It’s been a fantastic little visit here in the Winnipeg, Manitoba area fly fishing for huge channel catfish on the Red River with my longtime pal Stu Thompson and camping at Bird Hill Park with Granny, but today the main reason for our Manitoba visit commenced. We are here to fish Gangler’s North Seal River Lodge to the far north. Today started with a leisurely charter flight from Winnipeg to Gangler’s.
We didn’t exactly leave as early as expected. There are a few other guests headed up to Gangler’s and unfortunately for them they had issues with Air Canada. Several folks got stranded in Toronto last night while others arrived in Winnipeg without their luggage. There’s only one charter flight a week to Gangler’s so it was essential we wait for the Toronto folks to arrive. They did and although some won’t have their luggage this trip, we took off at 11:30 AM.
Its about a three hour flight north. It’s a long ways up. We also make a stop in Thompson for refueling. I was stranded in Thompson a few years back due to horrific flying weather. Its quite a place and I hope I don’t get stranded there again! Today it was thick in Canada forest fire smoke. I stuck my head out the back door of the plane and took this picture.
We arrived at Gangler’s at 3 PM. It was a warm 65° but with hellacious wind. Our pilots did a fantastic job putting the plane down safely on the long dirt runway. As always, our good friend, and owner of Gangler’s, Ken Gangler was waiting to greet us and all his guests.
Originally the plan was for Granny and I to fly out to one of Ken’s many outposts today. The one we plan to go to is Courage Lake. Courage is Gangler’s furthest north and a true tundra location right on the border of Nunavut. The wind was so strong Ken thought it best we hang at the Lodge tonight and fly for Courage tomorrow.
Though getting all the way to Courage Lake today would have been awesome, an afternoon and evening visiting with Ken at the main lodge is hard to beat. We relaxed and caught up with Ken for a couple hours then we had a dinner to die for. Granny and I are beat now and its time for a nice sleep. The plan is to fly to Courage at 11 AM tomorrow and once we get settled it will be time to chase huge pike and lakers!
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