The single, barbless-hook restrictions can temporarily cramp the style of the average pike angler, most of whom are used to tossing chunks of cedar and plastic dangling ganghooks of trebles. For example, my favorite Suicks had to have their hooks amputated and replaced with one, huge, Tru-Turn – with its barb pinched shut.

            But the pike didn’t care and busted the cedar plugs with abandon.  Before long I had changed to Fulmer’s favorite – a bright, white, spinnerbait with an oversized willowleaf spinner flashing the “come-on” to any pike in view.  The hook-up rate was better with the lures designed with single hooks, and the same was true when I switched to a nine-weight flyrod and weedless deer-hair flies – which the pike devoured.

A CAMP FIT FOR KINGS

            Kesagami Lodge is set up for big-pike fishing, with special fish cradles, rather than landing nets, supplied with each boat.  Even the boats themselves are oversized on this massive lake, which, at eight miles wide and some 20 miles long, is one of Ontario’s largest.  The beamy, high-bowed, 23-foot fiberglass craft were welcome the first time I had to head home in a chop, and I soon appreciated their stability when I applied some body English into casts I punched out from the bow with a heavy flyrod.

            Accommodations at Kesagami Lodge, as one might expect from a couple who have made a career in the hospitality business, are outstanding. The hub of activity is a classic, log-constructed, full-service lodge with everything from a tended bar to a pool table that would be the envy of any mid-town nightclub. Meals are cooked and served in the lodge by a kitchen and wait staff the likes of which I’ve rarely seen north of the border, let alone at a fly-in fishing camp.

     

 I chose to stay in one of the several log cabins on the grounds along the shore of Lake Kesagami, rather than taking a room in the lodge.  A new cabin built last summer offers guests the choice of traditional log or ply-planked structures in addition to a well-appointed lodge room.  All accommodations are private and secluded, yet located within a short cast of the waterfront area where the full-time dock crew readies boats and greets anglers upon their return. 

            The price of all this service- and the fabulous fishing- is reasonable.  For $2699 (updated for 2010) a week at the lodge and $2199 (updated for 2010) per week for cabin guests, anglers get their 55-minute flight to and from Cochrane, about a hundred miles south of Kesagami; two or three hot meals a day; the option of a shore lunch kit or sack lunch daily; boat fuel, and access to the biggest pike in the province.

For more information about Kesagami Lodge, call 1-800-253-FISH.  If you’re looking for some big pike action – and not something to stuff for the wall – it’s the place to fish this summer.  And, thanks to two owners with an attitude, Kesagami will be the place to fish for many more seasons to come.

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