Story: The 3 Stooges

Years ago, we stayed in a cabin on an island in Canada on a fishing trip with a bunch of Henry types. Chip, my dad (Uncle Gene) and I took the motor boat towing a canoe behind. We motored about 30 minutes to a place across the lake, parked the boat and portaged back with the canoe to a smaller lake called Pike Lake. Small and very deep!

Chip had a brand new reel that he was excited to try. We were having a contest to see who could cast closest to the edge of the lake from the canoe. Chip let fly a doozy and hit the very edge of the lake on the first cast. It seemed that he was immediately snagged, but that big ole snag started to move. It was a MONSTER pike. We really had to maneuver to get this one.

I was in the back paddling, dad in the middle with the net, and Chip in the front with the pole in hand fighting this monster. Of course, all of us were trying to be the captain. when we got the fish close, all were super excited, Dad reached over to net the fish, reached too far the the boat capsized. the three of us were sitting in the water laughing our asses off until we realized that all of our gear, every bit of it went to the bottom of this deep lake, about 40 feet.

We swam to shore, portaged back to the motor boat, drove back to the cabin, rigged up a metal pole with hooks and some rope. We returned to Pike Lake with our contraption and managed to retrieve all of our equipment from the depths. The last thing retrieved from the murky bottom was Chips fishing pole…and the fish was still hooked. We got him too. That was one of my most memorable sagas. Sure miss those guys!

-Patrick Henry-

July 12, 2017 Brian Lee