A week in paradise

Hello friends, The Canadian fly-in fishing trip that I am writing about is a big part of my life history. I started flying to Schultz Lake (www.chimolodge.com) in 1982 with my family. I became camp manager at Chimo Lodge in 1988 and in 1989 I started my writing career as camp manager at Chimo Lodge. About all I can say is that first it was my dear friends Pete and Elisabeth Hagedorn that I worked with and for. Now it is Chris and Tammy Leblanc and both couples were fantastic at running this business as are all of their employees. If you are into fly-in fishing trips, check out the website and reviews.

Saturday, June 14 High 67, Low 48

Our group of nine, which was eight members of my family and a very good friend, would be flown 60 air miles to Schultz Lake in a De Havilland Beaver and the much larger Otter.

After months of looking forward to this annual trip and much preparation, the true adventure would begin. First, we move into our cabin and get our rods rigged, then we draw cards and seven of us find out what day we cook and do dishes. Next is what we all came here for and that is to get in our boats and play until dark, which is about 10:30 p.m.

My brother Tom Walters would be in one boat with his son Josh and grandson Preston. As usual, they had the longest drive as they came up from Denham Springs, La. My brother-in-law Dick Schuster and his sons Riley and Trent would be in another. I would be at the tiller with my brother Mike and our good buddy Gary Gray.

I think it is fair to say that we catch most our walleyes and northern pike on crawler harnesses, floating jigs and my favorite the Rippin' Rap.

An interesting situation for us is there is a major forest fire about 50 miles to our north that has forced the evacuation of two fly-in native communities. Those fires would bring in off-and-on smoke all week. A sidebar on the fires is that the chain of lakes that we have the only cabin on, is very low and would drop all week as we would receive no rain.

The fishing or should I say catching. I caught my first walleye one minute after I started and Mike and Gary had the same type of luck. For the most part this trip is about family/friends spending time together. What we are really good at is laughing.

Until dark we had great success. Then it was time for a fish fry and, as usual, a very late night sitting around the table and laughing. My dad, the late Robert Walters, started this trip back in ‘82 and he was a very wise man for doing it.

Big fish for the day went to Riley Schuster with a 39inch gator caught on a pink spoon.

Monday, June 16 High 67, Low 46

Today I would fish with my nephew Josh Walters and his 16-year-old-son Preston. We would drive our boat to a trail and then carry our gear about a half a mile to another lake which can have excellent fishing.

For myself, just fishing with Josh and Preston is a bonus as I only see them maybe every five years. Josh is a crane operator and that is one very demanding with lots of knowledge required type of job.

From start to finish we caught fish. One of the cool parts was fishing a deep pool below a rapids where we could see numerous walleyes and small northern pike. On my first cast with the trusty Rippin' Rap, I caught a 22-incher.

Josh caught the biggest walleye, which was just over 24 inches, and at dark we headed back to the cabin.

After dark Tommy cooked walleye coubion. Next it was a game of crap on your neighbor and before we knew it was 3:30 a.m., the birds were chirping and we still had five days left at our annual home for a week.

Sunset