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I met Liz the other day in the IGA. After
pleasantries, she asked if I would write something about my experiences;
perhaps hockey; maybe later.
I decided to write about a special character
and a special Lake Trout. The character was a stocky, flush-faced,
gruff-voiced individual who lived on the Eel’s Lake Road (opposite the
Burkett Thompson house) He lived in a 12’ x 18’ building that was the
original office of the Northern Development Co. (This company built the
“new” Highway 28 to Bancroft in 1942. Henry Edwards, the father of Doreen
Scott and Betty Budd, had previously owned the building.) He came to the
area from Baltimore, Ontario, lived alone and worked sporadically in the
wood, lumber and building business. However, he lived mainly off the land
by hunting, trapping and fishing. His name was Gill Gilliland. Willard
Budd was his nephew.
Gill was a faithful customer at my parent’s
store, Brown’s Store, in Apsley. Once a month, with his two-strapped green
canvas backpack, he would hitch hike or walk to Apsley for his
necessities. He was always dressed in a green and black checked wool
jacket and a waterproof oiled slouch fedora hat. After brief, loud and
gruff, but friendly communications, he would gather up his goods and my
father would drive him back to his abode.
On July 11, 1956 Gill arrived at the store and
the conversation came around that a dead lake trout had been floating on
Eel’s Lake. To date, there had been no evidence of any trout, natural or
stocked, in Eel’s Lake. Rumour had it that perhaps Ross Reynolds had put a
“few” in the lake. As I was listening to the conversation, Gill turned and
asked me ”would you like to try for one?” Having fished only for bass with
my father, I was thrilled to be able to say “Yes!” Arrangements were made
for Gill to assemble equipment, to “measure the line” and take me to Eel’s
Lake the next day.
My grandfather, Duncan, had an old lake trout
rod with a heavy 40 guage monel line. It was essentially a half inch steel
rod, 3 feet long, with one ferrule at the top, two black wood handles, a
sidewinder reel mounted on the side, and a manual hand brake that rode
against the side of the reel. Gill arrived at the store the next day and
went immediately to the back yard. There, he measured off exactly 35 feet
of red wool yarn and tied the wool to the line then my father drove us to
Eel’s Lake.
We began fishing at 9 AM. Gill said it was
always better to fish early, before the waterskiers “got into the ski
juice” and created large waves. The day started to warm up and we trolled
till close to noon without a bite. Gill said “Let’s go give the shoal off
5 Acre Island a try” so we came back through the narrows and began letting
out line. I had put on a brand new Lucky Strike silver lure with red beads
in the middle. Instantly, after letting out all the line, I received a
tremendous jerk on my rod that virtually tore it out of my hands. I yelled
to Gill, operating the five horse green and red Johnson, that I was caught
on the bottom. He glanced at my jerking rod and yelled, “Hell no, that’s a
fish!! Reel hard!!
At first, I couldn’t move the fish, but with
Gill yelling “Reel, reel!, it started to move toward the boat. Quickly,
the fish was directly under the boat, my rod was throbbing up and down and
bubbles began to rise from under the boat. Gill yelled “Keep the line
tight and if he begins to come up, keep reeling!” I looked around for a
net and didn’t see one. Suddenly, the fish started to come off the bottom
and again I heard, “Keep reeling!” Lifting and reeling, the fish came to
the top. I heard a rattling sound back near Gill and turned to look. Gill
had extracted a gaff hook from his pack sack, hit the fish with the gaff
and it was instantly in the boat and flopping around. I was stunned at the
size and beauty of the lake trout. I looked at my watch. It was 12 PM and
the temperature was 90 degrees. Gill said “Let’s go home.”
My father picked us up at Reynold’s Marina and
dropped Gill off at his cabin. We weighed the fish on the meat scales at
the store. It weighed 17 lbs, 4 oz. My, father kept it in the walk in
freezer and proudly showed all the customers. It was July 12, 1956. We
entered the fish in the Toronto Star Fish Derby and received a certificate
of Recognition from King White that hangs in my boathouse on Long Lake. A
copy is also at Carolyn & Jeff’s marina on Eel’s Lake.
I have been fortunate to fish in many places
in North America, but no fish and no place was as thrilling as the lake
trout from Eel’s Lake for a boy of 14 years old. I also remember the
kindness and skill of Gill Gilliland that gave me this opportunity. Fifty
one years later, in the evenings around 7 PM, you will find me in the bay
in front of my cottage on Long Lake, in my blue, square-nosed punt with my
father’s 1960 3 ˝ horse power Johnson outboard trolling for lake trout.
Thanks to John and Doreen Scott for filling in
some of the blanks on Gill and the Eel’s Lake road.
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Author, Ayaan Hirsi Ali has received many
awards for her writing, one of which was from Time magazine as one of the
100 most influential people of 2005. Her book ‘Infidel’ should be read by
politicians as well as the public.
She feels so strongly about what she has to
say put her life on the line.
Her first attempt to tell the world about how
women are treated by radical Muslims was a short film called,
“Submission.” The producer, a grandson of Van Gohg was shot and killed and
hacked to pieces in broad daylight in Holland where the film was made.
This book is a critical look at Islam, from a
lady who was born and raised in the Muslim tradition. From excise of young
girls, arranged marriages and total obedience to their husbands with no
reasonable recourse available for his violent acts. These are the subjects
that she brings to the reader from her own experiences.
She is a great defender of women’s rights. She
points out what happened in Holland with their too generous immigration
laws.
A worthy read. |
