_Every day I fish is a success. Once again I have found a way to escape the daily hells of being a meaningful citizen for a date with hook and line and nature. Hopefully the camera has been needed a few times and something new has been learned. The fish may or may not cooperate; so successful catching is never a guarantee. On the occasion that catching is a success, the results can generally be categorized as a quality catch or a quantity catch.  As a tournament and trophy angler, it is rare that the goal of a trip would be a quantity result. If luck and planning align, a quality fish or two is landed by the group. On special occasion multiple fish will qualify for quality status, coinciding with a spike in high-five activity. Special is the only way to describe this intersection of quantity and quality. And special is a pretty good way to describe Manitoba's Parkland region.
 
The Parkland is a trophy trout oasis located in western Manitoba. This land of rugged prairie and heavy boreal forests is dotted with literally dozens of worthwhile trout venues. The area has produced amazing results for nearly all species of trout over the years. These results have been amplified recently through efforts from an organization known as FLIPPR [Fish and Lake Improvement Program for the Parkland Region]. FLIPPR has allowed several lakes to realize the world-class potential inherent to the region.  This is a place that I consider a magical junction point of quantity and quality. Bob Sheedy's Internet tales of Shamus, Bay of Pigs, and 'Tokaryk Takes' intoxicated my thoughts and dreams for many years, until a driver's license brought the area into realization. My very first trip to the region was four years ago when my close friend Chris Tholl and I combined for 39 rainbow trout in two days, with over half exceeding the trophy twenty-inch mark, and several pushing into the two-foot class.  Special. An immediate favorite, it has now become a regular destination throughout the year, with the magic most readily available in spring and fall.
 

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Aaron with a 26.5" Rainbow

This past fall I entered a new breed of fishing tournament. It was an online format that spanned two provinces, four weeks, and twelve species of fish. The tournament was put on by the Fish'n Line Magazine and sponsored by Angling Masters International. The sponsor has a fish calculator that uses algorithms to assign point values to any length of each individual species. The highest five fish point total during the competition would win the grand prize of five thousand dollars. I targeted many different species during this competition, but it was the aforementioned trout factory that captured my attention with its' typical superb fishing. If an angler is dedicated, they can hope for one or two special days in a year. These are the days where quality gets repetitive. In the tournament alone, the Parkland offered me multiple special days, and one extra special evening that stands out in my mind.

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Peter Tully with a Shamu Rainbow

It was a frigid Sunday afternoon at the end of October. The warmest part of the day was realized when I could make more than one cast in a row before having to stop and break the ice clinging to each eyelet on my St.Croix 7 weight. A heavy wind had beaten the lake for several days. Its' sting burned through numerous jackets and convinced most of the lake to begin a five month rest from waves and belly boats. The Tully brothers and I were alone with the small section of lake that continued to resist winter. We were desperately grasping the precious hours remaining in our Wooly Bugger season, as we spent the afternoon working a pod of browns that were cruising an area of shoreline sheltered from the brutal wind. By working, I mean hooking and releasing a silly bounty of 18-22 inch fish. As it would appear, we were only fishing there to escape the wind. That was a nice perk to the situation, but in reality there was a lot more going on. In the same way that trout are attracted to windblown shorelines on a warm spring day, they are repelled from these areas on a frosty late fall day. Cold surface water is pushed against the windblown shore, and warmer water from below fills the lee side of the lake. The thermometer agreed, and our playground was five degrees warmer than the majority of the lake.

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The Tully Brothers

The Sun was sinking low in the sky. My eyes were on Mark Tully undergoing an awkward process of sucking the ice off each of his guides several times during a single cast, when I hooked something different. It wasn't the magnificent pull of an 18-22 inch trophy fish, and it wasn't the extra muscle of a two-foot class specimen. I can't explain the feeling, because it is not something that I experience often enough to become familiar with. Peter Tully sensed immediately that something was up, and even called my bluff when I tried to deny it. He has caught enough big fish, and seen me nervous around them long enough to know exactly when my rod is folded on one. After the spectacular initial run, I gained back enough line to get my first glimpse of the fish and gasped to Peter, immediately proclaiming, "if I land this fish, I'm gonna win the whole tournament." Three more long runs and some intense boat side dramatics ended when a stubborn 27.5-inch male brown found the bottom of my net.

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Aaron with a 27.5" Brown

 
That fish, combined with several in the two-foot range that afternoon, secured first place in the tournament and five grand. In the big picture, I was just fortunate enough to have my feathers-on-hook in the right place, at the right time. In the big picture, the Parkland won the whole thing. The tournament had well over a hundred competitors fishing throughout Manitoba and Ontario, and six of the top seven finishers caught their fish in a special area in Southwestern Manitoba. The majority of these fish came from FLIPPR developed lakes.

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Peter Tully with a 25" Brown

 
After hundreds of hours invested in securing a relationship with my distant relative the trout, I still have many days with less than stellar catching, and often get completely beat just when I think I have something patterned.  If you have the pleasure of visiting, I can guarantee you will be challenged greatly on most days, and even burnt on occasion. But in my travels around Manitoba, Northwestern Ontario, and in four years of guiding in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and the Northwest Territories, I know of no other place that will provide brighter smiles or a higher potential of producing a day of quality and quantity on the water.

Fish Lake Manitoba Narrows

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