Welcome to Week CCXXIV of ‘Fishing Parkland Shorelines’. Like most of us I am a novice fisherman, loving to fish, but far from an expert. In the following weeks I’ll attempt to give those anglers who love to fish but just don’t have access to a boat, a look at some of the options in the Yorkton area where you can fish from shore, and hopefully catch some fish.
Canada Day weekend, and I am not scheduled to work, which left the one overriding question, what should I do?
While some people question why there is never anything to do in Yorkton and area, I never find it a problem finding something fun to do, even if that is just watching the Saskatchewan Roughriders or reading a good book. And I will concede some will already argue watching the Roughriders is only fun if you are trying to give yourself a stress-related ulcer.
Of course before a married man makes too many plans he must get the green light from the better half. One never wants to face that storm should he plan something ill-advised to match what she has in mind.
This time I was given carte blanche, well at least within the reasonable confines of the bank account, so there was no thoughts of a will run away to Edmonton, or any such locale.
Next I buzzed my son. I figured he too was off for the weekend, so why not do something together?
There really were only two choices to be made, disc golf, or fishing, with both slotted in around the aforementioned ‘Rider game. Yes, I remain a slave to the ‘Green and White’ and take to lumps of losses each week as part of that undying devotion.
Having two choices my son and I did the typical male thing and opted to have our cake and eat it too, or in this case do both.
Saturday was disc golf day, and we hijacked a bud and headed out. It was not so well-planned an excursion as we found the course in Melville was the locale of Canada Day activities. Fortunately, there are now lots of courses in the area, and we hit Lemberg for 18, then Stockholm for 18. I played solid and had the joy of watching my son set some sort of record of shame tossing a 17 on the Par 3 number three in Lemberg.
Two courses covered and back for the Rider game. It was fitting given the way they lost Saturday to have been sitting in the vehicle watching the Canada Day fireworks in the city, (a fine show as an aside), so that the botched kick in overtime came with a colourful burst in the sky.
Sunday we went fishing, my son and I, our bud left behind because he doesn’t fish, which in some way I suppose should make me question how we are friends at all, although he does have other redeeming qualities.
Our destination was Stoney Lake. I’ve always had at least some luck there, although my son has not been as fortunate.
That would hold true again, not that two pike, one of those not very big, constitutes a great day on my part, but it exceeded his total by exactly two.
What was of more general interest was the amount of weed along the shoreline. Weeds are often an issue for shore fisherfolk, but the problem tends to occur later in July after more hot days than we have had this year.
The weeds were heavy enough that unless I was going back to throw a pickerel rig out and wait for a nibble, I probably won’t hit Stony again until late fall.
With no action of note we packed up and headed to Canora Dam for some late evening fishing.
I was surprised to find no vehicles around as we headed in, and then saw why. The water levels are September-low.
We made the comment about whether any fish remained. Well, Adam caught a tiny ‘hammer handle’ pike and I did the same, and that was it.
It was interesting to watch carp trying to jump the small falls, and some were big carp, which would have been a blast to catch. But we didn’t catch one, so we just watched the acrobatics and drooled a lot.
So as a fishing day it was a bust.
However, the day was not a complete loss.
As we tossed hooks at the dam I looked over and a nice four point whitetail buck came down for a drink just across from us.
Since it was late I had sadly left my camera in the vehicle and my son’s cellphone was not ready for the moment either, which is actually OK. It’s great to share moments with readers, but that buck was something only my son and I got to see. It was a nice evening on the water fishing, and that regal buck was just the icing on the 150th Canada Day weekend that will be our shared memory for years to come.
