Week 8 in Review: Island Vibes…Big Pike…Mahalo

Floral prints were spotted everywhere, and Don Ho classics echoed across the calm evening waters of Scott Lake. The Eighth Week always brings the feeling of Hawaii to this 12-acre island on the 60^th Parallel, with the annual Mahalo Night festivities. This year we had the weather to match it! The weather was stunning, with guests and guides leaving the dock in shorts and flip-flops; northern summer was in full force. It was another superb week of fishing, adventure and just downright fun around the island. The sauna was in use daily, the hot tub some evenings, and a crowd was lounging on the new inflatable party barge anchored out in the bay. The fish showed up to the party as they have been all summer, big pike in shallow water, the athletic grayling leaping after dries in the rapids and trout, making their way to the depths and waiting to test the arm strength of our anglers.

In total, this week 262 trophy fish were landed, an incredible number of those almost there and enough wildlife sightings to keep the crowd buzzing over moose, bear and muskox videos each evening in the lodge. Northerns over 40” made up the lion’s share of the announcements this week, with 161 being landed by our intrepid anglers. Rusty Brown capped off an incredible day at Selwyn Lake with an enormous 48” pike, joining the 4- Foot Club and taking big fish honours for the week. He also added an overly fat 46” er on the final day’s fishing, commenting that it may be the heaviest fish in his tenure at Scott. The next spot- well, the next three spots- in the top pike category went to Dave Wallace. What a run of hawgs! Dave caught a 46.5, 47 and a 47-and-a-half-inch giant on an incredible streak. The 46s came for Floyd Burnside and Warren Wheat; Mike Johnson added a 45.5. Then Cole Booth, Marian Bensema, Eric Brown and Dave Snyder all added big 45s, leaving the week’s total at 16 supersized Esox.

The trout are slowly making their way down to the holes; Floyd Burnside found a 41” er down in the depths of Scott Lake for the largest trout of the week. On the last trolling pass of the day on Snowbird Lake, Steve Parminter nailed a 40” laker on a custom saltwater bait, a valid reason to be a minute or two late for the pickup! Some of our crew had incredible days up on Mosquito Lake; the grayling were stacked in the rapids, and the big trout came to feast on them. Cole and Jessica Word-Booth were spotting muskox on the way north and caught tons of grayling and trout in the inflow river coming from Mary Lake, a truly amazing tundra adventure.  The guests and guides really took an interest in the Arctic sailfish this week, many moments in the fast, wild northern rivers to make memories while the iridescent blues and purples of the oversized dorsal shimmered in the sun.  Not that it was on purpose, but the colours of the Hawaiian shirts and leis did their best to mimic the Grayling’s unique colours. Another great week, another annual tradition and some time and memories shared among a great group of people drawn to this special place.