SUMMERTIME FISHING — STILL

Even though the calendar and yellow leaves on the birch trees give away the inevitable change into fall, summer is hanging on with everything it’s got. This late season it has stayed in the full summertime fishing mode with warm nights and very pleasant days. There have been a few windy days, but with the warm temperatures it just hasn’t been a big deal. The lake temperature is hovering around the 60-degree mark, only a couple of degrees cooler than the mid-summer temperature. A week earlier it looked like fall was creeping up on us, but this week we were still in summer mode and, it was wonderful. With no morning fog the fly outs were humming along like clockwork every day, and guests were eager to get into the boats for their day on Scott. Since our fishing territory covers roughly 9 million acres, we do get a variety of weather on any given fishing day. For the most part though, the rain gear stayed in the bottom of the waterproof bags each guest takes with them. With some northern lights, lots of bear and moose sightings and evening campfires as a bonus, it was simply a great week at Scott Lake Lodge.

Oh, yes and there were a few fish caught. Many hundreds if not a few thousand, but to be exact 150 of those fish hit our benchmarks as trophy fish (pike of 40”, lake trout of 35”, arctic grayling of 15”). That’s an impressive number but the size of many of those trophies was even more impressive. We had seven pike over our Supersized mark of 45-inches and nine lake trout over our Supersized mark of 40-inches. We have had just an incredible year with huge lakers. This week both Robert Watson and Brad Courvelle landed lake trout of 45-inches, ridiculously large lakers. With that pair of monsters, we are at eight lake trout over 45-inches for the season. To put that in perspective, over the previous ten seasons we had exactly that number–eight. Some years 42s or 43s were our biggest trout. This year trout that size have been routine, especially this week. Brad and his son Adam closed out their trip with three lakers over 40” on their last day, fishing right on Scott Lake, a 40, a 43 and the 45. Paul and Rebecca Sawyer also had a celebratory last day, also fishing Scott. They landed five trophy trout, including a 39 and a 41-incher. The big trout just kept on coming this week. Aubie Cambell and Mike Campbell got 39s; Todd Thorp, Adam Courvelle and Randy Dismuke landed 40s; Randy also got a 41 along with Suzanne Noble and Paul Sawyer; Aubie Campbell stretched a tape to 42-inches and Brad Courvelle put a 43 into his guide’s big net. That’s just an incredible number of big lake trout.

Big pike were also in the picture. Lots of them. There were 84 pike trophies with many over 45”. Mike Cambell, Tonya McGraw, Aubie Campbell and Adam Courvelle landed 45s, but the high drama belonged to Easton Schwalm. How many 13-year-olds can say they landed a 45” northern pike on a fly rod? We suspect not many. That’s one interesting show and tell for his school mates. Roger Evans went one inch better at 46 and Mark Bixler lead the pike parade with a 46.5” beauty. There were some grayling heavyweights as well. Brad Courvelle, Robert Watson and Roger Evans pulled 18-inchers out of the rapids and Suzanne Noble landed a 19. With all those grayling, pike and lake trout there must have been some 100+Club entries. Indeed there were: four anglers were inducted this week—Suzanne Noble, Roger Evans, Randy Dismuke and Robert Watson, a first-time Scott guest (those are rare birds around here) who hit 104 total inches, an impressive number but still way behind the 109 total inches claimed by Conner Patrick earlier in the season. That’s going to be tough to beat.

What can’t be beat is the smiles of our angles as they just enjoy being in a pristine wilderness with all the comforts of home (a lot more really—who has a personal massage therapist and chef or a wood fired sauna, a hot tub and a gym?). They were all sad to leave on a beautiful late afternoon, but many will be back next year and all will be back again. It’s just how it works up here. Summertime fishing at it’s best.