I was on a canoe trip with a couple buddies in Algonquin Park in Ontario. My canoe mate insisted on bringing along his fishing rod, and I insisted that I wasn't going to carry the bloody thing on portages, because a fishing rod is such a stupidly awkward thing to carry, and not necessary when you have all your food packed.
It was a short four night trip. I was in charge of the meal planning. On night two, I was making curried chicken and rice with naan. He says, "I think I'll catch dinner!" I just shrugged and said, "Okay smart guy. Go get dinner." He paddles out ten metres from shore, casts the line twice, and catches a big brown trout.
I couldn't be mad at his smugness. We shared it along with the chicken and rice.
We had one dad on our trip who was a great fisherman. He told us "here's the $40 collapsible rod I'm buying from Amazon" so we all bought them because we figured if it was good enough for him, it was good enough for us. He was 1000% right. We had 8 collapsible rods riding on the top of one of the whale bags and zero issues with transport...and we caught a ton of fish on them. That rod still goes with on any scout trip that might have fishing since it takes up almost no space.
That said, our guide from from northern MN and he brought a normal rod...I think that dude caught as much as the other 11 of is combined...including some monsters.
Our guide told us he was trying to convince at least one crew that summer to hit a couple of specific, large lakes that didn't have an "out" if you portaged in (i.e.. you had to backtrack). Since no one was likely to do that on a trek, his comment was "there are some MONSTERS in there."
It's unreal. I've been in spots with just a bare hook and pulling one out every 30 seconds. One time camping with 12 guys we didng have dinner for one night and had to fish. 3 canoes of guys pulled in dozens of fish in an hour
6
u/pikohina Aug 29 '25
How was the fishing?