Despite what my passport reads, maybe I am really not at all Canadian. The first indication of this would be my incredible aversion to cold weather, my reaction to winter being similar to that of a black bear, whose sane response to the harshness of the season is hibernation until spring. The not so subtle second indication, a corollary of the first, would be that I do not ice fish. Depending on the temperatures in December, I will continue fishing until water freezes, then I retreat for the year and put my rods in cold storage. For some reason once the temperatures dip below zero, my metabolism refuses to adjust to the cold, almost as though my body lacks the anti-freeze ingredient neccesary to survive our harsh winters. When the water stops moving, so do I. A half decade worth of assorted injuries, as well as incipient arthritis in some of the aging joints, become acutely evident during the winter months. From January to the end of March I remain in a constant state of frigidity – even while indoors! While others are busy in their garages -  sharpening their augers, preparing their clams, tip-ups, sleds, vexilars, and all their other gear, eagerly anticipating the beginning of the hard water season, when the ice is thick enough for them to safely venture out upon the lakes - I have retreated to the relative warmth of my home. Read More »

I am alone in a canoe, skimming effortlessly across a tranquil lake shrouded by a cloud of fog that closes in on me from all around. It is deathly quiet, the silence occasionally punctuated by the cry of a loon somewhere out on the lake. My fly is trailing about two hundred feet behind the canoe. I am fishing a Magog Smelt tandem streamer tied by a friend who understands a thing or two about ounaniche.  The surface of the lake is completely flat, with white wisps of fog mist rising off its polished metal surface like cumulous clouds travelling across the sky. There is silence all around. All of a sudden my line straightens and I gently raise the rod tip to set the hook. For an instant there is nothing, the line is slack, but then a series of wild splashes echo through the thick fog as the fish jumps for his freedom. The line begins to peel off my fly reel at an astonishing rate. It is a big fish and we settle into each other for a long and protracted battle…

This is my favorite recurring dream.