Fishing Stories and Tall Tales

[OldTimer]

In my early days I had the pleasure of working at a campground located on a Muskoka lake for most of my teens.

It was a not a great financial reward, but I did have the opportunity to fish every day all summer long.

My friends and I did a lot of snorkelling in all areas of the lake, a lot of the rivers nearby, and most local falls nearby and within Algonquin Park.

Snorkelling Marsh’s Falls near Dwight, Ontario:

   

Additionally we had access and use of a small piece of equipment called a “Scuba-Buoy” which was a small floating compressor (mounted in a large inner tube floating ring) which pumped air down to one (or two) full face mask(s) via 30’ of hose(s) (these are no longer available – I think they actually got banned, or redesigned and renamed). You could stay down for over an hour if you wanted………. Or until the compressor stopped running (………..smile).

This not only helped my fishing a great deal even to this day - as I know the bottom structures of my favorite lake very well, but also by seeing the fish behaviour and reactions in their world .

More than a few times I fished with regular fishing gear and snorkelled at the same time – and watched the strikes, the rejections, and the total ignoring of the bait or lure.

I observed many smallmouth, but also suckers, bullheads, sunfish, perch, rock bass, crayfish, chubs, and (briefly) a few lake trout, in their natural environment.

What brought the above memory to mind today was seeing this video - of a bullhead guarding its fry –which was a thing I saw many times in one area of the lake, every year.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sVGvzOt3wo

I always thought it was quite amazing how the parent fish herds and corrals the multitude of minnows to keep them together.

Cheers,

OldTimer