Moose, blackflies, and some technical fishing ~ May 27, 1993

David Heiller

You could call this year’s fishing trip the Year of the Moose, or the Year of the Blackfly. Or the year we caught all those fish. Technically.

I’ll take the moose first, and so will Paul. You’ve got to know Paul to understand why. He is a huge man, maybe 6-4, 280 pounds. Cross sumo wrestler with a grizzly bear and you’ll get an idea of what he looks like.

I’ve been canoeing with him for seven years now, and he’s as tough as a tree root. He’ll stand a freezing rain, wearing soggy tennis shoes and sweat pants with holes in them, and never complain. He’ll crawl into his old Boy Scout sleeping bag on the coldest nights and be snoring like a pipe organ before I’ve got my long johns on.

Paul and Dave

Nothing much bothers him in the woods, not even that 10-pound rock that I slipped into his pack three years ago. Not much except blackflies. Paul hates blackflies as much as they love him, and they do love him. Their mission in life is to seek him out and bleed him dry. If blackflies went to school, Paul’s picture would be on their textbook covers.

So that’s why you could call it the

Year of the Blackfly.

We were on a day trip to Ranger Lake on Saturday. It’s a little puddle just to the west of Cherokee Lake. No campsites, just an 80-rod portage (a quarter mile) and a nice place to eat a shore lunch.

Or so we thought. The portage should have warned us. Trees were laying across the trail very which way. We had to carry the canoes and packs over them, stepping carefully so as of to lose our balance.

The blackflies flew thicker with every step. Paul was carrying a pack and my fishing rod with a Red Eye fishing lure on the end. He was now swearing and waving his hands in front of his face.

The trail ended in a puddle of stagnant water. Beavers had dammed a creek, flooding the portage. We poled across it, but not before the thickest cloud of blackflies that I have ever seen found their old friend.

Paul’s hands flew wildly around his head, like he had a nervous disorder. He lit a cigarette and kept smoke billowing from the corner of his mouth, but those blackflies were chain smokers, and swarmed in for their own shore lunch of nicotine and blood.

My fishing line snagged in a tree as Paul crashed ahead, and the Red Eye lure went flying through the air. It landed on Paul’s back like a big bug.

Then we retreated. It’s the only portage in seven years that beat us, and it routed us good. I’ll never forget the sight of Paul up ahead, with that lure stuck to his back and about a million blackflies hovering around his smoking head. I didn’t laugh. Honest.

The year of the moose

We saw moose almost every day last week on our annual trip to lake country. On Wednesday, we saw a cow and her calf on an island on Cherokee Lake as we searched for a campsite. On Thursday, Dave and Jim watched a cow swim across their bow as they paddled up Gorden Lake.

David

On Friday, Dave spotted a cow on a breezy point on Town Lake. She stood still, like the bottom of an overturned tree. Was she waiting for us to see her? Maybe she wanted to show off her baby. It lay silently at her feet, watching us too. We drifted closer, until the mother gave a com­mand that we couldn’t hear. Then the youngster stood up on gangly legs, and they ambled off together.

But nothing will ever beat Sunday. We were heading home, and had stopped at an empty campsite on Sawbill Lake for one last lunch.

A noise came from the woods across a bay 100 yards away, a crashing, snorting noise, too loud for this quiet country. We could only sit and stare dumbly as a cow moose and her calf lurched from the thick underbrush into the water.

The cow snorted again, and looked into the woods, and right into the eyes of a timberwolf. It appeared without a sound, like magic, and stood gazing intently at the two animals, sizing them up.

The wolf turned its head to look at us for a few seconds too, although it seemed like time had stopped. It was sleek and gray, with the manicured face that you’ve seen in photographs, and a look of complete indifference in its eyes. Then it was gone.

We talked about it all at once, the four of us, but the words fell short somehow. It was one of those sights that we will cherish inside more than out, and be glad that we all saw it together.

The moose and calf stayed put. After all, Jim pointed out, she was sitting in her bedroom and her bathroom and her living room all at the same time. She didn’t have any appointments to keep, which was fine with us. What better way to enjoy lunch than to watch a couple moose?

The mother was bigger than a draft horse. Huge. How many times had she played cat and mouse with a wolf? It might be a different story in deep snow amidst a pack of wolves, but for now, no single wolf would get the best of her. You could see it in her homely face, in her rippling flanks and huge hooves.

Soon the calf was eating its shore lunch too, its head stuck up between its mother legs, suckling. The sight filled us better than any cheese and salami sandwich ever could.

Six fish, technically

And we caught some fish, although I’m not sure how many.

The confusion started on Friday. I was in the front of the canoe, and Dave was paddling in the back as usual. Dave has a work ethic the size of that last moose, with a bad back thrown in. When we fish, he sits in the back and paddles and thinks too much.

Paul and Jim

I had his rod up front, so naturally when that five-pound northern hit his spoon on Town Lake, I brought it in.

“Technically, that’s my fish;” Dave quickly pointed out. Never mind that he had caught a nice lake trout on MY rod on Thursday. That was his fish too, although technically it was mine. Then he caught one on his own rod, so that was his outright.

Then Jim caught a trout on my rod, so that was mine, technically, and Jim and Dave each caught one on their own rods, and I caught one on my rod.

We ended up catching six fish, I think, but technically I caught four, and Jim and Dave each caught three. Guys think—and argue—about these things after spending five days in the woods together.

One thing I do know: Paul didn’t catch any. Blackflies don’t count. Technically.