Fireside Lodge Insider Report 7/23/2008

Fireside Lodge Insider Report 7/23/2008

Hello to all and hope all are having a fun summer. Summer has been the Big question at Fireside Lodge wondering if we missed it? But after realizing we did have the calendar dates correct we determined that summer was slow in coming to Fireside Lodge. Now that it seems to be here, I found myself looking behind me making sure that cold weather was not sneaking up on me. From my memory?? This was one of the coldest, rainiest years in Audrey and mine 19-year tenure at Fireside Lodge. The Smallmouth spawned later than ever, there was almost no weed growth for the first 5 weeks, May Flies have hatched at the beginning of July before, but never in Mid-July, the rains were more often, we have had more severe t-storms than we can ever remember, and the rain was so heavy we had to literally “Roll Out The Barrels” but not for fun as we had to place them on our permanent dock, fill them with water to create weight to keep it place. We also had to build walkways so people could get to there boat without getting wet.

All of our guests have been GRRRRRRRREAT through this different first half season, as they have always seemed positive, and adjusted to everything that Mother Nature has thrown at us. They all had to adjust to the high, cooler water and lack of weed growth. This created a new look to our lake system, but the results were no less as people had terrific fishing most of the time.

The positive of all this was that more people spotted, and took photos of Loons sitting on their nests, and large wildlife coming to the water. The loons are susceptible to having their nests washed out when water rises quickly because they make nests at the waters edge. So most had to nest a second time which gave guests a longer window of opportunity to get a photo of this great sight. Also, because of the extreme wetness in the bush the animals like Moose, Black Bear, and Deer were closer to the waters edge. Then of course we have a multitude of fur and feather bearing critters that flourish in high water like Mink, Otter, Beaver, Musk Rat, Ducks of many varieties, the Great Blue Heron, ------ Ok I’ll stop already! This also seemed to increase the viewing and photos taken of all these wonderful Boreal Forest inhabitants.

The fishing challenge was that some of the guest’s hot spots of the past were exactly that, hot spots of past years when water levels were normal. But, after some minor location adjustments, the fish seemed to be just as agreeable as in past years. Another positive affect of this was people fished other areas of the lake they never fished before. The biggest problem us fishers have is that we tend to reduce a large lake to just a few spots. If fact a new project in the works at Fireside Lodge is trying to expand Fireside Lodge Guest’s fishing areas and locations by doing some field research and finding new lake structures and new potential fish holding areas. This will, hopefully benefit us all.

Thanks for surfing in to read our Fireside Lodge Insider, and hope you enjoyed.
Thanks Alan / Fireside Lodge