I landed with a group of anglers in small charter plane on the camp's private air strip and hit the lake almost immediately. As Dunlop and I headed up a river feeding into the lake, he started telling me how many trophy pike the anglers in camp the week before had caught, but halfway through he let the story trail off. I could tell he was worried about sounding like a promoter trying to b.s. the magazine guy--"oh, you shoulda seen it last week.-¿ Better to let me find out about the fishing for myself, he figured.

We didn't have to wait long. I caught a 38-incher on one of my first casts, but after that strong beginning we caught nothing in the shallow bay we started in. We cruised to another that looked just like the last and immediately Dunlop spotted a large fish in the clear, shallow water. I made a hurried cast and missed--about 6 feet behind the pike. We were quickly drifting away from the fish, and I started cranking the silver spinner back fast to make another cast. I never got the chance. Instead I watched the fish turn and speed to the lure and slam it, like a wolf running down a rabbit. After a hard fight, we had her in the cradle. The 45-inch trophy was the pike my life, and I was only an hour into my first afternoon on the water.