Well, my ears are all plugged up from the pressure in the old plane, but I'm not complaining. It's more of a reminder of where I just was and where I sure hope to be again someday. We returned from Kasba Lake up in the Northwest Territories this weekend and I'm absolutely blown away by the fishing resource up there and the pure adventure in such a wild place! 
Our Convair 580
We started our journey last Sunday with a 7 hour drive from Minneapolis north to Winnipeg. We overnighted at the airport hotel and first thing next morning, hopped a Nolinor charter for the roughly three hour flight from Winnipeg north to Kasba Lake's remote, gravel airstrip. I spent a bit of time on the flight tyin' up a few pike and lake trout flies I hoped might work up there. 
Pike goodies Our goal was to target pike, grayling and big lake trout on both conventional and fly gear... Once we touched down on the bumpy strip and unloaded all our gear, I partnered with guide and 23-year Kasba guru "Crash". His love is lake trout. Giant Kasba lake trout. We'd hop into his 18 1/2 aluminum boat and zip out 15 miles to the middle of the lake and would be able to watch hundreds of lake trout working the shallow rocks around the islands. 
Elk Hair CaddisGiant Elk Hair Caddis on a fly rod did the trick, with mostly Caddis (and a few Mayflies) hatching. We also had great luck pitching a small jig tipped with Gulp. Most of those fish were 10 lbs and under. Bigger fish came 
Guides Consider This A Small Kasba Lake Trout!trolling big baits. Mostly flashers, giant swim baits and a few Flat Fish T60s. Trolling was slow, until Crash pulled out his secret recipe. We ate 
A Snack! chocolate cake (snuck out of the kitchen) soaked in powdered milk. The secret? We had to eat out of his smiley cup. Another of Crash's favorites is lakeside sashimi. I'll keep you posted on the tapeworm....
More Kasba Snacks!
No doubt there's some voodoo to his backwoods fare. After each snack, seems we had big fish on the line. Voodoo I say! Second morning, we flew to the Kazan River, about 30 miles up the lake, to chase grayling, a fairly rare form of trout. Kinda funny, but the guides in back of the plane had to lean way over us to make sure the old DeHavilland Beaver could get up on plane and up to speed for take off. Just why we love adventure! The Kazan River is said to have the world's most and biggest grayling. Sure seems like that's true after our day on the water. Just below repeated sets of rapids, I caught many, many fish drifting nymphs and caddis
Trophy Grayling!
dries with my fly rod. A jig and plastic did just as well cast upstream and bounced down along the boulders. About lunchtime, "Crash" looked over with a kind of curious look. He asked if Cy (photojournalist) and I were up for a bit of adventure. I thought, "Man, this is already as crazy as fishing gets..." Well, Crash suggested we run down the river a ways and drag the boat up a roughly 100
Wrestling Rocks And Rapids To Get To Secret Lake
yard set of boulders to a lake that really never gets fished. Crash and I did the dirty work while Cy documented our work. Crash walked in bare feet, jeans pulled up to his knees, while I walked the water in waders. We took a moment to catch our breath up top and started casting for pike. We caught a couple average fish on the secret lake, but couldn't find any monsters. After an hour, we wondered where the heck all the fish might be. Finally, we zipped back upwind and checked out a shallow bay on the Northeast corner of the lake.
Crash With Another Monster
There, I instantly spotted our first pike, then a second, third and fourth. For the next 90 minutes, we spot fished literally dozens of pike. Biggest of the trip went 45.5 inches. That is a monster northern pike! The other great part of our trip was the view. Everywhere we ventured in the boat, seems we'd
Grave Marker In The Bush
see something new. Heck, we even jumped out of the boats and hiked the bush to find an old, native grave site, most likely turn-of-the-century, Crash pointed out, mainly because someone used nails on the weathered markers. While on that hike, we also noticed a curious critter across the way. A white wolf had stopped to check us out for a
See The Wolf?
bit. We each stared back and forth before the creature wandered away, obviously unimpressed by the three of us out in his woods. Now, here's the crazy part of the Kasba Lake Lodge story. Because this remote camp is so far north, it's only open 6 weeks a year. Owner Mike Hill and the rest of the crew close up this week (August 10th) and everyone flies out until next June. Well, almost everyone.
Kasba Lake Lodge
One guy, Scotty, stays all 9 months with only his dog around. Talk about a wild existence in one of the world's lonliest places! PS: His dog's name? Lady...
This trip goes in the memory book. Watch for the television stories soon!