Thaddeus Lake, Ontario

08/27/11 - 09/20/11

I spent three and a half weeks fishing here. As always, I caught lots of fish, saw lots of wildlife, and experienced some awesome sunsets. There also were a few storms that came through that provided some interesting clouds.

I really enjoyed the wildlife this trip. I've been coming to Thaddeus Lake for a dozen years now and every year it seems like there's more wildlife. Beavers and eagles have especially multiplied since I started coming up here. Some evenings, instead of fishing, I go into a bay with a beaver hut and just watch the beaver family go about their business. I also witnessed many aerial battles between two or three eagles over rights to a fish one of them picked out of the lake. It still amazes me as to how far the eagles can see potential food. I've seen eagles leave their perches and fly over a mile to pick up a floating fish. Another species I've been seeing for the last few years now is otters. On this trip, I was able to watch a family group of three otters playing and swimming several times. They are quite fun to watch. Also on this trip, for the first time ever, I saw a wolf. It was walking along the shore. I've got a photo of it below. It's not the best. But considering the distance, the fact that I'm in a rocking boat, and that it was in fairly low light conditions, it didn't turn out all that bad.

The weather was pretty good for most of the trip. At one point, there were five days in a row over 80 degrees. But it only took four days to go from a high of 85 to a high of 43. On that day, storms roll in every hour or so. During the storms, the winds were over 20 MPH, with gusts over 30 MPH. Various storms brought rain, sleet, hail, and even a few snowflakes. My mantra for that day was "Throw another log on the fire".

Reflections
Steve Winker