2012 Fly in pictorial TR…..wordy and images

Arrived back home safe and sound last Friday after a marathon drive and great week in Ontario’s north (a couple hundred k north of Superior). I’ll try to limit this to just some “highlights”.

Everything about this trip was out of the norm. It started with the flight in and the Pilot and I talking about the Bush Pilot career (35 years for him). it being a crappy day for flying (lots of turbulence), him explaining that old school by the seat of your pants Pilots are a dissapearing commodity and how for them its all about risk management….how they “lose” a few every year….It kind of got things started and set the tone for a crazy week…..

Our water taxi

Our eventual destination

Day 1
We got settled in, fished the afternoon a bit to satisfy the itch and catch dinner ( with weight allowances….our menu relied heavily on fresh fish)….and then an evening fish…..That far north we could fish till 9:30pm and still have light until 10:15-10:30pm. We set out under beautiful skies and conditions….around 8:00 the first sign of trouble.
A distant roll of thunder, barely audible…WTH?????? Scan horizons and can just barely make out a thunder head…But we decide to play safe and start making our way back. Five minutes later that was a race for a distant shore and safety, where there were real concerns about “getting” back period. In hindsight I wish I’d grabbed a camera and video taped our race..one that we lost… where we had to cover about 500 yards across open water running full tilt in a tornential downpour that we watched as it rolled over our cabin, then dock like a solid wall coming right at us and included hail and reduced visibility to 20feet……

Lesson learned…dont mess with storms here, they can blow in wickedly fast.

One of the only shots from that evening. Taken on the race home before I had stowed and secured my gear and long before it hit the fan.

Day 2 highlight….A repeat of day 1.
Going out for the evening fish, blue skies, light breeze, a few scattered showers to the S,W and N. It looked a lot like this.

We watched the showers that were to the N, move their way E…Button hook and start coming towards us….At the same time the system to W came dead E….within minutes the two collided over top of us…With the previous nights expereince we wisely dicided not to try to make a run for shore and instead went for the closest Island.We had time to find shelter on the lea side of a very small Island in the middle of open water…Im not ashamed to say I never, ever want to ride one out like that again. Feirce high winds, electricity and yet another 20-30 minute downpour.

The calm after the storm. Taken maybe 15 minutes it had passed, the tail end is visible in the distance

And later we hooked up with this nice Northern

and caught this sunset from a nearby shoal that produced the Northern

Days 3  4 and 5 were by comparison uneventful…Just lots of fishing and fish….but on the eve of day 5 we got word of immediate Tornado warnings, be ready to seek cover..Needless to say we didnt go out for the evening on day 5..thankfully nothing developed.

Day 7
Record temps kept off the water (close to 50 with the humidex), but everyone wanted one last evening fishing.  We were out in our tin can trolling when a water bomber flew in overhead, west to east. We had no sooner begun the usual “how they work” discussion and “wouldn’t it be neat to see”…when much to our surprise it banked at the far east end, descended and started coming right at us.

In all it made about 10 return trips in the last hour of daylight (8:30-9:30). Each return trip was timed at 5 to 7 minutes putting the forest fire a mere 15 miles from us..We were told to ready “just incase”.

Touch down

filling up

lift off

gaining altitude

overhead

Well thats the condensed version 🙂
If interested I have a condensed gallery here
http://jbenphotography.ca/p982052643

Next up the same writer and I have a week long Bear hunt in Aug somewhere else up North. He will be hunting with lead, then once he’s successful we switch roles and I will be trying to take with my Bow.
I hope its another great adventure but at the same time more sedate.