You wouldn’t know this year how imminent the approach of winter is by looking around. The trees are still in full summer colour and the days are gloriously warm and balmy for the most part. Not much giving away the sliding away of summer – except for the chill in the air when the sun goes down, and the brookies doing their characteristic rituals of the fall season. For the brook trout, love is in the air. So perhaps even for that reason “Lover Boy” run can honestly carry that name well as it did again this year.
1983 it was. I just looked up the old fish records. Jack, Raymond and I were at Lover Boy Run. Jack and Raymond were fishing and I was just doing what I usually like to do (Well yes, being a woman I may offer a running commentary, but sometimes I’m just sitting there being observant and otherwise helpful).
The guys threw out bombers. They threw out leech patterns, sculpins – you name it. What was odd was that occasionally big black backs and dorsal fins would surface from the depths and flick anything hitting the water’s surface with their noses, it was almost like they were annoyed with the goings-on of the surface – what right did we have to be there?
The light was such that you could almost make out the white of the fins on the pebbly bottom, could that be really what we were seeing? A whole bunch of fish? Straining over the canoe sides, sure enough, we could make out the shadowy shapes of huge, huge fish swimming in circular patterns in the shallow waters of Lover Boy. I can still remember that feeling – it was like being privy to another dimension, like a child stumbling upon a primitive and secretive world of wonderment and one of the most thrilling moments that I remember so well to this day.
The lads took the dip net and waited for the black shadow to swim around the circle. And sure enough, we had one. This first little lady was 6 1/2 pounds, a beautiful female, we quickly weighed her in the net and carefully put her back to join her suitors … and what followed was one huge brook trout after another. All weighed, released and heading back to their underwater ritual of spawning. There was one character that almost doubled the back size and half again as long that we could not get close to. We left that evening knowing that without being able to catch or even dip net this big fish; there were truly double-digit brook trout in those waters.
We didn’t get the double digit this year, I’m sure he’s still out there somewhere. We had so many Big Red wannabes, 6 and 7 pounders. Lover Boy again shines, with the biggest thrill going to Agnes Ochs of Michigan (above photo) with an 8 1/4 pound brookie this week. Couldn’t have happened to a nicer lady.
Today is the last fishing day of the season, we’re packing up and heading home. There is a frost warning out now for the nights, and the weatherman now peppers his commentary with “freezing rain” or “flurries.”
It is time to go and let the silence take over the Minipi air, and for the snow blanket and protect the ground. Until later. Be well.
