SOMETHING FROM AWAY BACK by Ralph Bice (originally from Ralph’s ‘Along the Trail’ column in the Almaguin News of Nov. 3, 1976)
This old story came to light recently while doing a bit of desk clearing. It is taken from a page of the Detroit News, dated May 15th, 1966. The writer is Bill Brennan, sports and outdoor writer for that paper. Bill Brennan at that time was a frequent visitor to this area, and had done a lot of fishing in different lakes.
The story of the big speckled trout was well known years ago, at least to a few, but I did have a good talk with the late Charlie Wilkins, who gave me the story. At the time the fish was caught, there were many speckled trout away over average taken from that lake, and as late as 1935 there was still good fishing, though I never saw one larger than six pounds. No fish biologist that I have talked to can give any reason why trout should grow so large in one small lake. I was pleased to have it turn up, as I did not have time for a lot of writing, for like many others I am going to have a week hunting (?).
There are approximately 500 lakes in Algonquin Park and Ralph Bice has fished in all but a half a dozen and has made 38 acres of pancakes.
When Canada celebrates its centennial next year, the crusty, gruff spoken Bice will be celebrating his 50th year as a guide in the 2,910 square mile wilderness that is Algonquin Park, the show-place of Ontario’s vast provincial park system.
Presently Bice is soundly cussing the ice that crusts his favorite trout lakes in the huge park, which lies some 200 miles northwest of Toronto. He also has a verbal blast for the cold weather that continues to blanket the north.
He thaws mildly, however, when pancakes are mentioned because, while he’s proud of his reputation as a guide and fisherman, he is boastful when it comes to pancakes.
“I make the best in the world,” he claims, “and in the years since 1917 when I first started guiding in the park I figure I’ve made 38 acres of them.”
Few, if any, will dispute Bice’s reputation as a maker of pancakes. To eat a batch is to become an addict.
However, between pancake making and guiding, Bice has sleuthed out some wonderful stories about the park, which he loves. And one of the strangest and most interesting was supplied by a neighbour of his in Kearney, the small Ontario town that snuggles up to the border of the park.
It develops that Bice’s neighbour, 71-year-old Charlie Wilkins, has kept a secret for 55 years that most men would shout to the heavens.
Wilkins helped catch a speckled (or brook) trout that weighed 20 pounds!
This is fantastic because the world record for a speckled trout has stood since July 1916, when Dr. J.W. Cook of Fort Williams, Ontario, hooked and landed his now celebrated 14-pound 9-ounce lunker in the Nipigon River.
There is a difference, of course. Wilkins illegally netted his giant in the off-season month of November in Harvey Lake, which lies just on the western fringe of Algonquin Park. The lake, which was noted for producing huge, hooked snouted speckles, is now called Dew Fish Lake.
Afraid because he illegally netted the fish, Wilkins’ lips have remained sealed over the years. Now in the twilight of his life, the veteran of World War 1 figures that the lawmen are no longer interested in what happened back in 1911.
Bice tells the story this way:
“Years ago I heard tales of a large speckled trout caught in a small lake in this area and not long ago I got the story first hand from one of the men who helped catch it.
Charlie Wilkins was a youth of 17 when he went into Harvey Lake with a man named John Griffith, a trapper and guide who has long since passed on. Their object was to get some fish for winter eating. They stayed at a deserted hunting camp and in those days it was considered the proper thing to have a gill net in camp to get enough fish for food as well as some to take home.
The net was set for only one night and in the morning after breaking the ice to get to the net because it was in late November, they found they had taken 17 fish. Sixteen of the fish ranged from two to six pounds, but the other was a tremendous fish which they estimated to weigh at least 20 pounds.
Wilkins told me that the fish ‘looked just like a small pig, but it was good eating.’
They had no scales to weigh the fish, but it measured 34 inches in length and 26 inches in girth.”
Bice always pauses in awe when he mentions these dimensions, admitting sadly that he’s never taken more than a six pound speckled himself.
“But there’s still good fishing in that lake,” he adds. “It’s not what it once was…but, who knows…”
Wilkins’ fish measures well in comparison to the one taken by Dr. Cook five years later and hundreds of miles away in MacDonald’s Rapids in the Nipigon River.
Dr. Cook, who practiced medicine all his life in Fort William, a city located 90 miles away from where he caught his lunker, took his record speckled on a hook and line early on a July morning. He was using a Cockatush minnow for bait. The Cockatush is a bullhead type minnow which measures between 2 ½ and 3 inches in length.
The doctor, who passed away some 15 years ago, was fishing with his favorite Ojibway Indian guide, Andrew Alexie, when the big fish struck.
Years later Alexie recalled the memorable morning by remarking:
“I knew it was a lunker and I told Dr. Cook to hold it and he held it for a helluva long time before we got it on the bank.”
Since that morning the fish has become one of the most famous in the world. It weighed 14 pounds 9 ounces and measured 34 inches in length with a girth of 20 inches.
The fish was skinned and one half was mounted on birch bark and retained by Dr. Cook. The other half was similarly mounted and exhibited for years by the Canadian National Railroad which at that time was known as the Canadian Northern Railway.
Dr. Cook used the railway to get to his fishing territory because there were no roads in that area. The railway finally lost its trophy and it is still suspected that the mount was stolen.
“We still have the other half, though,” declared Harvey Johnson, secretary-manager of the Lakehead Chamber of Commerce. “It’s hanging on the wall of the Fort William tourist information bureau. It’s a little shopworn, but it’s still mighty impressive.”
Johnson is proud of the huge speckled trout which are still taken from the Nipigon River, recalling that in 1955 four fish ranging from eight to ten pounds were pulled from the river, “and are runners-up to Dr. Cook’s fish.”
But he admits sadly that MacDonald’s Rapids no longer exist. “There’s an electric power dam there now.”
Photo – brooktrout.ca