When I worked for one of the largest mining companies in the world, we were the very first ones to open a diamond mine in the Northwest Territories province of north central Canada. The mine was actually about 175 miles north of Yellowknife (as the crow flies). Most equipment and consumables were brought up during the winter when the thousands of lakes froze over hard, and winter ice roads could be built. A popular show on satellite/cable television documents the many hazards of driving semis over the frozen lakes to deliver goods to the several mines that now operate just below the Arctic Circle. With temperatures well into minus forty-below and colder, ice thicknesses can eventually grow to over 42 inches. While helping to bring the very first mine to production, I was able to spend a total of 16 weeks over the course of one year up on site. One perk was that I befriended many mine employees, and of course hunting and fishing invites soon came from them.
Chapter 1: Long Lake Pike
While I was there in the summer, my new friend, Dexter, from the mine, offered to take me fishing for “jacks” as they call them, also commonly known as Northern Pike. He said he had all the gear. I just had to buy a license, and he’d be picking me up at 6 a.m. that Saturday. It was late June in Yellowknife, and the weather and looooong days of sunshine at that time of the year were fantastic for fishing. We had over 20 hours of daylight, making the fish quite hungry all of the time. They’d just spent 7 to 8 months under ice, and he promised they’d be attacking our lures.
I was really looking forward to our day on the water. The stories he told me of how great the fishing was, in my mind, seemed too good to be real. But when others confirmed it, I knew I could expect fishing far beyond what I was used to in Minnesota.
I’d just undergone some back surgery and had to wear a two piece “clam-shell” full torso support brace. I was still a little tender, but he said his twin-V, 22-foot fiberglass boat would ride real smooth on the lake.
Chapter 2: A Bit of A Ride
At 6 a.m. sharp, Dexter pulled up towing his big boat that looked like it had a 100 or 150 horse outboard on back. Another guy also came along, which was great by me. I had
no idea where we were going, but I knew the area was chocked full of lakes. When flying over,...
it looked like a checkerboard with an equal distribution of land and water. Literally, if you threw a rock out of a plane, it could just as well land in water, as on land. The base rock in the area was granite, and back in glacial times, soft spots that got scoured out filled with water as the glaciers receded. While Minnesota claims to be the “Land of 10,000 Lakes”, up at the diamond mine, the permitted area alone had over 50,000 lakes!
After about a 45 minute drive out of town and pretty much in the middle of nowhere, we pulled off the gravel road and right up to the shores of a very big lake. There were no
stores, buildings, or people probably within 30 or more miles of us. This was really remote! Pulling alongside a simple dock, he backed the trailer into the water, floating the boat, and then unhooked it from the trailer. We boarded, settled in and took off at full throttle, heading for where I don’t know, as Dexter has not told me the plan for the morning.
Right away, it was obvious that the lake is very long and skinny- skinny being a relative term. It appeared to be at least one to two miles wide, maybe three? The way I could
tell it was very long, is that while I could see the far shore in the distance, it was misty and hazy, while shores to either side were crystal clear. Anyway, as I was just along for
the ride, I settled back as we sped away. Truth be told, all of the shore to our sides looked pretty good for fishing, but there must have been a reason for passing by so much good shoreline.
The farther we went, the choppier the waves were getting, and as I was still pretty tender, I started to feel sharp stabs of pain up my back each time we slamed into a
wave. We started at full throttle, and kept that way the entire time. The boat had to be doing at least 25 to 30 knots, and was really pounding the waves. The pain got so bad,
that I had to keep telling myself we are getting closer and closer, and surely it won’t be much longer until we stop. I really had no idea, but that’s what got me through the
rough ride. After a while though, I couldn’t take the pounding any more, and had to lie flat on the deck of the boat.
“RRRRRRRR!” Ten minutes go by....
“RRRRRRRR!” Twenty minutes. “RRRRRRRR!” Thirty minutes, and the distant shore still looked misty and far, far away. “RRRRRRrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!” Finally, after 45 minutes, Dexter started to throttle back. Amen! I got up and had a seat to see if we had made it to the far shore.
We easily must’ve traveled 25 or more miles, at full throttle in his boat. Finally, the distant shore looked as near and clear as the both sides of the lake. 300, 200, and at last only 100 yards from the far shore, which we had been aiming at for what seemed like over an hour. As I looked over the side, the water is as clear as gin, and around 15 feet deep. It was actually a little spooky.
Looking straight ahead, I could see that we were headed for a channel that breaks off to the right, but to where? The water got to around 10 feet deep, and as we traveled up the channel, there were reed-like weeds growing up from the bottom, bent towards us, from what must have been a fairly strong current; but a current from what? We’d gone perhaps a quarter mile, when I noticed Mark, Dexter’s friend, had already put a spoon on his line… but why? In just a moment, I could see what we boated so fast and far for.
Chapter 3: Amazing Cascade
At the end of the channel, to our left there was a cascade of water pouring into the end of the channel. It looked almost exactly like the Hamm’s beer commercial from the 1960s! It was around 60 feet wide and over a distance of perhaps 150 feet, I could see that a much bigger lake up above us was down feeding and spilling into the channel. The drop is only about six feet, but it was the most spectacular sight I had ever seen!
How in the world did a huge lake form only six feet higher than the long narrow one we have been on? The reason is the granite, which is everywhere, and the effects of the glaciers irregularly carving as they advanced and receded. The entire shoreline of the channel is bald-faced granite, which steeply drops off at the water’s edge. There is no gravel, or sandy beach on the shoreline. The landscape goes from granite to water that is 8 to 10 feet deep within two feet of the shore.
So amazed by what I see,...
I hardly notice Mark at the front of the boat. As soon as we get up to the shore, rod in hand, he jumps out with the boat tie-off line, and wraps the end around a bush. He then dashes about 80 feet towards the boiling overflow, stands on the steep granite edge, and casts his spoon into the middle, of the point where the cascading water boils into the channel.
So amazed by what I was seeing, I hardly noticed Mark at the front of the boat. As soon as we got up to the shore, rod in hand, he jumped out with the boat tie-off line, and wraped the end around a bush. He then dashed about 80 feet towards the boiling overflow, stood on the steep granite edge, and cast his spoon into the middle of the point where the cascading water boils into the channel.
Within seconds he has a hard strike, and in no time at all has landed a pike that was longer than his arm- on his first cast! As I ran up to him, he claims it will go over 26 lbs. Right behind me as Dexter with a spring scale in his hand. He quickly hung Mark’s pike from the scale, and proclaimed it to be “only 25 lbs.!” My chin just about hit the ground; the largest Northern I ever caught was to me, a “bragging 8 pounder!” I was hooting and hollering, while Dexter and Mark were laughing at me.
“We came all this way, because the overflow of the upper lake washes down sick or injured fish.” explained Dexter. “The big jacks love to hang out below, for an easy meal as it washes down the cascade into the end of this channel. As you can see, the water is extremely clear, but you can’t see the bottom below the cascade, as the hole has been washed out to a great depth. It has to be at least 30+ feet deep… and full of big jacks!”
For the next ten hours, stopping only for lunch, we caught over four dozen Northern Pike from around 15 to 28 lbs., all within 150 feet of the bottom of the cascade, and handfuls of smaller ones. We would take turns getting to stand on the inside corner where the cascade met the channel, but even 50 yards down from it, the fishing was great. My biggest one was “only” 18 lbs., but that was more than double the weight of the largest one I’d ever previously caught in Minnesota.
Chapter 4: Hungry Jack
As I was standing and holding him for a photo, my 18 pounder started to thrash violently, and bit my left forearm like a crocodile! He dropped to the shore at that moment, and quickly wiggled...
back into the water. I stood there in great pain. Looking at my forearm, I saw blood oozing from over a dozen puncture marks in my skin. A Pike’s mouth is full of needle-like, sharp teeth, and as I took a closer look, I saw that several of his teeth had broken off in my arm! It felt like someone had whacked me with a hammer, and by the next day, I had a dark bruise almost the diameter of an orange with scabs from the teeth punctures.
The next week at the mine, everyone could not help but notice my arm, and each one roared with laughter as I told them about the large jack that bit the American. To this day, I still see a half-dozen or so small puncture scars in my left arm from the hungry Canadian jack that bit me.
Besides the big one I caught, the most exciting catch was bringing in a foot long “snake”- what they called a young jack. I was standing on the steep granite shore, where the water gets over 10 feet deep, less than two feet out from the edge. My rod was pointed at the little guy, with the tip only four feet from the water. Just as I was about to lift him out, from below in the deep dark water, a 30 inch pike suddenly rises from nowhere and completely inhales my catch!
Quickly, I hit the spool release, as he turns and dives back to the deep. With the hard turn and dive the big boy took, my line breaks, so he got away free and clear with the “snake” still in his belly. It was for sure, worth losing a lure though, just to be able to see what a big jack is capable of eating!