As we drove through the customs on our way into Canada, the trees grew denser and denser. The houses became scarce, and I felt as if civilization was slipping away from me. My grandpa, my brother, and I were on our way to Bob’s Lake, where we would spend the next couple days fishing. We crossed the border, and realizing I had no phone service, I thought to myself, ‘I’m gonna go crazy. I have almost a week without my phone.’ We spent the next two hours completing the trip to Bob’s Lake. We passed through one small town on another lake, which only had a grocery store, a gas station, and two little restaurants that looked like they hadn’t changed since the ice age.

Once we finally reached the lake, I felt, to be honest, kind of disappointed. I told Ben, my brother, “We are in the middle of nowhere.” Being only about half the size of a classroom, our cabin had a kitchen, kitchen table, two chairs, and two bedrooms. The furniture was old and rough-looking, and the walls were made of a mixture of different types of wood. We could barely squeeze all of our belongings through the door. We unpacked all of our food and supplies, situated it in the cabin, and then trodded down to the docks, carrying our fishing gear along. I expected we would have a newfangled, up-to-date fishing boat, but the boat was built out of glossy aluminum with a few splintered wooden benches and a maroon-colored motor. The boat rental company basically slapped some aluminum and benches together. The view of the lake, however, was amazing. The water appeared as clear as glass. I could see all seven feet down to the green, scraggly, seagrass-covered bottom. Our camp was set within a small bay, which on both sides had openings to two separate, much larger portions of the lake. As I strolled out onto the dock, I noticed that to my right near the opening, an island existed which had a sheer side made of granite along with half a dozen trees growing on top.

We hopped into our small, somewhat precarious boat, my grandpa revved up the motor, and we set out in the direction of the island to explore the rest of lake. We sped along the side of the lake, passing more jagged rock cliffs and pointing out houses nestled in the trees. There was a log cabin camouflaged in the trees as well as a red cabin with a spruce wood deck. We stopped in a small cove, and my grandpa asked, “Do you guys want to set anchor here?” We decided to begin fishing in that small cove, which was surrounded by tall pine trees, some of which had fallen in to the water, and another rock face on one side.

I worried we wouldn’t catch any fish because when I glanced up in the ashen gray sky, it looked like a downpour would begin at any second. We hooked our lines up and started fishing right away. For the first five minutes, we didn’t catch anything. Then my brother caught a decent-sized rock bass. It had an odd appearance, having red eyes, olive and tar speckled scales, mahogany fins, and it was almost chubby in a way. I caught a bluegill the size of a small frying pan. I could barely hold the slippery fish in my hand. My brother hooked another bluegill. I hooked a rock bass. Then he caught a bass. Bass, bluegill, bass. It was raining fish. We would cast our lines out into the water, and the fish would take the bait as soon as it struck the surface of the water. This continued on for a few more minutes. Splash! Something took my silver and crimson bobber deep under the water. I couldn’t see it, and I thought I had caught it on a branch underwater. My line started to zig-zag to the right, back to the left, and then it began to pull away. I started to reel it in, and the rod continued to bend. “Get the net!” I exclaimed, and my grandpa hurried from the front of the boat to the back of the boat to get it.

Finally, the fish seemed to give up, and I was able to reel it towards the side of the boat, where my grandpa could use the net to pick it up out of the water. The fish was dotted with smooth white and dark green speckled scales and had a lightning yellow tail. I caught a pike! I threw my fists up in the air in excitement. It didn’t look like a huge fish, being about a two feet in length, and weighing about three pounds, but it was still a good catch. We decided to end on that fish because it began to rain, and we quickly headed back to camp. We kept a few of the bluegill and the pike I had caught; in fact, we planned on having a fish fry that night with a few of my grandpa’s friends who had also traveled to Bob’s Lake to fish.

            We hunkered down in the cabin for a few hours, waiting for the rain to finish. My brother and I read a couple chapters of the books we brought, since we couldn’t use our phone much. Then at about 6:30, the rain stopped, and we hiked over to my grandpa’s friends’ cabin. There was still a hint of rain in the air. As soon as we arrived, we began to eat. On the first plate, I had a bit of the walleye that my grandpa’s friends had caught. Then I went up for seconds and filled a plate of the bluegill my brother and I caught. I told my grandpa, “That was the best meal I have ever had.” We continued to fish, and we continued to catch fish the rest of the week.

As the trees grew denser and denser, I felt more and more like this trip would be a disaster. In the end, it was far from a disaster. It turned out to be the best trip I had ever taken.