As many of you know, this summer marks the 20th anniversary of operations at VBL. It’s a time to celebrate, rejoyce and be grateful. And that’s exactly what Gord and Susanne, along with their guests, have been up to for the last two months. Spontaneous parties are happening daily in the lodge and cabins. There have been many wonderful boat parades as well, pretty much every evening. This, of course, attracts many celebrity-types who want to get in on the fun–the Perchmaster, Bamboo Mark and the Russians to name but a few. I felt compelled to get in on the action, and did.
My friend, Marty, and I spent a week at VBL at the end of June. We were ready to fish and party until exhaustion set in. Unfortunately, our timing for this trip could not have been worse. The weather turned hot and sunny upon or arrival and stayed that way. Then the winds kicked in. The mayflies were hatching in abundance every day. Worse yet, our hosts, the guests and even the fish, fell into a bit of a funk. Gord would head down to the docks early in the day as he usually does to prepare the boats. Then he would putter about the fish house in order to avoid walking up the driveway back to the lodge–for most of the day. Susanne started skipping her rigorous workout, “the shred”, and settled for riding around the lake for the now occassional evening boat parade. The general malaise was something you could feel. The fishing, which had been quite good, slowed down for most guests, Marty and I included. It was not what we had hoped and dreamed about. There were no big lakers, walleyes, or pike to be caught by us on Eagle that week.
That folks, is the way fishing sometimes goes. However, we did enjoy some good pike fishing on Clearwater Lake. One large pike, about 35 inches, and several near 27 inches, came to net one day. All were caught trolling deep-diving Rapalas. A bonus fish is pictured below…a fat, 29 inch walleye which also went for the Rapala. Marty and I were very happy about this one. It was released along with the large pike. Clearwater Lake is accessed by a portage trail from Eagle. It’s about a 20 minute hike in to Gord’s boat cache. The newer 10 hp Yamaha outboard worked great and is a big upgrade over the tired-out Johnson.
I’ll close with a final note, perhaps a bit unusual, but worth mentioning. Gord is clearing out his underwear collection that he’s had since VBL opened 20 years ago. I picked-up a three-pack for $6.00. To be clear, these are used and stained in all the usual places. But, these are freshly laundered, and remarkably, are still serviceable. Each brief is hand-lettered with VBL 20th. I’m planning on offering these as gifts to a few close friends come Christmas time.
On behalf of the Boyes Group, I would like to pass on our sincere thanks for hosting the Muskie Madness Week and we thoroughly enjoyed our stay at VBL and had a great time!! This was our 7th year on Eagle Lake and we have stayed at a few other lodges but VBL takes the cake hands down! You can definitely count us in for next year. I’m happy to see you post some of my pics, they turned out well. Thanks again Gord for a wonderful week of fishing and your stellar hospitality, you run a first class operation, we look forward to seeing you next year!
