Why Choose Lake Vermilion?

We have been traveling all the way into Northwestern Ontario for a long time. No matter what, we have made time two weeks a year to do what we love to do best – the annual get away from it all trip with our close friends and dads to just kick-back and fish. What a wonderful time it has been battling more than our fare share of lunkers and sharing great memories that even the best digital camera in the world couldn’t capture completely. For our fun, you just had to be there – for the mystery that would reveal itself right before our eyes every day and the magic that would happen with every fish we put in the boat. It was a world unknown to explore and conquer – at least it felt that way to us.

Years ago it was no big deal to hike miles through the woods carrying all our gear on our backs. Years ago we camped in tents and slept on the ground and braved all kinds of foul weather - yes we did get wet, real wet – to pursue big fish. Years ago it was “cool” to spend twelve, fourteen, or even sixteen hours straight per day in a rented boat – with a curved metal “beer can” bottom, wooden bench seats, and barely enough food and water and sun block to make it through the brutal daylight hours of “dog days,” only to find out the grand finale was to be eaten by swarms of bugs after the sun went down. Years ago it was almost a requirement that we not only feel like we were leaving all of civilization behind, but that we did indeed actually part company with anything resembling modern life and human comfort on our way up through the winding roads that took us to the Mecca of fresh water fishing – The Canadian Shield. But times have changed, we have changed, and so too has our vision of the hunt.

The time had finally come for us to explore new terrain. Gas prices were through the roof. In the summer of 2006 it would have cost a small fortune to run a boat with a 90hpw on it for two weeks anywhere, much less north of the border.

And speaking of the border… Two years ago, in 2005, our crossing into Canada was a real pain in the saddle bags (if you’ll pardon my Texas showing please). It took two guys with NO criminal record or DUI convictions four hours to clear the check point at International Falls - we were carrying state ID’s and I had a valid passport (now a requirement, but not back then) in addition to my Texas ID.

Two men in a pick-up truck full of fishing rods, tackle boxes, coolers, pulling a trailer with a boat on it, and carrying more than the required forms of identification, I’m quite sure can be mistaken for a whole bunch of trouble by some folks, but we didn’t even have any alcohol or firearms. So, to make a long story short, we decided to spend our US dollars for US accommodations on US soil for a while and started looking for a destination – south of the Canadian border.