Walk and wade and untouched wilderness river in search of iridescent Arctic Grayling. These scrappy fighters are eager feeders taking all types of small gear and flies…often sipping dry flies off the surface. An experience that will truly immerse you in the unspoiled wilderness of northern Canada
Come down and visit the Scott Lake Lodge crew at booth #644 this year at the DSC Annual Convention. The event is Jan. 5-8 at the Dallas Convention Centre.
Already have a trip booked? Come get the lowdown and a welcome gift.
Haven’t booked a trip? Now is the time to do it, there might be some incentive!
Keep an eye out for the Scott Lake Lodge booth and stop by to talk trophy northern pike, giant lake trout and flyin fishing in northern Canada. Hope to see you there!
Here a quick summary of what your pike fishing time at Scott Lake Lodge might look like. Whether you fly fish, spin fish or have never fished. Our guides will get you on the fish! Sight fishing is common and you can stalk Trophy Northern Pike in crystal clear water.
All but one of our changeovers was textbook. From the time our charter flight from Saskatoon landed at Stony Rapids to the time the last guest stepped on our dock was always just a few minutes either side of an hour (yes, we do measure those things).
Everything just clicked this year: our entire guide team was able to stay for the entire season; there were very few motor issues with our outboards, other than the two at fly out lakes that were literally eaten by bears; fly out departures were almost always within a minute or two of planned times; our power system never failed, despite some problems with our inverters; the weather was warmer and sunnier than average (only a few days of the dreaded east wind) and most importantly our guests all appeared to leave happy as our evaluations have testified.
In short, it was a season of low drama, except for the fishing.
And there was plenty of drama with our fishing. It was again the season of monster fish. We thought 2016 was a season that we could never replicate. Starting with Joe Novicki’s 51” pike in June last year and going right through the season, the 2016 season was magic. We even dedicated a special four-page spread to capture the 34 pike that stretched the tape to 47 inches or better. We thought that would be a one-year deal. Not quite. Joe Novicki did it again this season with another 51” pike, from a different lake—not the same fish. And the giants just kept coming. By the time we closed shop on August 29th there were 39 more pike over 47 inches, a new record. Those big fish were spread over a huge swath of the far north—nine different lakes including a dozen from Scott Lake itself. Going back just a few years our pike over 47” rarely totaled more than a dozen from all lake combined. Total trophies also set a record with 1,965. Over the previous seven seasons that average was 1,371. That’s 594 more times that someone said “that’s a gorgeous fish”. Pike trophies also hit a record with 1,487, almost double the 882 that we averaged over the previous seven years. Lake trout and grayling trophies came in at very respectable numbers of 213 and 263 respectively.
“So many big fish. In the 21-year history of the lodge we’ve never seen anything like it.”
While the last guests left our island on August 29th, the season didn’t end there. Not by a long shot. Fall in the far north is a compelling season, with the sunny, blue sky days mixed with far more cloudy, wind blustery days, but they are all wonderful. For starters, it’s a totally bug-free period of the season (our bugs happen in late June and early July); the skies are usually filled with the sights and sounds of migrating geese and loons and the reefs are full of trout. Throw in the birch trees with their lovely yellow splendor and the ground cover in rich russet and you have quite a picture.
It was the picture that the two dozen parents, children, boyfriends, girlfriends and just plain friends who came up to join our staff for our annual Friends and Family Week enjoyed. They did it all- plenty of fishing (and plenty of trophy fish and trophy experiences), a couple of nights of spectacular northern lights, and most importantly a lot of relaxed conversations around the dinner tables and fireside.
The atmosphere was casual except for the first evening when the kitchen staff wanted to show off a bit with table cloths and a fancy, guest-quality dinner. It was an opportunity for them to find out just what the Scott Lake Experience is all about and to find out if their friends or relatives had been exaggerating about it. No one had. The reviews were top notch. No one was counting the drinks but let’s just say that there were not too many folks eager for early morning fishing. This was a relaxed party, a perfect way for our staff to end their season.
When they left it was down to the Scott Lake Lodge worker bees who tackled the shut down process which is many days with many people and the main lodge renovation. That group lead by Scott guide Paul Hamilton, teamed up with his dad Ted, hit the ground running. Before they wrapped up the fall work on September 17th, they had the addition fully closed in and had put new shingles on the entire roof. There turned out to be a lot of talent hidden (not so well hidden it turns out) on the Scott Lake guide team. Who knew that Mike Demyen had been a roofer and that Cory Craig had framed houses in Calgary years before? We know now. Those projects never had a chance.
There were other just plain good workers diving into the construction tasks—Riley Epp, our Beaver pilot who can hammer as well as fly and Mason Merz, our office manager, who was all over the island helping to get things done. Guide Graham Coulombe took the lead in making the rounds of our 20 fly out lakes to service the outboard, repair lots of bear damage to boats and turn over the 16-foot fly out boats. That was a full three days of work with Otter pilot, Travis Peckham, working along-side Graham. Gerry Yanish, our own Silver Fox, directed the lodge shut down which involves boarding up every door and window on every building—all 28– on the island, draining the water system, beaching and winterizing the 15 guide boats based on the island and doing so many other things that this screen couldn’t quite hold it.
A different crew lead by Hospitality Manager Danielle Grunberg started staining log exteriors, cleaning all the guest cabins, doing mountains of laundry and putting it away for the winter. Claire Markle, Brenna Savery and Jackie Tourand all worked on those tasks. The big job cleaning and putting away everything related to the kitchen went to Eli Mahoney and Rachael Basler who stayed on after the Friends and Family week to cook for the construction crew.
Jordan and Peter with a Laker from the depths of Scott.
John got into the Whitefish action while fishing in Cory’s boat.
Paul and Jan with a massive Pike.
Susan and Biff braved the elements to hook up with this well fed pike.
Todd and Hammer braved the elements yesterday to try their luck at Grayling fishing. Their luck paid off with this 20″ specimen.
The big fish are always energizing and the group was fired up every night at trophy announcements. There were cheers for Peter Mancuso’s 46.5” pike; Paul Rowland’s 46; a pair of 45s landed by both Zack Skolnick and Chris Rowland; Mark Graf’s 45 pike; a pair of 40” Lake Trout captured by Joe Albarelli and Mike Albarelli’s 40” Laker. Our guests really get into sharing their trophy experiences, whether those trophies are fish or a close encounter with a loon. There were lots of fish stories. Even our small fish, the arctic grayling, got bigger this week. Todd Rosenberg pulled a fat 20-inch grayling out of the Smalltree rapids, the biggest of the season. Bill Russell wasn’t far behind with a 19 incher. Joe Parker landed an 18 incher there as well. That exhilarating “it’s a trophy” feeling was shared another 100 times during the five-day trip, despite some very strong winds that at times made fishing a bit chaotic. The thirteen Scott Lake guides though, with a total of just under 200 seasons at Scott under their belts, handled the conditions well and kept their guests on fish. Their years of experience on these waters rarely lets the customers down. The daily fish counts for some boats were off the charts. Big fish came too but there is a reason we call a 40- inch pike a trophy—there aren’t a lot of them. Don’t ask the father/son team of Paul and Chris Rowland how rare trophy pike are. For at least one day on Sandy Lake the big pike weren’t rare at all. Between them they landed a cool dozen trophy pike—all in a single day. The next day on Labyrinth Lake they focused on grayling and landed 19 trophies. Making that day even more spectacular they spotted not just a bear but seven black bears along the lake shore. One big boar was lured right into the water by the guide’s effective dying rabbit call. The guide did check the depth under the boat to make sure the bear had to swim not walk to the boat and making sure the bear, who apparently thought that he had three big rabbits to eat, didn’t join them in the boat. The big guy did wade out to within 30 feet though. He wanted that rabbit, but he needed some glasses.
As with every one of our five-day adventures here, big animals were encountered almost every day. There was a great video of a bull moose shown on the screen during the after-dinner slide show of the day’s highlights. Several moose and bears were sighted. The big non-fishing event of the week though was not terrestrial but celestial. All our guests had to do to see northern lights was stay up a bit later than normal and look up, straight up. You don’t need to look to the north when you’re on the 60th parallel. Just up. We had two nights of jaw-dropping displays of the aurora. One night the lights stretched across about a 120-degree arc. It was glorious. For many of the two dozen anglers here that light show was even more exciting than bringing in big fish. (Not talking about you Mark.) The week was more than visual. There was a soundscape too. With thousands of geese heading south, the stirring calls could be heard night and day, along with the wild calling of loons who were also starting their trip south. Of course, the zinging of the drag was probably still the favorite sound of the week. With the hard hitting and fighting fall pike on the prowl, there was plenty of that and it didn’t take a trophy pike to rip out line. But then just like the geese, it was time for our group to also head south, both refreshed by the adventure and worn out by the hard fishing and late nights—actually, a great combination. So, the crew climbed into the Beavers and the Twin Otter for the trip to Stony Rapids where they jumped in a prop jet for the journey back to Saskatoon and civilization. The 30-strong Scott team watched with mixed emotions as those last planes of the season took off. It was a fantastic season and all good things do come to an end. It wasn’t quite the end though, because coming to Scott on those same float planes were a couple of dozen participants in Friends and Family week—the parents, children, boy-friends, girl-friends or just friends of the Scott Lake staff. So, it isn’t over yet. Stay tuned.