PPS Destinations Report 

Wollaston Lake Lodge, Saskatchewan, Canada

Date:        July/August, 2008

The Esox Lucius Northern Frontiers in Dental Medicine Seminar 2008

Dr. Ernst 'Ernie' Schmidt:  New and Changing Horizons; An Outlook On Cad/Cam Dentistry.

Reported by Dr. Ernst 'Ernie' Schmidt, Vancouver, BC

Although I am a west-coast fisherman with a love of trout and salmon species and although I have fished pike (Esox Lucius) in the past, I've surely had my eyes opened to what pike fishing is really about.  What I didn't realize is, if you're going to be a pike fishermen, you might as well catch big pike!  What I considered a big pike in the past, would not even be tallied among serious pike fishermen at Wollaston Lake Lodge.

I was honoured to be invited as the first guest speaker of the Esox Lucius Northern Frontiers in Dental Medicine Seminar.  Afterall, these are two of the things I love most; fishing and dentistry.  My first reaction was to use Google Earth and to see exactly where I was going and what it looked like.  At first glance, Wollaston Lake is a huge Island-filled lake with many shallows and shoals surrounded by relatively flat scrub land.  With somewhere around 300 islands on the huge expanse of terrain, this lake also boasts an amazing amount of shoreline, largely due to the many inlets and bays.  In fact, many of the inlets are one-way and could easily require a 10km - or longer - boat ride to reach the end.  The bottom line is that this lake boasts an amazing amount of pike water, pure and simple.  Also of interest is the claim that Wollaston is the largest lake in the world which drains in two directions.  In short, there are two outlets at opposite ends of the lake.  As far as fishing is concerned, the peak of summer is mainly a pike fishery, however Wollaston is well known for trophy lake trout (a 60 pounder was caught the week before), walleye and fly-out fishing for grayling.  

My guide for the week was Chip ( aka Dwayne Cromarty) and I was delighted to find out that most guides are also fly fishing specialists and carry excellent gear and flies on board.  Well, Chip isn't 'most guides'.  I was most fortunate to have one of the best guides at the lodge specializing in fly fishing.  For two of the four days, we made average runs of 1 hour in our beautiful 18 foot aluminum-hulled 80 horsepower boats.  All boats are the same and feature spacious - and I mean spacious - casting decks for optimal performance.  When fishing, you have an amazing amount of space with little chance of catching your line during the windy days.  On the other two days, we made one short run of 5 minutes to the adjacent Umpherville River in order to avoid high winds on the lake and the other day was spent on a fly-out to Sandy Bay.

There are two types of fishermen drawn to Wollaston.  One enjoys the certainty of catching many aggressive pike and the other is the trophy hunter.  Even the trophy hunter will have to be satisfied with the numbers.  As I mentioned earlier, a fish is 'tallied' only when it is 40 inches or larger.  On each day, I managed to catch at least one 40 inch pike, however, as the 4 days wore on, I continuously improved in my pike-catching skills.  On my last day, a fly-out to Sandy Bay, my pike fishing experience culminated in 8 pike over 40 inches, including my largest of the trip, a 45 inch beast/gator.  How can I describe fishing waters less that 2 metres deep where these gators - not too hard to spot a 40+inch pike in shallow water - turn on the fly displacing an amazing amount of water.  There were several types of pike waters but my favourites were the smaller, intimate weedy/sandy bays which allowed easier casting and better hunting.  Not only were these bays calmer and visually appealing, but the rush of seeing the monster engulf your 12 inch fly (I called them diving ducks due to their aerodynamic tendencies at the end of a cast) and then take off is really the most amazing part of pike fishing.  At other times, when visibility due to weather conditions was  less-than-optimal or no pike were spotted, I blind-casted over likely areas.  The serenity of fishing these waters (I never saw another angler during the day)  would be broken with an attack by what might be described as a crazed and angry tarpon!  What became clear to me during the four days is that pike are not as aggressive as I thought they would be.  Often times, the fly had to be fished very slowly and many times, fish followed the fly with little or no interest.  If you made the right fly movement - usually a subtle twitch - at the right time, the fish would show you its amazing acceleration! Although the general pike fishing that is done from the lodge is excellent, I highly recommend that all serious fishermen consider at least one, if not two, fly-outs to some of the remoter waters for trophy pike as well as grayling and lake trout.  The lodge runs two beautiful turbo Otter floatplanes and shuttles guests on short runs to five or six locations each day.  These locations vary in the type and quality of fishing so that each angler can satisfy his/her own needs regarding species, size and numbers. This is also an excellent inducement for the returning angler who wishes to fish new waters.

As much as I loved being on the water fishing for these brutes, I never balked at the hour it took to have lunch.  Not only was it a rest from standing on the bow and casting, it was an anticipation of the best shore lunches, BAR NONE, that I have ever had.  And let me tell you, I've had some good ones in my day.  Shore lunches were a lesson in efficiency for one thing.  Within no time, Chip would cut a small, standing dead spruce and buck it into shorter lengths.  After arranging the wood on a fire pit, a match was tossed in and the fire was generated immediately.  By using a large steel frying pan directly on the wood, within 30 minutes I was treated to the best fish and chips or stir fry imaginable.  Without exception, I ate two full plates each day!

The Wollaston Lake Lodge experience is certainly a lesson in the detail of how to successfully run a large operation.  I was amazed at the overall efficiency and punctuality of all aspects of the day.  For example, the fly outs in the Lodge's two turbo prop De Havilland Otters departed and arrived with better scheduling than most airlines could dream of.  Make no mistake, with 50 guests, this is not an intimate lodge where you will get to know each of the guests and the staff.  What the lodge loses in intimacy it more than gains in amenities.  From meeting rooms, fitness rooms, lounge and bar, computer room, games root, TV room to the massive dining room, you get the sense you are in a fine modern hotel, albeit in log-cabin motif.  Service is the other aspect of detail.  Every table was served by its own server.  With a meal program that would make many hotels envious, I was always amazed how you could ask for something special, not on the menu, and how quickly you got more than what you expected.  Wollaston is about service, pure and simple.  In addition to the large main lodge facility, guests are housed in comfortable guest cabins and support staff were housed in a facility the size of a small hotel.  In all my years of adventure fishing, this is the first time I have fished in North America where the support staff outnumbered the guests!  The overall efficiency and success of the operations are surely a credit to owners, Mike and Judy Lembke and their capable hand-picked staff.

For further inducement to the adventure loving dentist, each year will feature a dental seminar.  For our group, my challenge was to deliver a program to the over-fed and highly worn-out colleagues who were still keen enough to get into the spirit of our great profession.  Our group was a great bunch and I wish every success for future dental seminars.  My advice is, whether you are a keen trophy pike fisherman or not, this is something that you must try at least once in your lifetime.  This will truly reset the bar!

Wollaston Lake Lodge is located in Northern Saskatchewan, a 2 hour charter flight from Winnipeg, Manitoba.  Cost of charter flight , transfers and hotel in Winnipeg are included in the four-day package.  Wollaston Lake Lodge retains its own in-house travel agency which can arrange or assist with all aspects of your trip.

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