Welcome to Week CXXX 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.
Well here it is only a couple of days from the middle of November, at least as you read this, and I am still writing about open water fishing.
In a province where winter can take up residency early at times, and late season opportunity is a bonus.
Or at least it should be.
In this case it's Nov. 1, the goblins have returned to their closets for another year, and I contemplate a trip to Canora Dam, the plan to leave home about the time the sun was going to rise.
But, I'll be honest, at 8 a.m. the wind was rattling the bedroom window menacingly, foretelling of a likely cold morning on the shore of any water, and the bed was oh so warm, so I rolled over and went back to sleep.
I'll grant you had the same wind howled a week into the season last spring I would have ignored it, thrown on an extra sweater and headed out the door.
Of course that's the difference a few months of fishing makes; our perspective changes.
After a long, cold winter, and let's face it that is every winter in this part of the country, we all tend to be suffering a bit of cabin fever, and a fishing trip in a gale force wind still seems like a good thing.
But, by the time we've fished through the spring, the summer and fall, an excuse to stay in bed is easier to accept.
Or, maybe in my case it's just another example of me aging gracefully.
At any rate, I slept in.
Upon awakening a few hours later, the clock was clicking close to noon I admit; the better half suggests a road trip to Canora for lunch.
That means only one thing in my world, a hot plate dish at Raymond's Café, so how could I possibly argue. I dress and off we go.
So after one of Raymond's very yummy hotplates, I realize the weather for the afternoon is about as good as it gets for a Nov. 1.
And we were in Canora.
So the dam was close, the gear was in the back of the rig, and the sun shining. I was obligated as a member in good standing of the brotherhood of fine fisherfolk to make a few casts. It is one thing to succumb to warm blankets early in the morning, but would be just wrong to be within a few miles of a known fishing hole, gear at-hand, and time to kill, and not toss a few lures.
And that is just what I did. I tried a green rubber grub, a usual walleye-getter at the spot, but to no avail.
I tossed a Len Thompson hammered perch and ended up washing the spoon nice and clean, but no fish.
Ditto a red and white spoon in hopes of a late season pike on the prowl. Again nadda.
Now to be honest -- rare as that commodity might be among fisherfolk, who be brotherhood statute are required to embellish the size of all fish caught, and even more so in the case of those that get away - I was not expecting fish.
By this time of year fish generally move to deeper water in preparation for winter ice. In the case of Canora Dam water is not particularly deep, and while this Nov. 1, water was at what I would think as unseasonably high, fish need to move out of the area, or risk being frozen out.
There of course is also a well of optimism in all fisherfolk that no matter what, a fish is only another cast away. It is that belief that has us saying we'll cast 10 more times and then go home, but we end up casting 30-times, and then add 'just a few more' for luck.
Well I'm not sure how many casts I made that day, although I assure it was more than 10 and included 'just a few more' before I packed away the gear and climbed the embankment back to the SUV.
It was after all a rather beautiful day. Warm enough I did not need gloves. Bright and sunny with the water still running hard creating frothy white swirls. The kind of day that in the end was about as ideal as one could ask for, for what will likely turn out to be the last day of open water fishing this year.
Sure I might be lured out again. Like casts, there are always thoughts of just one more trip, but as the temperatures dip, the daylight hours shorten, the likelihood of one more opportunity diminishes.
Maybe in this case that is just the way it should be to.
Granted I didn't catch any fish, but I didn't need to clean any either, and the experience of such a startlingly beautiful day was enough as long as it included the attempt at catching a fish.
Yep, it was just about as good a way to wind up the open water season as I can imagine - unless of course I manage to sneak away one more time yet this year.
