April 8, 2012

Pier, inshore and gulf fishing

1/26/2012 3:37:00 PM Email this articlePrint this article 
Skip from Sailaway Charters pulled up his shrimp net on our eco tour along the Intracoastal Waterway bayous.

Two dolphins hover beside our pontoon boar waiting for scraps of fish.
Pier, inshore and gulf fishing
Pamela O'Meara
staff writer            reprinted with permission from                             Lillie Suburban Newspapers
Legs wide and pressed against the side of a 62-foot boat for balance, it took all my strength to reel in two 20- to 24-inch red snappers and two round triggerfish, which weighed between five and seven pounds, on a six-hour fishing trip in the Gulf of Mexico, 12 miles out with no land in sight.

As soon as we tossed in our lines, we had bites, including grouper and amberjack. A few dolphins cavorted in water near the boat, hoping to catch the out-of-season reds we threw back.

At the end of the afternoon, we dropped off our catch at Shipp's Harbour Grill, which cooked and served it. It was a memorable feast.

With over 100 charter-fishing boats, the nation's largest artificial fishing reef program and one of the gulf's longest fishing piers, Orange Beach-Gulf Shores is a very popular place to go fishing. Our tour was through Necessity Charters with Capt. Ben Fairey.

Another day I went out fishing with Capt. Robby Walker. Fishing inland on his 24-foot boat, my friends caught red snapper and bluefish, but I didn't catch any.

According to local lore, anything banana - food, suntan lotion -- means bad luck for fishing. I was wearing Banana Boat suntan lotion.

Pier fishing is another great way to catch fish or watch others do it. The Gulf State Park Pier is 1,540 feet long and 20 feet wide with an octagon-shaped end that offers plenty of space for people to fish. A license for the day is just a few dollars, making it the most economical way to fish. Many of the regulars had innovative carts on wheels with a row of fishing rods and a cooler for their catch. One had a 35-pound fish hanging over the edge.

Captainrobbywalker@gmail.com
3/23/2012 8:24:00 PM Email this articlePrint this article 
photos by Pamela O'Meara/Review

Snorting bison milling around on the road in Manitoba’s Riding Mountain National Park.
A picnic breakfast at Lake Audy featured local cheese, cinnamon rolls, croissants and blueberry-rhubarb jam.



Ukrainian families in Dauphin hand-built this Ukrainian Catholic Church of the Resurrection in the shape of a cross with four domes.

Riding
Mountain's Angela Spooner discusses managing the bison herd and maintaining the mixed fescue prairie where they live.
Savor the food


-- Aditis Touch Greenhouse in Onanole.

-- Poor Michael'sin Onanole serves cheese and spinach quiche with fresh strawberries and a fruit smoothie on a patio surrounded by flowers.

-- Wilson's Place in Neepawa is famous for its variety of homemade pies, including cottage cheese and raisin pie and Saskatoon berry pie.

-- Siesta Cafe in Clear Lake (also called Wasagamig) serves up short ribs with green and yellow beans, and a Chilean sparkling fruit wine.

-- T. R. McKoy's in Wasagamig features pizza and veal rolls with vegetables.

-- At Pho No. 1 in Winnipeg, try shrimp and pork dishes, barbecue beef, a chicken vermichelli spice soup with chicken, coleslaw with chunks of chicken breast and a hint of mint, and strong, slightly sweet Vietnamese coffee.

-- Bistro 7 1/4 in Winnipeg serves duck confit with risotto topped with slices of yellow beets.

-- Velvet Glove restaurant in the Fairmont Hotel in downtown Winnipeg offers a healthy breakfast before returning home.


Savor the flavor of Riding Mountain National Park

Pamela O'Meara
staff writer                                                       reprinted with permission from Lillie Suburban Newspapers

Though they are wild and dangerous, the snorting bison milling around our car in Riding Mountain National Park seemed friendly enough as we spent about 45 minutes taking photos of mothers with calves, a big bull rolling on his back with feet in the air and another with an earring of weeds dangling down the side of his head.

Riding Mountain, a large wooded plateau rising on farmland about three hours northwest of Winnipeg, Manitoba, is a vacation hot spot with hiking trails, campgrounds, boating, fishing, special events, wild animals and interesting small towns on the way.

Manitoba is our neighbor to the north and Winnipeg is an easy eight-hour drive through rich farmland and northern forests, but sometimes we forget just what a pleasant place it is to visit - much like the U.S. but with a slightly different flavor.

Our Riding Mountain tour began at 5 a.m. with a spectacular lightning display across the entire sky and then rain and wind. A few friends and I watched from our rooms at the Elkhorn Resort before heading out on a scenic drive through the park to look for moose, elk and deer. No luck; they must have bedded down during the rain.

At a park shelter, Angela Spooner told us how she manages the 50-animal bison herd and then took us to a minty-fragrant mixed fescue prairie section of the park to tell us how to maintain that. She said the ground needs to be disturbed - by fire, vehicles or bison - to force open and spread plant seeds. Birds use bison hair to make their nests warmer for eggs and babies, she added.

Overhead, loons were calling and the sky was full of billowy gray clouds. Along the edge where the prairie met the woods, a whitetail deer ran by.

By 9:30 a.m., we had worked up an appetite and headed to a shelter at nearby Lake Audy for a delicious picnic catered by Sparrow artisan bakery and featuring local cheese, cinnamon rolls, croissants and blueberry-rhubarb jam.

Behind the scenes

In the park's wildlife lab, coordinator Ken Kingdon told us how the park controls bovine tuberculosis in deer and elk by getting blood samples and putting on monitors so the animals can be tracked down again later by helicopter if the tests prove positive. Out of 100 elk, 11 to 15 will test positive and be killed but only two will actually have the disease, he said.

Later, sitting at an unexpected lovely English garden beside Clear Lake in the center of the park, Kingdon told us how finger-length slimy sculpin fish are monitored because they are temperature-sensitive and give an early-warning signal like a canary in a coal mine if something is amiss.

He said Minnesota is also looking at changes in water temperature. The fear is that water won't be as cold in the future so there will be more algae growth. Along with the slimy sculpin, whitefish and trout will also be affected by changes in river and lake temperatures.

We missed our sunset cruise on Clear Lake, due to rain but we stood by the water admiring a double rainbow over the sailboats and cottages and then as the sky cleared, watched the sunset in brilliant pinks and oranges over the lake.

The Ukranians

Part of the fun of this trip was stopping in small towns between Riding Mountain National Park and Winnipeg.

In Dauphin, volunteers demonstrated bread baking in an outdoor wood-fired clay oven the way Ukrainian immigrants did it decades ago, explained Kay Slobodzian, a director of the Trembowla Cross of Freedom Historic Site and Museum.

While the bread was baking, Slobodzian and several passionate volunteers served us a traditional Ukrainian meal of borscht, a lovely deep-red soup with beets and onions, along with beet leaves wrapped around pieces of bread topped with a cream and cheese sauce, handmade sausage and perogies in the adjacent old one-room schoolhouse.

The historic Trembowla site commemorates the Ukrainian pioneers who arrived in the 1890s and includes a schoolhouse, St. Michael's Ukrainian Catholic Church and two pioneer homes. People of Ukrainian background come from all over Canada and Europe to visit.

At the height of the Great Depression, the 29 Ukrainian families in Dauphin hand-built the magnificent Ukrainian Catholic Church of the Resurrection in the style of Eastern Byzantine architecture of Kiev - a cross with four domes. They brought in a famous iconographer to paint Bible scenes on the walls and ceilings so illiterate church members could follow the stories, explained our guide, Jan Sirske. The beautiful church has been designated a national and provincial historic site.

Other small towns

In the small town of Onanole, just outside Riding Mountain, Aditis Touch Greenhouse owner and chef Jason Kelly has turned part of his grandfather's homestead into an a large organic garden with herbs and flowers and farm artifacts.

After walking around his gardens and seeing his artwork inside, we sat in a flower arbor to enjoy colorful salads of freshly picked leafy greens and flowers, purple carrots, heirloom tomatoes, berries and organic cheese topped with poached pickerel (walleye). Dessert included fig ice cream garnished with fresh berries.

Poor Michael's Bookshop Art and Café also in Onanole offers a large selection of treasured old books and local and world gifts owners Murray Evans and Lei Anne Sharratt collect during their winter travels. Frequent concerts and book readings are also featured in the summer.

The town of Neepawa is the home of one of Canada's most honored authors, Margaret Laurence. Her childhood home is open to visitors, as is the cemetery with a stone angel monument upon which her novel, "Stone Angel," is based.

Our trip combined outdoor activities with history, ecology and good food in the small towns along the way to Riding Mountain, which itself offers hiking trails, campgrounds, beaches, boating, fishing, wild animals and special events for a summer vacation to our friendly northern neighbors in Manitoba.

For more information, go to

travelmanitoba.com