Gods Lake warm up…

I have to admit, I wasn’t sure I wanted to start off my trip on Friday the 13th…

All went well with the flights, and we got to Winnipeg right on time today. We had time to check in to the hotel, grab some dinner and get dressed for MONSTER CATS on Manitoba’s Red River.  I have been talking to Lee, the owner of Gods Lake Lodge for a couple of years about fishing the red before flying out to the lodge. We always spend the night before in Winnipeg and can never sleep anyways, so I figured why not? Lee put me in touch with a friend of his that guides for cats and we set things up.

We met our guide Tony and his buddy Kenny in the lobby at 4 and walked out into a torrential rain. They had received over 4″ today already. We were going regardless… We had almost an hour ride back to Tony’s house. By that time, the rain had pretty much quit. We got our gear together and hopped in Tony’s 20′ pontoon boat. Another 45 minute ride down the river and we were at Tony’s honey holes. Along the way, he said that they have been doing over 30 fish per trip and that there were several in the 30 pound range!

We anchored up out of the main river is a 13′ hole. We set out 4 rods with a combination of shrimp sprayed with WD40 and beef hearts dipped in Tony’s homemade concoction. 30lb mono with a 3 oz no-roll sinker and sat back to wait. We didn’t have long to wait. The first rod got tapped and I waited for the take. 5/0 circle hooks kept me from hitting the fish, so I just started reeling… Oh My!!! This fish had some weight to it… A great fight and a few minutes later, Kenny netted my first significant cat…

I ended up cathing the first couple of fish. I’ve caught lots of cats at home and I’ve always been able to lip them… Not here!!! I was stunned and seeing stars when my fish clamped down on my hand. If they had teeth, my finger would have been gone. I might as well have smacked my finger with a hammer. It instantly swelled up and turned color… Lesson learned.

Jimmy had the hot hand for a while after that. He lost a BIG fish but made up for it a little later with the biggest of the trip. This thing was a BEAST! The only thing I can compare the fight to is a 50 pound striper when first hooked. They don’t make blistering runs but they gradually make their way to the boat absolutely refusing to come up off the bottom. They go completely nuts at the boat throwing water everywhere.

We fished till 11 or so, listening the the Red Sox on XM, watching lightning on the horizon and the Perseid meteor showers… What a show! We boated over 20 cats with the majority being 20 pounds or better. I have some video that I’ll put up when I get some time. Here are a few more pics from the trip…