THE JOURNEY TO PIKE'S PEAK

Last summer, the author and three friends ventured off the grid to a remote fish camp in Canada. They hoped for great fishing, but what they experienced was truly something else

- COLIN KEARNS

AFTER OUR GUIDE CUT THE OUTBOARD, I GRABBED MY FLY ROD, STEPPED UP TO THE BOW DECK, AND SURVEYED THE SCENE.

It had been a long, exhausting journey from my home in New York to way-way-way-northern Manitoba— four flights in two days, the last of which was a short stint in a floatplane that dropped us off at our fish camp on the Cree River—but the boat ride to the pike grounds was restorative. I was ready to fish.

I double-hauled toward the riverbank and stripped my streamer once, and a fish struck. The pike was small, but I couldn’t help but smile at the fact that I had landed one on my first cast. And again on my second… And on my third…

All of the fish so far were hammer-handles, but the takes were strong and, best of all, visual. Even in water as clear as the Cree’s, the chains that run along the flanks of a pike camouflage the fish so naturally that you don’t see one till it appears from nowhere to kill your fly. My consecutive-strike streak ended at three, but the bites remained constant, and the fish got bigger—up to 37 inches. And after I released yet another fish, I remember thinking, Where the hell am I? Right on cue, my buddy Brad Fenson, who’d been matching me pike for pike, shared some advice.

“Be sure to take some moments this week just to appreciate where you are,” he said. Unlike me, Fenson has fished these waters and stayed at this camp many times before. He knows how incredible it is here. “It’s easy to keep casting and casting because you just want to catch more fish—but try to slow down now and then and just enjoy this place.”