| Green Island Lodge is at the Northern end of Manitou Lake.
The flight in to the lodge takes about 35 minutes from Cass lake at Fort
Frances. Now the fishing is great, but even this die hard fisherman was more
than impressed with the food at this lodge.
So I will write about the fishing later..More impressive still
is the Shore Lunch.
We started out Sunday Morning with our guides Vince and Ray
just after breakfast around 8AM central time.
Our first stop was a Lake Trout Hole about 10 minutes from
camp.
Peter with the first Lake Trout of the Trip, and that
d a r n Cigar...
These fish had a brownish blue color to them. The flesh was pink
similar to salmon
We caught some good eatin sized fish of about 2 pounds each,
and then moved on to fish for some bass and pike.
It did not take take long to catch a nice mess of fish. About
10:30 we went to a prearranged spot on the lake and met with Steve Hensley
and Vince Hissong our fishing partners of Team Fishin.com.
Ray and Vince the guide started to prepare the shore lunch.
From out of 2 boxes they pulled 2 large frying pans, a pot, plates and forks,
fixins, and condiments.
Ray cleaned while Vince set up the fire and boiled water for
beans and corn. Large 1 pound slabs of lard were put into the pan. 4 pounds
in all. First to be cooked was the horsedourves…. Deep fried bacon slices.
I could hear my arteries hardening, but they are delicious. Seems that a
Cardiovascular guy told Vince and Ray that the bacon cooks at such a high
temp that there is less fat left after the bacon is done and it drains the
rest of the grease right off, so it is not as bad as you may think.
Ray finishing up cleaning the fish..the final
rinse
Second item is the potatoes followed just before the taters
are done by the onions. These are cooked to a golden brown, and normally
malt vinegar is poured on for some extra flavor.
Vince Prepping the taters adn the onions
Next is the fish. The lake trout goes in skin side down to
keep it from curling up… then the smallmouth fillets. We missed getting
a pike for lunch, but just barely. I hooked one at the lunch site but lost
it when I slipped and fell in the lake. My vain attempt to keep it from getting
back in the lake when It got off the hook.
Taters and the Veggies cooking
All of this takes about an hour to do from cleaning to cooking
and the food is delicious. The fish is battered with flour and garlic salt.
The bread is home made at the camp from scratch.. Then the cleanup is very
simple. Put the paper and aluminum cans in the trash bag and leave the fish
skins and potato skins for the eagles, otters, squirrels and bears. According
to the guides the leftover are normally gone within an hour. One gull showed
up about 10 minutes later, to start to munch on the carcasses. A plaintive
cry brought in 2 more of his friends who waited patiently for us to leave,..
They pounced on the fish almost immediately.
My Lunch Plate... Home Made Bread, Taters, Lake Trout
Corn, Beans and that Lard Fried Bacon
A good cold Le Blat’s Blue Canadian beer washed down
the meal quite nicely. OH and the greatest thing is the ice is cut from the
lake each winter. It is so clear you can read a paper through it and if you
have a glass,.,. take it and put some ice in it after you have dipped it
in the water….YEP you can drink directly from the lake.. Best water
I have ever tasted. All in all the lunch was better than I had heard about.
I would like to have tried some Pike and some Walleye, but the lake has very
few Walleye and the pike were not cooperating on our first day out. They
probably saw my performance on their friend and laughed so hard they couldn't
eat anything.
Ice from Lake Manitou, Stored in the Ice House
This pile of ice is about 5 feet high. Filling the Ice House
Normally will keep the camp in Ice for an entire Season.
Jim Dicken |
