No fish tale: Ottawa River a destination for muskie anglers
The secret is out: the Ottawa River is becoming a destination for anglers from across the continent looking to reel in the massive, elusive muskellunge, or "muskie."
Fishing guide John Anderson has seen steady bookings as word of mouth spreads in muskie circles across North America. His company, the Ottawa River Musky Factory, is in the business of making good on fishing stories about the big ones that didn't get away.
"Most Americans who fish are aware this is a top destination. People in Ottawa — it's not a secret anymore, but it's taken a long time," said Anderson on his fishing boat on the Ottawa River just east of Wendover.
While northwestern Ontario waters like Lake of the Woods have long been considered the traditional destinations for muskie fishing, Anderson believes the Ottawa River is gaining a reputation as a reliable hotspot to reel in the revered predator, which when fully-grown average about a metre in length.
"Because our fish are river fish, river fish grow bigger tails. They spend their whole life on a treadmill, and they become the strongest fish. So we have a genetically — a super breed of muskies. Genetic superstars," said Anderson.
'Top 10' destination
"I heard a lot of good things about the Ottawa River over the years," said Mark Smith, a muskie lure maker from Charleston, West Virginia, who's spending the week with Anderson on the river.
"I've talked about coming up here actually for probably five or six years and just never decided to do it. And we all got together back in March and decided we were gonna do it this year, come hell or high water," said Smith.
"This has got to be in the top 10."
After careers in the restaurant and high-tech industries in Ottawa, Anderson has been a full-time muskie fishing guide since 2000. He calls the muskie world an "all-encompassing addiction."
"Life is about the pursuit of something truly rare, and a muskie is considered the biggest, baddest, fastest swimming fish in fresh water. It's the apex predator in North America," he said, casting a line into a weedy, shallow part of the river.
After intense spring flooding delayed the fishing season on the Ottawa River, Anderson and other guides say fish are now thriving. He's finding more of them bunching up in off-current and shallow areas, and he calls July a "five-star month with a lot of fish, and a lot of really big fish."
'Experience of a lifetime'
As the buzz builds, Anderson believes the river can be an even greater angling destination than it currently is.
"I think the reputation of the Ottawa River is still stuck in the 60s or 70s, when it was far more polluted — not a place you wanted to swim, not a place you wanted to eat fish from," he said.
"But it's a whole different river today. It's clean. It has over 90 species of fish. It's a massively biodiverse system. And it is literally a top five or six muskie fishery in the world."
As a guide, Anderson aims to help his clients reel in at least a couple of muskies a day, which are released back into the river. He says at least once a week they'll catch a 50-inch (127-centimetre) muskie — considered the "fish of a lifetime" for a muskie fisher.
"I've caught all the muskies that I need to catch personally, and I live vicariously through my guests," he said.
"You get to share an experience of a lifetime with them, or somebody's first muskie. And so my joy in life is to think that I'm just a little tiny piece of that story that'll live on for a long, long time with those people and with that family."
