The Holy Grail

Certainly the day started out slow, very slow! In fact three hours of hard fishing had produced one walleye hooked and lost at the boat so far. The fish that friend Dale Pihowich had lost though was a good one, considering it had straightened one of the hooks out on his crankbait. We were fishing on the Saskatchewan River were it enters Tobin Lake near Nipawin Saskatchewan. Of all the trophy walleye waters in western Canada, Tobin is part of my Triumvirate, or the Big Three. The other two must-fish trophy walleye waters are of course the Red River and Winnipeg River from Pine Falls to Traverse Bay. On a good year, these fisheries kick out a lot of big fish, monsters in the 12 pound plus category with a few fish 15 pounds or bigger. There are a lot of other great walleye fisheries in western Canada but very few of them give the angler a legitimate opportunity at a fish over 15 pounds, which for hard-core walleye anglers, is the benchmark for the fish of a lifetime or the Holy Grail! If you have seen that advertisement on t.v. by MasterCard that relates to golf, about all the thousands and thousands of dollars spent playing and trying to get that hole in one, that's close but still pales in comparison to catching a 15 pound walleye.

Let's face it, how many anglers do you know that spend a lot of time fishing, have caught a walleye over ten pounds?

Having got that off my chest, lets get back to the fishing and as the sun to began to slowly sink in the west bites were few and far between; that is until we slowed down and started to vertical jig along one stretch of the river called the Eaglenest.

This is the last narrowed down stretch of river before it dumps into Tobin Lake and is always the first stop for hungry walleye heading into the river chasing a fall run of ciscoes, suckers or anything else they can fit into their mouths. I had brought along some salted emerald shiners with me and we proceeded to impale them on 1/4 ounce jigs and slowly drift down the river using the front electric troll motor to keep our line as straight up and down as possible. This can be a key in getting unaggressive fish to bite and in no time flat we had about six fish on, with two nice walleye landed. As we approached the middle of the drift, my other friend Russ Heatherington, set the hook on a fish that put a mighty bend in his Fenwick Walleye Class six foot jigging rod. It had all the classic movements of a big fish, the head shaking and straight up and down dogged fight of a big strong ciscoe feed walleye. Sure enough after an excellent battle a ten pound class walleye came to the net and was quickly released back into the water. We knew well enough that given the time of year and the conditions, bigger game was out there!

As the sun set over the birch trees along the west shore, and a full moon peaked over the horizon in a blazing shot of orange, it was time to put the jigging rods away and get out the crankbaits once again. The nice thing about this part of the river was the long stretch of water you could run your baits without snags. We started downcurrent and moved upstream with the big motor keeping our trolling speed at about 1.6 miles an hour, working our lures in 18 to 22 feet of water, much the depth we had caught the previous walleye jigging. We had gone about three quarters of the way up the run when Russ's trolling rod, which was silhouetted against the full harvest moon, bent under the weight of a fish.

Given the dark conditions and the current, Russ wasn't quite sure the size but Dale and myself quickly reeled our lures in anyway just to be on the safe side. Russ was using 10 pound Berkley Fireline so he could get the #9 Perch Shad Rap down to the 22 foot mark and this time it had paid off in spades, though it meant he had to be awful careful about not putting too much pressure time on this fish that was getting bigger by the second. Finally Russ had it close enough and as this huge walleye came out of the depths all three of us could see that the fish had just one hook of the back treble in the corner of his mouth. While Dale was ready with the net, the fish wasn't and took another power dive under the boat. Russ, a veteran angler, never lost his composure and made sure to let the fish run with medium tension on his drag, trying to keep the fish as straight up and down as possible. Given the dark conditions it was difficult to know when to net the fish, but then when big walleye wallowed to the surface for the third time, Dale was there to scoop the fish, which barely fit in the rubber net that we had along with us.

Very few times in my 20 years as a professional angler have I seen a fish to match that and there was a whole lot of celebrating going on in that boat.

Once we regained our wits, Russ quickly weighed the walleye on his digital scale. Russ had done it, he had found the Holy Grail, he had done what 99.9 per cent of all walleye anglers will never do, he had landed a fish over 15 pounds. The official weight was 15.4 pounds and after a few quick pictures on my digital and 35 millimetre, this magnificent specimen was released to fight another day.

I relate this story not to brag, but to try and put things into perspective about how valuable these three fisheries are and how important that all user groups work to protect and preserve these great fisheries. They are worth millions to the two provinces as anglers from all over North America make the pilgrimage each fall to fish the trophy walleye runs.Given the tough conditions on the Red and Pine Falls the last two years, there has been a lot of finger pointing as to the reason why.I can say one thing though, I hope that for as long as I fish that I still have the opportunity to go to my big three and have the chance to catch my Holy Grail!

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