I have good news and bad news. What would you like first? Okay, good news first: I went on a Canadian musky fishing trip. The bad news: I’m back from the Canadian musky fishing trip. It’s the first time I ever went to Canada to fish specifically for muskies. I wasn’t disappointed. I could easily fill up a month’s worth of OTT columns just from the seven-day trip but I am going to condense it down to just two weeks. This first week isn’t even about me catching fish but rather what happened when I went fishing one afternoon.  

I was with an old friend, Brent “Ghost Tail.” That’s not his actual last name but the name of the musky lure company that Brent and his dad owned and operated for years. If you can find a musky tackle box without any Ghost Tail lures on it I’ll show you someone who is brand new to musky fishing.  

So I’m fishing with Brent on the Winnipeg River north of Kenora, Ontario, when I notice a peculiar looking boat pull up to a pontoon full or walleye fishermen. The boat was outfitted with some fancy antennas and other things that made it appear to be used more for business than for pleasure. I told Brent that soon we would be having a friendly chat with some guys from the Canadian Ministry Department, which is Canada’s version of the DNR.

Growing up as the son of a commercial fisherman I had plenty of interaction with the local DNR. My dad had a long running feud with the DNR. I know that they never sent him a Christmas card. I’m happy to say that they eventually buried the hatchet. My dad even cooked catfish for them at a local convention. As for me, I always thought the DNR had to deal with bad people in bad situations. I wasn’t going to be any part of either of those things so when I do encounter a wildlife official, I always greet them with a hello and make sure that they know immediately that it will be a pleasant visit.

When the two young Ministry Department employees introduced themselves, I asked them if they had caught any bad guys lately. They looked at each other and smiled indicating that they had a story. We showed them our licenses and chatted about musky fishing. The wardens asked us “Do you guys eat fish?” It seemed like an odd question but we both said “yes.”

They told us they had caught some walleye guys who were over their limit and rather than take all the confiscated fish back with them, they handed them out to people who were fishing legally. The younger warden asked us how many licensed anglers we had in our camp. We said “five” so the warden pulled out five beautiful walleyes that were already cleaned, vacuum packed and frozen. Brent and I signed a paper that explained everything that had just taken place and the wardens left us with smiles on our faces.  

Now the wardens didn’t go into a lot of detail about the confiscated fish, but they did pass along that the anglers were nine fish over their legal limit which prompted a search of their fish camp which resulted in the loss of all their fish. As I write this I can’t help but think of a quote from the great Mark Twain: Nobody with a full stringer of fish goes home by the way of the back alley. Well, maybe those Canadian walleye anglers should have.

The next night we had the best Canadian walleye fish fry ever in our musky fishing camp.

Didn’t get enough Dave this week? Visit “Outdoor Trails and Tales with Dave Beck” on Facebook for photos and video of Dave’s adventures. You can share your own photos and video with him there as well, or by emailing him at dave@piercecountyjournal.news Also, check out OTT content on Instagram @thepiercecountyjournal