We woke up early, showered in a real bathroom for the last time in a week and put on our outdoor clothes.
I pulled on my new leggings with antibacterial fabric that was supposed to help them not stink for at least three wears, wool socks, hiking boots and a long-sleeve top.
We gathered our stuff and headed out of town, stopping at Tim Horton's for coffee and a sour cream glazed donut along the way.
We were supposed to arrive at Hearst Air at 6:30 a.m., but we didn't want to be late and heard that people show up pretty early so we got there at 6:15 a.m. The owner was walking out of her house to the shop, where we met her. We took care of final arrangements and she said, "It will be a couple of minutes. You're kind of early."
"Sorry! We didn't want to be late. We're in no rush."
The sun was just coming up over the horizon, behind the conifer trees that edged Carey Lake. Pink and purple shone as a light fog rose from the calm waters.
"You're fine; it's just you on the plane," the owner, Melanie, assured us.
We came in at 214 pounds, but they didn't charge us for the overages. In fact, they let us bring an extra cooler that we had set aside for them to bring later in the week on a check flight.
I piled everything, including our sunglasses, onto the luggage cart to be weighed and next thing I knew, it was being wheeled to the plane.
I quickly walked behind, because I hadn't thought they would take it so fast, and I wasn't sure our passports were secured in the bag I had put them in quickly, and I knew our sunglasses were just laying on top. I tried to get the guy's attention as the pilot picked up our lifejackets and the sunglasses dangled from them precariously as he threw them into the plane.
"Our sunglasses..." I pointed.
The kid tried to convey it to the French-speaking pilot, and I felt bad as I pointed out they had fallen underneath a seat of the plane. The pilot handed them to me, and I grabbed them and let them continue with their jobs.
My anxiety continued though as they quickly ushered us on to the plane and took off before I really could calm down about the fact that we had everything we needed. I sat the entire flight with my hands in my lap, monkeying with the string that closes the top of my orange sunglasses bag. "Nervous hands," Nate said later.
It took about a half hour for us to reach our destination and touch the float plane down on the water. We rode across the mirror-like lake to a dock attached to a large boulder, where an older man stood with a younger man, amidst bags and totes of gear.
We unpacked. They packed. The plane left.
We were alone.
Nate and I moved our gear into the little brown cabin and unloaded what we could. I put sheets on the twin beds and laid out our sleeping bags and pillows. We hung up our jackets and rain gear and unloaded the coolers into the propane refrigerator.
We didn't even check what time it was but headed out in the Sea Nymph --- the aluminum boat that was ours for the week --- to see if we could catch ourselves some lunch.
We hadn't brought any meals with us. I had the ingredients for 12 walleye meals for lunch and dinner, and we had bacon and eggs for breakfast. In fact, we had packed so lightly that the pilot asked if we were survivalists when he loaded our stuff.
We thought he was joking.
He wasn't.
Apparently, most people don't eat the fish that they catch. They bring frozen entrees or steak to grill. We figured, we were on a fishing trip. We would eat what we could catch. We had read journals that it wasn't that hard to catch fish at Sunshine Lake, so we were confident we would be fine.
And if we didn't catch fish, we had Goldfish...
We headed to a little cove to the west and put down our leadheads with twisters and worms. The day was so calm and the water so glasslike that we didn't get an automatic bottom bounce from the movement of the boat. In fact, we didn't get any movement from the boat at all.
I had no idea what I was doing --- I haven't been soft water fishing for a long time, so I just followed what Nate said to do, bottom bounce. I slowly lifted and lowered my pink Shakespeare rod to make my bait look appetizing to the walleye at the bottom of the lake.
It must have worked, because I caught one!
We got it in the boat with the help of a black net that someone had left behind, and Nate looked at me. I looked at him.
"What do I do?"
The walleye just hung there.
"Take it off the hook."
"I don't know how. They have barbs!"
A few years ago, I had been barbed by a perch during a kids fishing day at work, and that had left me quite squeamish about fish that could hurt me when I try to take them off the hook.
Nate took the walleye and quickly had the hook out of its mouth and had it on the stringer.
He caught one. I caught two more.
Four walleye. Enough to eat, and we were starving. Those Tim Horton's donuts didn't last long.
I made Fish Po Boy sandwiches for lunch (see recipe below) and we scarfed them down figuring it had to be about 2 p.m.
Nate checked the clock on his phone. 11 a.m.
We settled down for a nap, some more fishing, fish taco bowls for dinner, cards and bedtime.
It was a jam-packed first day.
Walleye Po Boy
4 walleye fillets
2 Tbsp. oil
1/4 cup Panko bread crumbs
1/4 cup bread crumbs
1/4 cup mayonnaise
2 Tbsp. ketchup
1 tsp. lemon juice
Dash of tobasco
Sliced tomato
Chopped lettuce
Panini bread
Bread fillets with bread crumb mixture and fry in hot oil. Mix mayo, ketchup, lemon juice and Tobasco and spread on bread sliced almost all the way through. Layer in fried fish and top with tomato and lettuce.
Walleye taco bowls
1 cup instant white rice
4 ounces canned corn
1/3 of a red pepper, chopped
4 walleye fillets
1/4 cup bread crumbs
1/4 cup Panko bread crumbs
1 Tbsp. jerk seasoning
Toppings: Chopped avocado, cilantro, salsa, sour cream, chopped lettuce
Boil 1 cup of water and add rice, corn, red pepper. Boil for 5 minutes until rice has absorbed all water. Take off heat.
Meanwhile, bread fillets in mixture of bread crumbs and jerk seasoning. Fry in hot oil.
Layer rice in bowl and top with pieces of fish. Add whatever toppings you would like.
(Read Part 3 here)
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