By Marco Pompano, Surf Fishing Guide
The fish really slowed down in Florida, Wilbur By The Sea, to be exact, so we packed up the Maverick pick-up and headed straight North to Canada, where my in-laws live, in a little town north of Montreal called Rawdon. There are lakes, rivers, waterfalls and chutes, and lots of deep woods with trails to walk God’s country. Ya, mon! We drove for two days and arrived in the wilderness. The fresh air, smells, and deep green were very refreshing. After the extreme heat from Florida, it’s in the high fifties in the morning, and gets up to eighty by the afternoon here. We decided to go to one of my favorite lakes, Lake Blanc, a pristine glacier lake near the town of St. Damian.
We brought our own little electric motor with a battery, and rented a jon boat to cruise 5 miles an hour trolling for trout. We get the boat and start fishing, immediately letting out at least 100 feet of line with a spoon. Silver, bronze, or copper. Sometimes the spoons have bright colors on them, also. They’re attached to a 4-foot leader rig, or whatever you wanna call it, with a nice fat blood worm on the end, with a little tiny hook. You just start to troll at a very, very relaxing and slow pace. You sort of let the line sink to the right level and you know what that’ll be. That’s when the fish will bite. After a while of going up into the lake and trolling, I get a little nip, then a nice bite. I got so excited, I pulled too hard and horsed it. I yanked the hook right out of its mouth and lost it. A real rookie move. We lost another two at the boat and then I got a really nice smack and hauled in a 14-inch rainbow trout. Ya, mon! And the day was just starting: We ended up with two beautiful rainbows and a brown speckled trout.
It’s a new day and we’re heading out very early this morning to go back to Lake Blanc. That seems to be the place with the most fish. I’m going with my brother-in-law Patrick and his son Philip Mariette and we are stoked. The fishing started off real slow, trolling around the lake for a few hours, and then it started and didn’t stop. We got nine trout! I only got one, those guys got four apiece. Like I said, I’m a big rookie. We’re going for a big cookout tonight. One of the real pleasures of Canada is cooking trout on a barbecue with some big sweet fresh corn, grilled. Next, me and my wife Sophie are heading up to Nova Scotia. I’m gonna try to locate a local guide, to pay it forward and go beach and rock walk fishing, and get some striped bass. I hear they catch all kinds of things from the beach, even salmon.
It’s about a 12 hour ride to Digby, Nova Scotia, which is the scallop capital of the world, so they say. I’m definitely showing up hungry and thirsty. Ya, mon! First we are stopping in Quebec City on the St. Lawrence. This is on our way to Nova Scotia, to the Bay of Fundy, where there are 36-foot tidal surges, and we’re going to fish for striped bass. So far, the trip to Canada has been very fruitful and exciting, but now it’s time to put on the reggae music of Toots and the Maytals, one of my favorites, and me and these rainbow trout are heading to the smoker.
