of their information and it's proprietary and and uh and they
17:02
keep it for themselves contract guys so would you get uh try for a guide from
17:08
the French river that knows the area or would you have to get a guy from Georgian Bay to come over and then teach
17:14
him a little bit or how do that work when you're how do you look for how do you pick that contract guide those those contract guides um you always look for
17:23
people that know the water right like it's a a bare minimum uh to know the
17:28
water and to bring outside guides in it works uh but you have to teach them the
17:35
water first and foremost and it makes it easier now that uh Garmin has all of their mapping systems and we've got uh
17:43
uh good sonar and and all of that stuff but still there's there there's a
17:49
learning curve with it of course so I would always look for um local knowledge
17:56
first and again sometimes with local knowledge uh comes a lot of baggage and
18:03
um at that point you've got to balance whether it's it's worth it or not
18:08
because at the end of the day for me um uh as far as guiding goes uh Believe It
18:16
or Not uh catching fish was not the number one
18:21
criteria uh the number one criteria always was the experience that the
18:27
guests felt with that guide and the true Mark of a of an outstanding guide is
18:36
when I can go into the dining room and I can go up to a group of people that just come in from uh uh a day out on the
18:44
water with Billy commanda or Matt o'brienan or Pat Tron or any one Peter
18:51
BS any one of the guides that I had running for me and I would say to the
18:57
the guest how was your day and one of the last things that they would mention was the fishing um on and
19:06
especially on days that that were tough because any any anger on a on a great
19:14
fishing day can go out and guide somebody and and be fairly successful at
19:19
it um not many Anglers can go out on a
19:25
bad fishing day and bring guests back in with a great experience and if you can
19:30
do that y that would be a good guide that is the key you know you I had a a
19:37
group I remember Pat actually told the story on one of the uh one of the Diaries podcasts where you know it was a
19:44
rough day and um there were younger kids and whenever you have younger kids like I mean the goal is always just to catch
19:50
fish panfish anything just tiny wall doesn't matter and and um for whatever
19:57
reason that day it it just wasn't happening and um he pulled up onto one
20:03
of the uh one of the islands and uh and had the uh kids go pick blueberries and
20:09
at their Shore lunch uh they they they ate the blueberries and that that's all
20:15
that those kids talked about and the other thing you need to do as a guide is
20:21
you need to quickly um assess the people in your boat and the people that you
20:27
need to work for and a lot of times when you have a family like that you're not
20:33
working for dad trying to catch him a 50-in Musky that's not what they want Even though as a guide you may want to
20:40
go out and try and catch a Musky with young kids you can't troll for 8 hours
20:46
and maybe not catch anything so you need to really assess what the expectation of
20:52
the group is and then live up to that not what you think you should be living
20:57
up to and and and in that case in particular Pat took those kids they
21:03
spent 3 and 1 half hours on the shore of some uninhabited island in the middle of
21:08
the French River picking blueberries and those kids will take that memory so far
21:15
beyond uh uh even if they did catch a 50-inch Muskie those kids will never
21:21
forget it and as a lodge owner that's perfect for me because when I know I've
21:27
got a nine and a 10-year-old kid going home and on the drive home they're saying Mom Dad when can we go back to
21:35
show a that there's a blueberry truck let's stop that is that is perfect
21:41
marketing AB that is the best marketing that you will ever attain as as a as a
21:47
owner in this business Bar None because those kids talk to everybody aunts and
21:54
uncles and this and that and not only that they are they are very annoying and
22:00
the parents just bring them back because the kids want to come back right so
22:06
that's the mark of a of a of a an outstanding
22:11
[Music]
22:19
guide we interrupt this program to bring you the much anticipated bonus code for the latest fish in Canada giveaway this
22:26
week's code is hockey capital h o c k y hockey just type that in the bonus coach
22:32
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her yet what are you waiting for head over to fishing canada.com while you listen to the rest of this episode click
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contests and sign up for all the latest fishing Canada giveaways and now back to the
22:49
[Music] episode you mentioned a few things in
22:55
there first thing is that I love what you said about uh just the GPS stuff with people the
23:01
guides that don't know whatever last night as an instance one of the guides come into our boat we had a we'll talk about our day in a second here but one
23:08
of the guides come in our boat knowing that we didn't get any big small mouth which is We on jumped right in the boat turned on the garments say okay here we
23:14
go how do you do this because he was used to huming birer Lance whatever it was he do he scroll around Waypoint one
23:20
Waypoint two Waypoint three so we got three way points from you know a professional guide here like that to check out today or tomorrow if we want
23:26
so it's so handy nowadays that stuff is so handy to be able to do that um for
23:31
anybody you know what I mean if I want to give Stevie some way points on the phone I can send him a text Pat we talked to Fat last yesterday we're
23:37
getting ideas through the phone and all that stuff so that's thing now for our day yesterday it's funny because you were talking about things that are
23:42
changing so we're in this first week of July and we're we're basing a lot of we
23:48
wanted small M bass we want to go to Lake nipping and we're basing a lot of our plan on history and our history of
23:55
Steve's history I don't know the lake Hardley at all I've been on the lake maybe once or twice in my life with the main Lake itself um and Pat Pat Tron
24:03
being one of the best guides Steve's ever had one the best and Matt yeah Matt Matt helped out afterwards too so um but
24:10
these guys have so much history here maybe not so much for small Mo but definitely more than most people for
24:15
small MTH right they're more musky guys but they got a lot of small and they catch incidental fish anyway so we we
24:21
went through a good map session with Pat and we hit I mean how many how many miles did we put on yesterday we went
24:27
from here to do point over to the other what's the other point called uh Jo Joo
24:33
point over to the Goose Islands and then uh back in towards the shoreline fished
24:38
all that we didn't fish the river at all and quite honestly we C we didn't get a 2 and a half pound Smallmouth yesterday
24:45
of of all day you know I me we didn't get a lot of fish at all and when we told people that we you know what what
24:51
and then everybody every guide and everybody that that's in the null around this area says they moved off the
24:56
shallows they moved out into their deeper they're starting to move to their deeper areas and it didn't even dawn on me really when we're fishing them
25:01
because normally you can catch big small moou shallow all year long and they probably are doing that they're
25:06
transitioning out and they may come back in in a little bit but but it was we were trying to figure everything out so the water was 66 degrees yesterday Pat
25:14
was saying oh wow it was 72 when we were he was looking at his records was 72 degrees so you you base yourself on
25:20
History like that and but there's so many factors with history like this year ridiculous when you look at it bait and
25:27
the bugs and everything else and and and and the ice there wasn't much ice up here this year it went out early you'd
25:34
think though the water be warmer right you would think but I don't think we've had the heat other than other than one
25:41
big Heat Wave now we've had consistent um heat above zero because I got my
25:47
garden in about 3 weeks earlier than normal but um it was always the Spring's
25:53
been that 15 to 18 maybe 20° so and the nights go down
25:59
that's where water temperature and I know people always say yeah it's just the surface you're measuring and blah
26:04
blah blah and that's true but it's an indicator what it is is just an indicator you know what I mean so that you can kind of put in your mind this is
26:11
where our starting point is this is what I use water temperature a lot just to get my mind working in the right direction and all that stuff but look
26:17
what Steve saying right this spring it got warm real quick the ice no ice got warm then it got cool and cool cool and
26:23
like a today like anybody's watching on YouTube right now this is coldo right now this is July and it's cold we got
26:29
our hoodies on right here at the in the morning it might be like I mean you can hear the gusts of wind um it's probably
26:36
about uh 14 or 15 degrees right now for July the 3rd and um that's probably not
26:42
typical it's not typical there have been years like this though I remember one year here at the lodge we had the
26:48
fireplace uh lit every day in July like it was like this the whole month wow
26:55
what of seems like it's going to be right now for some reason I don't know why but so we got so we got our butts kind of handed to us yesterday on small
27:01
mouth do you have any ideas of as to why would you have it in your head now that you thought of it last night and and
27:06
well like I mean just the the whole once you start to step back and you get more of those pieces of information from all
27:14
different um angles historical what's going on now um my feeling is yeah
27:21
they've they've Mo well obviously they've moved off of those uh secondary shallow areas where they're transition
27:28
out of the spawn and I think they probably have moved deep because we looked shallow again up into those
27:34
spawning areas and didn't find them there either and um I think my gut
27:40
feeling says it was because the there was there wasn't the ice Mass the ice
27:46
went out early um although it wasn't all that warm um it was warm enough for for
27:53
the smallies to spawn early and they're just they're just two or 3 weeks early and we're talking uh a window of a week
28:01
um Matt was out with Christ and Su shock I mentioned that um and and Katie that
28:07
they were here last week and they went to a a boulder pile out at the goose right where Peter and I were a week ago
28:14
and uh and hammered what did he say had 30 fish in one spot moved they didn't even move they put spot lock on and they
28:21
caught 30 fish and and Matt said the big ones were around 4 lb and we didn't see
28:26
anything over 2 and2 lb even on on the hook or in the water on the Liv scope we
28:33
had a couple of incid incidences where we saw bigger fish in the Liv scope we caught them and they were Mamo they were
28:39
sheep head yeah sheep head well there's a great story there we'll talk about that once we finish this thought but um
28:46
going back to it I I really I feel that they're just ahead and now and and the
28:51
thing is the spots that the guys gave us here at the dock last night they're all deeper they're deeper than 25 ft
28:58
contrast that's a Summer Spot and they're River spots too they're not the same as these fish in the lake who knows where these fish in the lake if if
29:04
they're in a transition mode I don't care who you are you're going to you're going to have a hard time catching the
29:10
or finding these fish and then catching them because I do think we saw some fish yesterday and literally they would of
29:16
course we're throwing yig jerk baits Yi crankbaits Etc they wouldn't even touch a Ned or Steve's senko have a wacky
29:23
rigged unweighted senko with an 8B Yuri fluorocarbon Lion on the a leader on it
29:28
so that you know you're thinking maybe it's a line thing no any small mouth in his right mind would hit that so there's
29:35
definitely something going on with that right you could we were watching the light scope and you couldn't you'd see them they wouldn't even look at the
29:40
stuff they swi remember they were swimming away from our stuff yeah weird we did not see that if the pattern held
29:48
out um is schools of anything and I and I feel that when they start to
29:54
transition out into deeper water because nipping is so shallow and really doesn't
29:59
have a whole lot of of um hard structure like the French River I think a lot of
30:07
those big bass um spread out I don't I don't think they School up um really
30:13
small yeah well I I don't think I don't think on nipping you find in the summertime schools of 30 and 40 and 50
30:21
um Smallmouth now it might be that those fish are migrating into the French River
30:27
uh and because you do find big schools of small mouth but again they once you get into
30:35
Late July and August you can see those fish as deep as 40 ft right because
30:41
we'll fish to a maximum of about 40 feet for walleye and uh it's interesting on
30:46
the sonar on traditional sonar you'll see the walleye hooks are basically stuck right to the bottom in the daytime
30:55
but if you see the walleye hook stuck on the bottom and then you see hooks about 5 to 8 ft above them in 40 ft of water
31:03
you can just about mark my words that all of those fish above the walleye are
31:08
Smallmouth wow and uh and sometimes when you get on a spot like that it's hard to
31:14
get your jig through the small mouth to get down to the walleye and um so Lake
31:20
nipping for me uh because this water is so vast and I and as an owner you don't
31:25
get a chance to fish every day uh although that's contrary to popular belief um I don't have enough um um
31:35
knowledge on nipping but I know that the boys catching muskies will catch the big
31:41
ones while fishing muskies and it's not like they're getting a four and a half
31:47
or five pounder and then three more are following right you know what I mean okay so so do you think that Lake
31:53
nipping I mean with all the guides and all the experience you guys have had do you think it's a different population the lake nipping versus French River do
32:00
you think that'd be a different population of fish on the average I I would I would say cuz I'm wondering why
32:07
they would migrate into the French River if it was bait yeah but it's cisos it's just cisos okay it's the migration it's
32:14
the Migra at least for the big ones at least those really really big fish I
32:20
believe that they follow the cisos what about the lake is there no Cisco in the lake uh not this time of the year okay
32:26
in the in the cisos in the fall will move out of the lake and I'm not sure I
32:32
I haven't I haven't seen them personally out in the West Arm I I'm not saying
32:37
they're not there but the cisos are going to they they're the the the I believe the reason that the cisos
32:44
migrate into the river and the river is a a a
32:50
absolute biomass that is MHM unbelievable the guys are talking the
32:56
guys are talking about last night how many Cisco in there right now it's unbeli but they're always there in the summer it's just that during the day
33:03
you'll turn on your your sonar out here and and you'll find the average depth in
33:08
the upper French river is probably about 100 ft with a lot of area deeper than
33:13
100 and uh you'll find uh a layer of biomass that I if if you took all the
33:20
water out of it you could walk on it um between 80 and 100 ft or you know 75 and
33:28
90 ft and it is solid for miles and um and that's between Cisco and the food
33:36
that they're eating or whatever like bugs and all that is everything combined pretty much yeah wow just a whole life
33:42
form down like a planet of animals that level yes wow and and those Cisco in the
33:48
fall um migrate with coold with the cold water um I believe they spawn out on on
33:56
nipping or and and in I I I'm not sure if they are but I can tell you I know
34:03
that those cisos start to to to move towards the lake and they'll stage like
34:08
that 200t hole at right at the M me yesterday y That's that that area they stage in that area and then they move
34:15
out onto the lake okay well I'll guarantee you one thing you said you don't know about the the schooling the small if the cisos move into the lake
34:23
the big small Mo will school together and they will be hanging around the guaranteed yeah guaranteed they'll be it
34:29
won't be one or two small MTH it'll be 205 Pounders together you know what I mean or 35 Pounders or something like
34:35
that they will school up because they'll just live off those Cisco they're smart they're instinctive easy meal that's
34:41
what the big muskies are doing yeah I mean Cisco for anybody anybody that doesn't know a Cisco you can look it up
34:46
now easy on Google but it's like a herring type of bay it's like a it's like a big Shiner minnow like a giant Shiner minow kind of it's oily it's
34:54
fatty full of nutrients it's really one of the best foods they can eat if you're
34:59
if you're a if you're a big fish and you want to you want bang for your buck
35:05
cisos is where it's at even small lakes Hasty lake has Cisco in and the big small Le you saw that were spitting them
35:11
out isn't it cisos that they drop in the lake with uh what do they no it's rainbow smell oh rainbow smell okay yeah
35:18
yeah yeah but but there's a Cisco base in there and these small these will and larg M will live on Cisco and rainbow
35:24
smelt the ones that have got on to that game some live in the shallows on frogs and whatever for large but the Smart
35:30
Ones they get out there and they know that hey this is an easy meal so with that many Cisco in here be it's that
35:35
makes it harder to catch fish too by the way you know it's the base of any of any
35:41
pattern what are they eating and where can they find it yeah yeah yeah right
35:47
absolutely so brings us to my brings us to our next question what are we going to do tomorrow we're not going to go out
35:53
this cuz we're going to take a weather day cuz it's going to be nasty we can't get in the lake etc etc well like I mean
35:58
there's there's there's two options we um hold the course look for small mouth
36:05
and look deep um we take the local Knowledge from the guides that uh that
36:11
we've talked to and they've given us some spots to look in 24 25 foot um if
36:17
it was up to me to make the plan I would I would say let's check out those spots
36:22
for Smallmouth first thing and um and then we uh if if they're there and
36:29
they're of the quality some are of the quality that we need for TV to show to
36:35
show off to show it every all of our viewers then we we hold the course but
36:40
if in those three spots we don't find uh uh a quality fish then we've got to have
36:46
a um a wee brainstorm secondary and then uh maybe move to uh a a species that is
36:55
is more comfortable for me and know for you and that would be large mou um I
37:01
don't think walleye here is an option especially after Bray band Lodge uh where it's just ridiculous and every
37:09
walleye you catch is a carbon copy of the other and they're all big like really big yeah um uh it doesn't do us a
37:17
a service or the lodge a service to go out and fish walleye and and all Shier
37:24
um throughout my tenure um Lake nipping uh is is is a walleye Haven and
37:31
everybody knows that absolutely but people don't know that um large mouth and smallmouth bass are world class here
37:38
as well and um that among the the the
37:43
the reason the other reason is I I love larg mouth bass I like smalles too um
37:49
but um they're they're outstanding and um you can go back and
37:54
you can look at anai and Pete and I and all of those shows that we shot during
37:59
my tenure you know I was pushing the large mouth because I believe that there
38:06
are people out there number one that will travel to catch good large mouth
38:12
especially when they know that they can catch walleye on a whim and hey if you want to try your luck and throw your hat
38:18
in the ring for muskies I can do that too right and then there's just people that like catching fish and Largemouth
38:26
when they cooperate rate are pretty are pretty predictable and and a solid
38:32
resource to go out and and and and um and and uh enjoy large mouth and
38:38
Smallmouth if you're going if you're going for numbers at a lodge like this that's the beauty of a sh air Lodge is that it's got large mouth Smallmouth
38:44
walleye Pike and musky as their main you uh game fish species do you have they have more than that even believe it or
38:49
not but like perch and sheep head etc etc but but you got that large mod and small mode thing is that that's your
38:54
numbers game so you got a 4-day trip here four or five day trip here you can't get out the big lake lake Nippon cuz you want you have a Musky pattern
39:01
going on out there well you know what I don't want to fish the muskys in the River today let's go do the small mou for half a day and large M for half a
39:07
day all of a sudden you just put a full day in you caught yourself 20 fish you know of different sizes and all that and had some fun come back got great stories
39:14
day two or day three they go back out in the lake and try and get a big musky or something like that so you know not to mention the northern pike I was going to
39:20
just say I know there's big Pike especially on like nipping CU I've talked to guys in the past where they
39:25
kept trying to get me up there saying guys come on up we have 40 inch Northern like 35 to 42 43 one one of the
39:32
housekeeper servers yesterday uh 39 inch caught a 39 in you're trolling just out front yeah so there's and you know what
39:39
a 39 40 in Pike is a quality fish I don't care what anybody says a 4 40in
39:44
Pike is you know you're pushing 17 18 lbs anyways right that's a big fish man
39:50
when we catch something like that for fun or on TV we're going nuts we're high five we're having a great time so for
39:56
sure so it's got got to a good you've got to be in a special place on the planet to catch um consistently northern
40:03
pike over 40 in like there there are there's enough there's there's so
40:09
few that I could hold them in my hand we just back absolutely that was they just
40:16
posted one yesterday 50 in I saw a video of 51 it was 51 on the board really he
40:22
squeezed the tail 51 to the tip yeah I'll Pike wow and uh Peter actually sent
40:28
me a picture the other day texted it to me I forgot to send it to you he had a picture of uh
40:34
248 that they they got they had a double header of 248 northern pike can you
40:39
imagine I know well being there and seeing the fishery yeah I can imagine
40:45
you know but it's almost like 248 in muskies when you think about it it's not maybe it doesn't have the quote Mystique
40:50
of it or or whatever the but two 48 in Pike is you know the same I would argue
40:55
I would argue that a 4 8 in Pike is like a 50 a 53 or 54 in Northern
41:04
soes or something like that yeah 100% and and uh folks just by the way Bray
41:10
bant Lodge is is on the McKenzie river which flows out of um great Slave Lake
41:16
in the Northwest Territory so we're to to try and compare this fishery to that
41:21
or or compare any fishery to that fishery you just can't you do and and
41:26
that's why it's um even a 40 in Pike up there for people that don't catch a lot of Pike a 40 in or even up there is a
41:33
good fish for sure you get that beside your boat and you look at that you go oh my God how big is this thing it's an
41:38
impressive fish cuz a 40 to a 44 that does it's only a 4 in difference and you don't even really see that when they're
41:44
in the water like that you usually see that on the board they're just Giants so they're shaking them off uh at the side
41:49
of the boat they're shaking them off the hook what's the biggest pike you've seen out of this Lodge uh the biggest one
41:55
that I've seen here was 44 in that's a that's a massive Pike man this is not
42:01
Northern Ontario what do you call this this is not really Northern this is basically Central Ontario we're we're
42:07
North Bay so we're 4 hours north of the GTA yeah which is not North compared to our Northwest Ontario canora that's I
42:14
mean that's ner that's 20 hours you know this is a an easy drive to get to a place like this from Toronto 44in Pike
42:20
is that's a big pip that's huge and and that canora just to give just to put it in perspective um you could start in
42:28
Toronto and drive to Florida in the same amount of time as it took us to drive to
42:35
uh Nordic Point Lodge in canora or if you took the province of Ontario and
42:41
flipped it on its most southern Point folded it over top of the United States
42:47
the North End of Ontario is in the Gulf of Mexico like it is people don't
42:53
understand how big Ontario is yeah she's a beast of abro absolutely with lots of water and lots
42:59
of fish yeah yeah yeah for sure um we'll close it off how was our time demo we're
43:04
getting close probably we're 45 minutes we're so we're get any time we're good Stevie wanted to talk about the the uh
43:11
about the incident yesterday yeah I was going to say you can't close it off yet well we got to uh I'll set it up so we
43:18
got into one area and uh and we were just getting smaller fish smaller fish and then finally I got a a pop on a jig
43:25
and it was boom it was a perfect tap not like a small Mo they're fishing for small M so I'm thinking oh my maybe I
43:30
got a Walle or a pike just the way it hit and it started fighting and it fighting pulling I said okay it was not
43:35
a small because it didn't come up didn't come near the surface and all of a sudden starts yank and I said guys I might have a nice walleye on here like
43:41
that and then something came over my head Steve told me about him and Pat years ago catching sheep head and I said
43:46
unless it's a sheep head and I quickly tried to exit that out of my brain thinking no way but when we got first
43:51
glimpse of this second no no the first one I'm first one and uh and then all of a sudden he comes up and I go oh [ __ ]
43:59
it's a sheepy and we all started laughing I mean Dean's in the back he's even laughing he's not Sho well if you
44:04
go back in the tape you'll see that I was trying to build this wonderful creature up I'm like we like sheep head
44:11
don't worry it's good the sheep head are good and you know what and all in all we
44:17
did talk about because they because we thought it was a smallo or a Walley because they fight that well like that
44:22
would be a turbocharged Walley or a typical small m without coming up like that and pulling the whole N9 yard so we
44:28
get this big sheepy in we laugh about it we put it on video V shoots it for us and then you know throw it back and have
44:34
our laughs and then we get to the next spot and this is our um this is a shallow Reef that Steve was talking about where Matt actually was on put us
44:41
on to and you know the spawners are there and I this one I didn't even feel tapped so this one was just a typical
44:48
small mold bite on a Ned rig where you sort of lift into it and you say oh there's a fish there and I set the hook and and all of a sudden you know they Bo
44:55
the same thing he starts pulling p and pulling and pulling and and and then all of us and then we looked down Stephen I
45:02
now we're in Shallow so the other stuff was in 20 ft this guy was in shallow and I looked down and I would have swore
45:08
like I mean I'd have bet the farm it was a small I saw a small mouth but I saw down there and Stevie said this oh it's a big SMY and he goes and grabs a net
45:15
and it was because the watercolor and these sheep head are different they're goldish color to begin with here they're
45:20
little like the quinty ones are really white it's a little tanic the water it's little BR color it's brownish so it just
45:27
like a smly down there and I said dude this is a big one and Stevie goes I know I saw I said a little prayer in my mind
45:34
I'm like thank get it in get it in and then I don't know what happened it was in and that was only about 5T down we
45:40
could see it and we thought it was a mly once I got to 3 oh no it's another once
45:46
it come up and it turned and you really got a good look at the profile ugly head it's got yeah it's got a totally
45:53
different profile from the side and and yeah we right ahead we knew so we get we
45:59
get this Stevie Nets the sheepy and it's all beautiful oh we're laughing and haaha and I had it caught in a Ned like
46:06
I said and it had a tiny little hook I went really light cuz we were shallow so I uh tiny little Ned and when they get
46:12
stuck when I when I get a jig stuck a lot of people when they get a a flipping jig stuck in a bass mouth bass's mouth
46:17
and it doesn't come out easy you can you can pop it with your hand you just hit the head of the jig and it pushes the
46:23
hook out and it just pops out like nothing it's sometimes it's the easiest way to do it so instead of grabbing my pliers I'll try that first so I was on a
46:29
little n rig so I went pop like that and as he hit it you know you kind of Hit the jaw of the fish too or whatever like
46:34
that well I hit that the fish started to shake and he [ __ ] all over the boat I mean this thing that crap went flying
46:42
like in every direction I'm surprised it didn't hit the camera wow and it didn't it didn't hit us but it hit everything
46:48
else around us right I I got a I got a it was green to oh it was terrible but I got to I got to back this up a little
46:54
bit and how Peter's talking about just lightly popping it and hitting it on the jaw and this and that and there's this
47:01
polite big wonderful sheep head here and he's being so kind to not move or
47:07
nothing and Peter's trying to pull the hook out and then he had it by the bottom lip and when he popped it he
47:15
popped it right on the end of the nose and if I was that sheep head and somebody hit me on the end of the nose I
47:22
would have [ __ ] all over too and it was everywhere it was on my feet
47:27
it through my legs it was on the console it was on the floor the only person that
47:33
didn't get [ __ ] on was Peter I had her point in the right direction obviously oh my go and then
47:41
and then he and then he did a swath with it like
47:47
aose oh my God so and then at the very end it's so I I hope I hope we can get
47:53
pull this off because at the very end Stevie thought the camera was was not R so of course when it's all happening we
47:58
s poop you out a poop or whatever blah blah blah and then Stevie you know
48:04
everything was kind of over and in a fish like that sometimes we don't even show the release because we get caught
48:09
you know what I mean V says caught we all say CAU cuz we don't think the audience doesn't want to see it which is the wrong thing to do we need to shoot
48:15
everything but yeah but then Stevie you know he got just out oh my God he's [ __ ] everywhere and he said he said [ __ ]
48:21
about two or three times and he started with an F bomb something Dro he
48:26
say I want to I'm hoping that we can actually put that on the television with beeps because Angel will probably look
48:32
at it and say the same thing we got it if we can do it we should do because we watched it last night we laughed our
48:38
asses off like the whole thing sequence was okay but when Stevie come up with that stuff it was the best part of the
48:43
whole thing we just laugh so hard so yeah well and I don't remember the last time we did show a sheep head on the
48:48
fishing Canada televis I did a show years ago yeah I mean that's maybe 8 10 years
48:54
ago something like that so oh they'll make the show think they'll make the show because it's part of the game right I mean we have to show reality we always
48:59
like that and and I have always said let's show the realism of the of the if it's if it's 6 in small no we're not
49:05
going to show that we don't but if there's something like that that happens well it's fun you know what I mean it's it was a funny time so so that was our
49:11
that was our highlight our two giant our two giant sheepies so far as a highlight of our trip but I love the idea of of
49:18
looking for large mouth and deep Smallmouth now so we're going to do that uh today or tomorrow depending on the weather here now and then uh and then
49:24
we're going to go from there so hopefully uh hopefully we can pull off a show I think we can I think we'll just you know put our minds to it if it's
49:30
raining bad weather today um I'm going to just go out on a on a boat Mission I'm going to just drop the live Scopes
49:36
down we got two live Scopes in the boat and I'm going to just chart there's two areas I want to go in I'm just going to chart it I don't even cast probably I'm
49:43
going to Mark way points etc etc and then hopefully uh it clears up tomorrow and we can go out and tomorrow and then
49:48
use that to our advantage Stevie told me some stuff to go look at and we we together it's funny there was one spot
49:54
I'm going to be checking out tomorrow he says I got one spot and just before I said it Stevie says oh by the way before we get out of that tell go to this and I
50:00
said that's the spot I'm looking at we had the same thing in our mind so hopefully things will turn out for us so yeah yeah anyways uh anything else from
50:08
the lodge buddy anything you all we covered it pretty much uh in in
50:13
in closing uh I um I just want to thank you for the opportunity to be uh Beyond
50:21
The Outdoor Journal I know uh as the host of Diaries of a lodge owner I just
50:26
uh I always love doing this with you guys and uh and us as well to the audience remember we have a whole
50:32
network of uh podcasts to listen to not just the Outdoor Journal not just Diaries we got everybody else to listen
50:37
to so you'll see it you can look it up and Spotify so we have a bunch of good stuff listen you know for people to listen to that's great and and don't
50:44
forget uh always go over to fishing canada.com and check out the giveaway
50:49
page because there's always wonderful stuff to get in on to win what's on Dean
50:55
right now is it Garmin again again I thought I saw a garment yeah by the time this well we have a we have a garment all year but by the time this is I think
51:02
there's a aquatic 7 watch nice Garmin watch fol these things are awesome these
51:07
things are amazing they do more than you'll ever need that's for sure so and just that all you have to do is go to the website and and sign up you can go
51:14
when you're at the website you can go to the to the store Stevie's hat there my hat here these hoodies here that we're
51:21
wearing right now comforable all good stuff there I think I think it's a pretty fair price seems like it's a fair
51:26
price people are buying it and they're Ling it's high quality and it's cheap this stuff I'm telling you what folks
51:31
these hoodies that we're wearing right now they are so comfortable it's ridiculous how nice they are for the price it's it's all from Timmy over at
51:37
campus crew and uh it's high quality it's high quality stuff at affordable
51:43
prices it's awesome I've been wearing this this thing's been covered in sheep
51:48
head [ __ ] sheep sh I was going to say sheep [ __ ] but sheep head [ __ ] it's been covered in musky slime uh you name it
51:56
blood and and I wash it and it comes out beautiful every time uh it's really
52:02
awesome stuff and and Tim does such a good job over there sir um and for the love of God folks go over and listen to
52:09
Diaries of a lodge owner oh I'll takey I don't blame anybody why not right
52:16
absolutely all right buddy well thanks for sitting in thanks everybody for listening and watching etc etc uh
52:21
another on the road again with the Outdoor Journal Radio podcast and uh and we will talk to you again very very soon
52:27
ciao [Music]
52:38
[Applause] [Music]
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