Fishing Stories and Tall Tales

[OldTimer]

Here’s an amusing story I recall:

For a string of years in the 70’s I was lucky enough to be invited along on an annual fishing trip to a cottage on the Bustard Islands. This group of a thousand or more islands (ranging in size from a hundred square feet to 50+ acres in size) is in northern Georgian Bay – it’s sort of equidistance from the mouths of the Key and French rivers. There are only a handful of cottages there – and there will be no more as the remote offshore area has since been added to the French River Provincial Park. This place is relatively untouched with spectacular scenery. The larger protected channels and bays here are regularly used by large sailing and powered watercraft as a night anchoring or safe haven during storms.

The group attending our trip was usually comprised of 6 to 8 individuals. Getting there involved going to the Key River marina off 69, then taking boats down the river and across open water to the islands (about an 1.5+ hour run at high speed in calm seas).
It was a lot of fun, and great Pike fishing.

Boys being Boys we had lots of jokes played – many times with “Buddy” as the patsy.

“Buddy” was a nice quiet guy and he never seemed to get upset about being the goat. Buddy also was probably the best boatman, fisherman, and swimmer in our crowd. He also knew the shoals of the area very well.

Second or third year we did have quite a few guys going so we needed 3 boats to handle the crowd, the tackle, the food, and the refreshments. It was decided that due to fairly high seas in the main lake that day, we’d send Buddy out in the smaller (yet unsinkable) Boston Whaler with all the bulky gear, tackle, duffle bags, etc. The rest of us would head out in the two much larger inboard/outboards with the heavier stuff, extra full gas tanks, food, and most of the refreshments.

Off we go. Well…… the water was REAL rough having huge swells with a large white cap cross chop on top.

Buddy in the Whaler just takes off and doesn’t take the safe dog leg route to the islands but short-cuts straight line - across the nasty shoals – leaving the rest of us far behind. It took the rest of us a long time to get there.

When the rest of us get to the island – there’s Buddy having a beer, with all the gear off loaded on the dock, and casting a medium size Dardevle out into the channel. He tells us that this new rod & reel he’s brought up is the best he’s ever had and that it casts better than anything around.

Having had a rough ride getting tossed by the lake – we all grabbed a refreshment to chill a bit. But Buddy keeps casting and expounding on how great he can now cast……… this leads to discussion on who can cast farther……… this leads to Buddy betting he can outdistance any one of us with his new rig using his medium sized Dardevle, against any of us using our rigs with any lure we’d like to use . The winner of the competition gets the lures used in the test………… one group cast decides it all.

So… the rest of of us get our rods out and pick a lure. Every one of us picks a very large heavy lure and tie it on.

We line up on the dock ………. Ready ………..set…………..go……………………………….

Buddy - who really didn’t cast all that hard has his lure go about 150 feet and it drops into the water.

The rest of us watch our lures go so much further………….. and then watch in horror as our line also runs out …. and witness our lures and a bunch of our freshly severed line - disappear into the deep channel.

Buddy exclaims “You guys win!” and tosses his lure to us.

Seems Buddy had time to mess with our stuff before we arrived……………………….


Cheers,

OldTimer