I was busy going over things I have planned for 2009 and I hear a knock on my door. Strange time to get a visitor. Cool another happy client coming to pay me for my services.

Big Paw Outfitters owner Kevin Caissie has been a client since early 2003 and has seen his life and business grow over that time. I was happy to be a small part of that.

Kevin knows I love fishing, especially Atlantic salmon fly fishing and his lodge is right on the Renous river, well within spitting distance anyways.

Well Kevin just invited me and a guest to spend a couple of days at his lodge Atlantic salmon fishing. I am more than stoked for this one. It feels like Christmas all over again.

I made a new friend and fishing buddy through this site in 2008 who actually took the time to take me fishing with him. I think I have a new friend for life now. Yee Haw.

To make a long story short my new fishing buddy Jamie made my summer in 2008. I have been having health problems, heart related, and because I wasn’t allowed to drive my fishing completely stopped. Then Jamie contacted me through this site and my summer changed for the better.

How better to repay a huge gift like Jamie gave me in 2008 than to invite him as my guest on this fly fishing trip to the Renous.

I know what I will be dreaming about tonight.

Thanks Kevin, you rock.

Image via WikipediaWhile I and my buddies were in northern Quebec on our fly-in fishing trip there were Lake trout in the shallow bays but my buddies, well except Kerry, were blind to their presence.

The proper sunglasses was made the difference. Kerry and I could look out over the water and see the Lake trout swimming around, just below the surface.

I was out on my own using my Hummingbird fish finder to finds some big Lake trout when I thought I saw a splash in a little bay. Thinking it was a brook trout I headed in to make a few casts with my flyrod.

BAM!! The first cast. It wasn’t a brook trout at all, as it turned out it was a Lake trout at about 6 or 8 pounds. As I was fighting this little surprise I was looking around and saw that he wasn’t alone, there were dozens of them in this little bay.

I had to make a decision, keep fishing and tell my buddies later or stop fishing and take the 20 minute boat ride back to the camp to tell them. Well I love fishing with friends so I stopped, after two more fish, and headed back. Would have been a great time to have a two-way radio.

When we returned I was the only one with a flyrod but both Kerry and I had on polarized sunglasses. Unfortunately the other 3 guys didn’t. But like I said I like to fish with friends and I like us all to be catching fish.

I told Kerry it was time for him to migrate to one of the other boats and we would fish three to a boat for a while. That way I could direct those casting from my boat and Kerry could do the same in his boat.

I little trick we both tried was to switch glasses with a buddy that didn’t have a fish on. That way they could see where they were while we were fighting our fish.

It is so important to have the right gear when you go out on the water.

The five of us were beside ourselves with excitement. None of us had been on a real fishing trip let alone a fly-in fishing trip to northern Quebec. Heck only two of us were experience fishers while the other three we kind of behind the house stream fishermen and maybe a little Mackerel fishing.

We had about 4 months to prepare which probably cost me hundreds more than was necessary but it was a once in a lifetime trip so it was going to be worth it. I wanted all new fishing equipment and so did my buddy Kerry.

My job didn’t give me spending money after all the bills were paid so I had to come up with something else that would help me buy new fishing equipment. But what could I do, I was far too busy at the one job I had to think about a second job, even if it were only temporary. Then it came to me…

I was spending about $10.00 a day on unnecessary things like coffee, muffins and pop. I decided I would give up those things until after our fishing trip. Kerry worked with me and was in the same boat so he decided he would give up the coffee, muffins and pop as well.

Our three other partners in this fishing trip didn’t need the extra money as they didn’t care what they took with them as long as it was beer. I think we had more weight in beer than all our other gear.

Note: I don’t drink and fish and I don’t let any one else either so even though we had a ton of beer it was for after a long hard day of fishing.

I was really blown away by how much I had been spending on food at work when I could have been bringing from home as part of our grocery bill. Live and learn and save.

$10.00 a day, five days a week equals $50.00, man what a waste. It didn’t take very long to start buying new fishing gear. Both Kerry and I bought exactly the same things.

New fishing vests, boots, waders, rods, reels, lures and flies… We looked like twins, well I was about 60 pounds over weight and Kerry wasn’t but other than that we looked a lot a like all decked out in our new gear. The only thing I bought that Kerry didn’t was a fish finder which came in handy for those huge Lake Trout.

The place we were flying out of gave us a pretty detailed list of what we should take. After all we were going into a place so far north it took a couple of hours to fly there so any problems would result in a two hour flight both ways. We didn’t want to spoil our trip so we followed the list as close as we could.

More about our fly in fishing trip in another post.