Picking a fishing lodge randomly from the back of a magazine is a gamble. It could pay off with a ­trophy muskie, or with an experience in friendship, whiskey, and fried walleyes you’ll never forget.

We found ourselves on the banks of the Twitya River, rain coming down, a stiff cold wind on our backs, the quads parked on a gangly looking bundle of sticks we were calling a ‘raft,’ surrounded by a blue inflatable donut.