Saskatchewan’s Lake Besnard covers approximately 31,000 acres, is roughly 20 miles long with hundreds of miles of shoreline, and contains over 250 islands. Walleyes and northern pike are the predominate game fish, and if you’re looking for adventure as well as testing your mettle with regard to fishing, camping, and map reading, Besnard is “the” place.

I first fished Besnard in June ’77 and never missed a year into the mid-‘90’s. In 1979 Wagner’s Gene Kisch joined our group, and has fished it with family yearly with the exception of the Covid years 2020 & 2021. It was my honor to rejoin Gene, his son Dennis, Dennis’s sons Mike and Nick, and their sons Caleb, Parker, Becket, and Chase – four generations. With Dennis’s boatin tow, Gene, Dennis, and I left Wagner on Sunday, June 12th around 7:30 P.M. and drove straight through to Besnard after a rendezvous with Mike and Chase in Jamestown, ND. Nick and his boys had left Yankton two days earlier.

Early Monday morning a Canadian customs official at the Portal, ND border handed me a box and told me to follow the directions as my name had been drawn at random for a Covid test. I do not have a cell phone as my tremor prevents button pushing, and without Mike I would have been helpless. He deciphered the instructions, punched in the necessary pass words, and administered my Covid test. He then led us to a Regina pharmacy with the help of his GPS and deposited the kit. My bizarre bad luck cost us 2-3 hours. As we journeyed through the Estevan, Saskatchewan area, I wondered why natural gas was being burned off when fuel was so expensive. Couldn’t this gas be utilized?

The nine of us fished Tuesday the 14th through Monday the 20th and broke camp Tuesday morning. We stayed in a cabin halfway up the lake built by the late Allan Jones whose acquaintance Gene and I made in the early 80’s. Though lacking running water and electricity, the cabin was comfortable. We endured wind and rain the first 3-1/2 days, but enjoyed clear weather the reminder of our week. We luckily survived a brutal lightning/thunder storm when we were caught in the middle of the lake midway through the week. In hindsight, we should have weathered the stormby huddling against an island.

The highpoint of the week came on Sunday’s Father’s Day evening when four generations in one boat including great grandfather Gene, grandfather Dennis, Mike, and his son, Chase, witnessed firsthand Mike’s catching a 42 inch, 21 pound northern pike on eight-pound test line with no leader. The fish was truly a hog as a typical 42 inch pike might weigh fifteen pounds at best. They will remember that fish for the rest of their days. The next biggest fish of the trip was Caleb’s 18 pound northern pike.

As I have much to relate on the Besnard fishing, I’ll relate this in future columns.

Here’s something that will capture your attention as it certainly grabbed mine. I recently read the article, “Crime Lab Cases with Falling Bullets.” The Allan Jones article appeared in the August 2022 issue of Shooting Times magazine. I suspect that at one time or another, most of us have fired a gun into the air. I know I have under the false assumption that the terminal velocity of a falling bullet isn’t harmful. I’ll confess that there was a time in our Chicago back yard when young Roger, under Dad’s supervision, fired Dad’s .38 into the air at midnight New Year’s Eve.

U.S. Army tests have determined that a .30 caliber 150 grain full metal jacket bullet fired straight up falls base first at a velocity of 300 feet-per-second. This generates 30 foot-pounds of energy, half of what is necessary to produce what the Army terms as a “disabling injury.” This bullet was fired straight up – which would be nearly impossible. What about a bullet fired at a high arc trajectory? This bullet is far more dangerous! It turns downward without losing all forward trajectory. This bullet also lands nose first!

An actual case documents a fatal injury to a person found dead with a wound to the top of the head that penetrated the brain. The bullet was a factory .357 Magnum 158 grain lead semi-wad cutter. Knowing this, I will never again fire any gun into the air.

See you next week.