Edgar Lake via Air Cochrane 2012 Trip

5 days of fishing in Northern Ontario is truly good for the soul.  This year we traveled to a new lake, Edgar Lake, one of Air Cochrane's premier lake.  The town of Cochrane was really bustling when we got there as they are building one of the world's largest gold mines, the Detour Gold Mine nearby.  Lots and lots of really big trucks!

It was great to see our friendly base hand Andre' who reviewed the Edgar Lake map with.  I was surprised to learn of all the shoals on this lake.  I thought Nettogami was wild, but it was nothing compared to the shoals of Edgar.  My favorite pilot Ron flew us in and it was interesting to see how Nettogami, Edgar and Kasagami are all adjacent to each other.

Upon our arrival we observed the remnants of an incredible mayfly hatch. The dead mayflies were literally 4 feet wide against the entire shoreline. The bottom of the lake around the dock was covered with them. The cabin was large and similar to Nettogami, just a little bigger. The dock and walk-way were in really rough shape with lots of rotten boards. The sauna was in good shape and we actually used it to dry our clothes.

The first day had Shu and I driving around the lake trying to understand the complex shoals that were around the lake. I was grateful for the laminated color map I had of the lake that showed the shoals. Using this map and my depth finder I was able to make tracks on my GPS of safe routes through the shoals that would prove critical throughout the trip...there was more shoals than there was fishable water!

The 2nd day began with Ben, Jake, and Charlie getting up and out the door by 4:45 AM. I was really impressed as they got up on their own. Shu and I were on their heels. We trolled all morning and caught nothing. We then went to Whitefish bay, a place that Andre' had tipped us about. Using white jigs and Mister Twister tails we caught 3 walleye with the largest being 28".

Now an incredible thing happened this morning as well. 8 years ago I pulled a whitefish out of a pike in Lake Haultain. I then caught a small one on Nettogami the first year I went there with Jake, but they have alluded me ever since. I have tried everything in the book to catch them. Then this morning on Edgar Lake, while jigging for walleye, I caught a HUGE whitefish!!! Up until this point the boys made fun of what they claimed was a fable fish....now who is laughing!!!!

I am forever re-deemed! We divided up into cooking/cleaning teams and the first breakfast was cooked up by Jake and I. Jake rustled up the most beautiful bagel, walleye, Swiss cheese, egg, and bacon sandwich...Grandpa Morton would have give then a 10. Benjamin developed an interesting condition over breakfast that would stay with him throughout the trip...this condition had hi wrestling between making statements or asking questions....such that Uncle Shu had to help him gain some self-control by restricting him to 40 questions a day.

Day 3 had Ben, Shu and I out the door at 4:30 AM. We were able to follow my GPS trail across the shoals. A GPS for fishing Edgar should be an absolute as I have never seen a lake with so many shoals in the most inconspicuous places. My guess is 1/3 of the lake is shoals. We went to Whitefish Bay where Ben and Shu caught doubles. I caught a 35' pike and lost an even bigger one at the boat, both on small white jigs. This was a hot day for sure. I took an afternoon nap, woke up to look out the front window and standing waist deep in the water in the middle of the lake. It looked very odd to see them in the middle of this big lake only waist deep in water swimming, but that is how this lake is with all its shoals. Once I got up Ben, Shu and I headed to the south end of the lake to fish. It is very tricky to get to this end because of the narrow track of deep water running between shoals that you need to stay on. We found the head of the stream that flows from Nettogami to Kesagami Lake. We down this stream thanks to Shu and Ben's willingness to pull me and the boat through the shallows to the deeper part of the stream. Very pretty and one could do this with a boat with almost no gear, but we were fully loaded and opted not to try and lift our boat over the fallen logs that crossed the stream. Ben explored ahead, wading through the shin high crystal clear water for about 1/4 mile and advised us of more trees across the stream ahead. We abandoned our quest and returned to the main lake. Ben and Shu pulled the boat back out through the shallows into the lake and we found ourselves very close to the Wilkes boat. All three in this boat were bent over and appeared to be very focused on something in the bottom of their boat. We thought they were trying to unhook a big fish so we drove over to get a look. What we found was that Trevor had a hook buried in his finger past the barb. His dad cut the hook from the lure and we discussed the best course of action. From where I sat the hook look buried straight into the finger and if that was the case it would be ugly, if not impossible, to get it out. Trevor asked me to pull it out for him. I told him to put ice on his finger until it was completely numb. We were in no rush and I needed to think about how to deal with a hook buried at that angle.

Trevor climbed into our boat with an pack on his finger. I placed his hand on the cooler top and asked Shu to sit next to Trevor to keep his hand still. After ten minutes we took the ice off and I got my first close look at it. I was relieved to see that the hook was actually at an angle that I could push it through without getting it deeper in his finger. With Shu holding Trevor's hand down I used Jake's leatherman pliers and push the hook through his finger. Thanks to the ice making the finger numb there was limited pain and Trevor did an awesome job of keeping his cool through this whole event. That was more first aid than I ever wanted to give on a fishing trip. We separated from the Wilkes and returned to fishing. We went 100 yards when Ben started yelling "Uncle Bret, my foot is bleeding"...he lifts his blood covered foot and there is a three inch leech on it. Over dinner Shu was trying to convince us to be excited about the outdoor sauna. The hot weather made the idea of a sauna very unappealing, at least for the time being.

Day 4 had a cold front moved in and Jake and I went back to Whitefish Bay. We surgically fished this bay with literally every spoon, jig, plug, and bucktail we had. We did not catch one fish. May have been the first time I have ever been skunked in over 15 years of Canadian fishing.   Signs of the massive bug hatch were still everywhere with dead flies 4 feet wide along the whole shoreline.  That afternoon we went out to the north end of the lake where we were crushed with the most incredible rainstorm I have ever experienced in my life.  It rained so hard we had to start bailing the boats.  Fortunately there was no thunder and we were graced by a beautiful double rainbow.  That night the sauna became our dryer as we toked it up and filled it with our wet stuff.  It was really ingenious as everything was completely dry by the morning.