WEEK 3 UPDATE
It’s abundantly clear why so many of our guests love June fishing at Scott. It’s an exciting time: geese are moving north; loons are calling wildly and there is a feeling that everything around you is fresh and new. Literally, the days never seem to end. This was the week of the Summer Solstice, the longest week of the year. There was no hour of the “night” when you couldn’t step outside your room and read the Tundra Times. The first birds of morning, chipping sparrows or some of the many species of warblers that pass through, announced their presence at around 3:00 AM, but they were pleasant and discreet about it. Early morning is just plain magic on the 60th parallel in June. It’s also magic on the water of Scott Lake and the two dozen fly out lakes at any hour. Just being in this pristine wilderness (a vast tract of unbroken forests, lakes and tundra stretching almost 400 miles north to the Arctic Ocean) is a magical experience. Add all the fish and you have a recipe for a unique adventure.
Our Week 3 guests, nearly all Scott regulars, were reminded of just how many fish live around here. And how big they get. June is well known as the “action month” in northern Canada. We had many guests report catches of over 100 pike a day—that’s around a fish every five minutes of fishing time. You don’t experience that in the lakes of Minnesota, Wisconsin or Michigan or anywhere else south of the Canadian border. That’s old news but getting monster pike in good numbers this time of year is new news. When all the counting was done, we ended up with 131 trophy fish, almost all pike. That’s a lot of big pike, considering it takes at least twenty years at this latitude to build a 40” pike, our trophy standard. Fish like that are rare and special.
They are even more special when they get to our “Super-Sized” status, a pike of 45” or better. Our Week 3 crew pulled in eleven of those, a big number for any week, anywhere. The Larson gang got their share: Greg, Grant and Carrie all landed 45s; Ken Conley and Bernie Heile got 45s as well; Dave Thome and John Wanacek upped the ante to 46”. Patrick Lynch added another half-inch to 46.5”. Our group didn’t stop there. The father/daughter team of Steve and Rachael Bandt climbed up the pike ladder with 47” and 47.5” pike—that’s a family memory. But THE DAY of our week belonged to Paul Hanna who landed a six-pack of trophy pike on a crazy day of fishing with the biggest taped at 49”, an early contender for the biggest fish of the season. Congrats to Paul on an amazing day he will never forget. There were plenty of other amazing days. Len Dorr and Bernie Heile both accomplished the “Done In One” feat by getting a trophy sized fish in all three of Scott’s species—pike, lake trout and grayling in just a single day. They will proudly wear their Trophy Triple hats. Mike Rogers and Jameson Vlijaste didn’t get a hat for their special moment, but they got some high fives. At exactly the same time they both yelled “fish on” and minutes later looked at two identical 41” pike in the guide’s net—double trouble, a rare and wonderful event.
Everything about this week was wonderful. Our thanks to all for making it such an enjoyable week of June fishing for the Scott Lake Team. We will see almost all of you back next year.
