After a year of talking about our past trips — the big ones that got away, the little ones someone else caught, the high water, the low water, the cold weather, the hot weather, the good roads, the bad roads, and just about anything else a bunch of fishermen would talk about, it is time to report on another trip to the beautiful sunset country of central Ontario, Canada.

The Campbell Crew, named in memory of fellow fishermen, Ken Campbell, who died in 2004, consisted of Billy Joe Rogers and Glenn Reeves of Glasgow, Jerry Harmon of Bowling Green, and Louis Reeves and Nick Jones of Columbia. There were only five travelers this year with the additional passing of crew member Doug Coffey in 2004.

Our trip went off without a hitch this year, except for blowing one of our trailer tires, which was replaced with the spare. We continued into the next town in upper Illinois or Wisconsin and bought two new tires for the trailer.

For several years, it seemed that Illinois and Wisconsin were continually working on the same roads, and we were continually hitting detours and delays. Now we have interstate most of the way and some very fine roads.

As usual, we drove to Eau Claire, Wis., the first day, which had us on the road for about 14 hours. After a good night’s rest, we were on the road for another 12 hours and arrived at our outfitters around 5 p.m. on Friday.

We were told we would be flying out about 6 a.m. Saturday, so we had to be at the dock by 5:30 to unload our supplies. As usual, we took more than we needed for one week, but who knows when we might get socked in by bad weather and have to stay several extra days – wishful thinking! Our plane was on time and we were loaded and on the way to the bush by 6 a.m.

This year, we got to ride in a newly renovated 1950s model Otter. It was a WW II transport plane that has been fitted with floats for landing on water. They had taken the old motor and front of the plane off and replaced it with a streamlined cowling and a new turbo prop engine. It made the whole plane look new and it sure was a smooth, quiet ride.

We arrived at our outpost and were greeted by the crew that was leaving. We usually see the same crews from year to year, as we are arriving and as we are leaving. We have made many friends from Chicago, Milwaukee, Madison, and some from cities out west.

We arrived at our outpost and went to work unpacking and getting the cabin ready. We were soon able to put our equipment in the boats and head out fishing.

The water was much higher this year than last, and that was good for us as we could now find cabbage weed. When the water is extremely low like last year, the cabbage weed beds are left out of the water and you don’t have the cover for fish. The northern pike and walleye, as well as small mouth, all use the weed beds.

To fish the weeds for pike, we usually use a weedless spoon, spinner bait, or top water, for walleye, we use a 1/8 to 1/4 ounce jig with a grub and just hop it or bump it off the bottom and through the weeds.

We have caught several species of fish, including muskie, northern pike, walleye, smallmouth, sauger, yellow perch, red eye and white fish. In all the years we have been going, we have only caught the one white fish. To me, it looked like a generic river sucker.

This year we saw less wildlife than usual, but still saw moose, bear, otter, beaver, mink and lots of eagles and osprey.

This year, we caught lots of fish as usual, ate many of the walleye, either fried or baked, and released the others to grow and be caught again, hopefully.

We did not catch any large muskie or northern pike this year, but caught some of the largest walleye and smallmouth ever.