Shore fishing in Arizona

My eldest son Ari moved to Phoenix a few months ago, after getting married to a woman from Scottsdale. Though I was there for a few days around the wedding ceremony, I was too busy to try fishing in Arizona at the time.

For this trip, my plan was to spend a few days in Phoenix visiting my son and daughter in law, then head over to Miami, to visit my daughter and her family. I was only spending a few days in Phoenix, and being that my son works at Sky Harbor airport, I didn't bother renting a car. I planed to fish solo, on the SRP canal near his home on foot on the Friday, and left Sunday's fishing plans with my son, open.

I had watched a few videos on some canal fishing in the area, and had an idea that I may encounter a mix of common and grass carp, catfish, bass, bluegills and tilapia. I brought along a small tacklebox with a few lures and some terminal tackle, and my telescopic rod, paired with a 30 series Penn reel, as usual.

Day 1:

I was up well before sunrise, but with the cooler nights, I figured I'd let the sun come up and warm the surface a bit before getting started.

I got to my spot on the SRP (Salt River project) about an hour later. The SRP is a series of drainage canals that flow around parts of Phoenix and it's suburbs. They get stocked with grass carp to control vegetation, so any of those caught, must be released. The other species are included in the ones I mentioned above. Current, water levels, and clarity, all vary seasonally.

The sections of canal that I tried fishing were all quite shallow, probably 2 to 4 feet deep. Water was crystal clear, and the current flowing quite quickly. I started spotting fish right away, mainly a mix of smaller grass carp and common carp, with the odd catfish mixed in. The number of fish in the canal is mindboggling. With basically no food sources, I figured they'd be hungry, but didn't have any bait to present to them, except for a slice of bread. After about 5 minutes of  trying to cast breadballs, I realized it would be useless, as the current kept taking the bait of my hook.

Walking towards the next intersection, I was lucky to find a grocery store, where I was able to pick up some frozen corn.

Now, armed with what normally would be premium bait for both carp species, I was confident that I should have a rather easy time hooking some carp. I set up about 30-40 feet upstream of a large school of carp, and drifted my corn as hookbait to where they were. I also tried chumming some corn, but the current was too strong for them to remain in place long enough to get them feeding.

To my surprise, not only did all the carp avoid my bait, they actually spooked any time any corn or even slack line came anywhere close to them.  I eventually set up slightly further upstream, but same story, just a bunch of carp fleeing from my setup. At least the scenery was nice, and temperature warming enough for me to remove my hoodie.

After about an hour with nothing but a small line bump, I figured I'd try sight fishing for them instead. With more visibility now that were were mid morning, every fish I saw and snuck up on, was super finicky. The slightest splash sent them darting, and when I managed to drift bait up close to them, they spooked and darted as soon as they noticed my line. 

Getting frustrated with the situation, I made my way up to a small dam on the canal that I had marked on my Google map. The current below the dam was a bit stronger, and I noticed that the grass carp were just about gone, mainly common carp with a few small catfish at that spot. When I got above the dam, I found the largest concentration of grass carp I have ever seen. Most were under 10 lbs, though I did notice a couple that were definitely over 20 lbs.

I spent another 2 or so hours trying to have them take my bait. As they were trapped with the dam behind them, I was able to present the corn right in middle of a school of 10 to 20 carp. Still, they just about avoided the corn, despite having it lying inches away from them.

At one point, I noticed a good sized koi in the 15 lbs , hovering around my line, came within 3-4 inches, but never took the bait.

Eventually, I called it a day after nearly 5 hours of fishing / trekking the SRP canal, without hooking anything. Sort of frustrating, as I thought I'd have a very high chance of catching my first grass carp, but at least I had eliminated the spot for the planned Sunday outing with my son.

Over the weekend, we discussed potential spots to try fishing. As most of the area surround Phoenix is the Sonoran desert, rivers and creeks tend to vary greatly by the season. Often, a Google map with show a river, and all that's actually there is a bone dry riverbed. As such, we decided on trying to fish a reservoir instead, as they aren't any natural lakes in the area. While I'm not the biggest fan of fishing reservoirs from shore, I figured we'd at least find enough water to cast into, which would be a good start.

We decided on fishing Pleasant Lake, which is about 40 minutes from my son's place in Phoenix. While the lake is currently above what is considered full pool, it's still about 25-30 feet lower than seasonal highs. Water is quite clear, and significantly cooled off since it's summer peak in extreme heat, and significantly less boat traffic on it now, even for a warm Sunday afternoon.

As the lake sits in middle of the Sonoran desert, we had to look out for rattlesnakes. In addition, even more dangerous, are wild boars, and wild burros, which are remnants of donkey's abandoned by gold miners long ago. They have since taken to the desert, and are extremely territorial, attacking humans that get too close to them. Their droppings all all around the lake, as it's their main water source, and there are quite a few signs posted as well.

We entered the state park, which cost $7 per day, and parked not too far from the main boat ramp. Time to start trekking and fishing along the rocky shorelines.

Ari was happy to finally get some father and son fishing time with me. I think the last time we fished together was back in September 2022, back when he lived in Portneuf, Quebec.

Immediately, we started seeing schools of gizzard shad swimming near the shorelines. We tried throwing a variety of smaller lures at them without any success. We even tried snagging some (which is legal in Arizona for non game species), but weren't really equipped to do so, and they were both very finicky, and slightly too deep.

After a while, we decided to just trek along miles of shoreline, while casting a variety of lures. As I came around the first bend, I encountered a decent dropoff, and on my second cast, I hooked a decent largemouth bass, casting a spinnerbait. 

I was thrilled to have landed my first fish of the day so quickly, which was also my first Arizona fish ever, caught in a spectacular desert setting.

A few casts later, Ari missed another bass while casting a topwater lure. We stuck around the spot for a while, hoping for more fish, but it didn't happen. We spent the next few hours trekking a couple miles of shoreline without much success. Eventually, we headed back to our first spot, but didn't manage to hook any more fish.

On the way out, we decided to get a few desert pictures together, as we don't get to spend enough time with each other any more. Various species of cactus made for some interesting backgrounds.

And sure enough, as we were just about done taking our picture, we noticed some of the wild burros starting to congregate in the valley below. They were quite far down to where we were safe, but I wasn't going to attempt getting any closer for some clearer pictures, without an escape route.

All in all, fishing in Arizona was tougher than I expected. After all, we were smack in middle of the desert. Still, fishing with my eldest son again was very memorable, as over the years, he and I have been though many adventures togethers. I was just happy to get the chance to do it again.

I flew out to Miami later that night, to begin my next phase of the trip.

    

Carp fishing with chick peas as bait

For the most part, I've been neglecting carp fishing for most of the season, Chasing predators like pike, bass, and walleye, have taken up most of my spring and summer fishing efforts. The few times that I did try to target carp, I had less success than usual. Numbers and sizes were much lower than previous years, and much like last season, other "nuisance" species like suckers, tench, and channel cats, seemed to move in on the boilies and range cubes I was using to prebait for carp.

As September rolled in, I decided to try switching things up. For starters, I ran out of the base mix I use to produce my boilies. Having produced hundreds of pounds of boilies over the past decade or so was getting "old", and my source of cheap manual labor, aka, my once willing younger kids, have now grown up, and aren't interested in working for the minimal wages I used to pay them as young kids.

In the past, I've had limited success chumming with prepared corn, so I was looking for an alternative. My initial criteria were low cost, easy production, and endless supply. I gave myself up until the winter to stick with the new system, and would determine whether or not it was a feasible plan, based on results.

I picked up a few kilograms of food grade dried chick peas, to see what I could achieve. For starters, chick peas contain a high nutritional value. Soaking them for 24 hours gets them soft enough to use as bait, without having to worry about them harming the carp's digestive system. As well, they seem to take on flavors pretty well. Soaking them in warm water with a mix of spices, works wonders. Way easier than boilie production, and very cost effective for bulk production of chum. Dry chick peas yield about double the weight once soaked, so I end up spending under $2.00 CAD per KG , once I've added my spices and flavors.

For the initial tests, I decided to chum 2 kg of soaked/flavored boilies, for 3 days before fishing, for a total of 6 KG. For hook-bait, I tested the soaked chickpeas with extra measures of the same spices used during soaking, vs fried chick peas, seasoned with the same spices. While the soaked chick peas sink, the fired version float as popups, at least until the get water logged and end up sinking within 1/2 hour or so.

With both versions, the spices diffuse once they hit water, and with slight current, my assumption was that they drift downstream to attract carp, similar to bloody bait attracting catfish, or sharks in saltwater. The added oil in the fried version, likely gets up higher in the water column as it diffuses, giving more coverage. In contrast to boilies, whose core ingredients area mix of flours and flavors, I had a hunch that the downstream lines may have a better chance of getting hit first, due the the diffusion.

For my first attempt at catching carp on chick peas, I brought along my son Eli, and his girlfriend Audrey, for a short evening outing, to a spot I had pre-baited not far from home. My goal for these sorts of outings, is to fish 3-4 hours, with at least 2 rods, each baited with one style versus another.

Sure enough, during this outing, we had 2 runs, both on the downstream lines, baited with the fried / popup version of the chick peas I prepared. We landed both fish, with the first being the smallest I have ever seen caught at that spot, maybe in the 6-7 lbs range, The second carp was much bigger, but still on the lower end of the average carp I typically get into there, weighing just over 21 lbs, her new PB.

The following morning, I took my youngest son Zev, to the same spot. He landed another carp on the same setup, again, with the downstream rod producing on fried/spiced chick peas. Picture got a bit messed up, as the carp splashed my camera lens, no big deal, it was a smaller one at 16.5 lbs.

A few days later, I invited my older son Levi to join, along with his wife, Lindsey. After a false run within the first 15-20 minutes, things were quite. Sure enough, just as we started packing up to leave a few hours later, the downstream line baited with soaked/spiced chick peas went off, and after a crazy fight during which this carp even jumped, Lindsey landed her new PB at 20.5 lbs.

At this point, I new I was onto to something good. Not only had my new baiting system caught some decent sized carp, but I had also managed to avoid "nuisance species", all while saving a lot of time, effort, and money, to purchase and/or produce bait.

The final question was whether or not using chick peas would be efficient at bringing in some of the trophy sized fish that the given spot I was fishing, had produced in the past. My gut feeling was that it would, but I wouldn't know for sure unless my plans came to fruition.

A couple weeks later, with water temps starting to cool as fall kicked in, I took my son Zev out for a short morning outing, after having pre-baited with spiced chick peas for a few days prior to fishing. Within a few minutes of getting our lines in, a saw a very nice carp surface, and a moments later, the upstream rod right next to where I saw the fish, went off at high speed.

Zev did a great job fighting the big carp, despite it's best efforts to run ashore a couple times. When I finally saw the big carp, I had a feeling it was his biggest yet, and sure enough, after I netted and weighed it, the carp turned out to be bigger than any of my other kids have ever caught, at 31.5 lbs!

Another monster landed, and new PB for Zev. Again, the fried chick peas out performed the soaked version, but this time, it was the upstream line that got hit for the first time. Whatever the case, I'd say the relatively random idea of using chickpeas, had far exceed my expectations so far.

With all the Jewish high holidays falling in October, I knew my fishing time would be more limited than usual, being that we don't fish during those periods.

My first October outing yielded another smaller carp after 2 days of prebaiting, but nowhere near the sizes I've landed there during October in previous years. With some cold fronts moving in, bigger carp usually go on the feed. I figured the spot could produce some nicer carp once water temps dropped. By mid October, the temps were about right, but two back to back baiting campaigns failed to produce any bites, despite a couple outings fished with multiple rods along with one of my older sons. Sort of a bit frustrating, as I know that prebaiting the spot with boilies this time of year can have good results. However, I had committed to giving the chick peas there fair chance, so the trophy carp at this given spot are going to have to wait until next season, as the carp bite at this given spot dies down completely. once water temps hit 55F or below.

For my last October outing, and likely the last carp fishing of my 2024 season, I headed to carp wintering spot where I have had some varied success over the past dozen years. Water temp was in the low 50's, and water level much lower than normal. so the spot likely warmed up nicely during our 7 hour outing. Unfortunately, not a bite all day, though I only ran one of our two rods with chick peas, and the other with a mix of corn or popup boilies.

That does if for this years testing of fishing for carp using chickpeas as bait. As you see, the results were wonderful as long as the water remained warm, and then seemed to taper off very quickly as it cooled. 

Hoping to get some more testing of chick peas versus boilies done next year.

Another float tube fishing season is in the books. Safe to say, that I won't be doing much more float tubing until 2025 at this point. Throughout 2024, I did a bit less float tube fishing than in the past couple seasons, and consequently, landed less fish than usual.

Being that safe ice around town was mostly gone by late February, I attempted to start off the season in early March, at one of my warm water spots that typically produced some pike and bass. On my first outing, I popped one of the air bladders while inflating it, despite having tested it the previous night at home. As I was in waders, and about 1 hour's drive from home, I decided to wade the swampy shoreline instead. Wading in the muddy silt was quite tough, but I managed to land a few small fish.

 

Unfortunately, I was not able to find replacement bladders anywhere, but luckily, I still had a spare with a slow leak in the seam, which meant I'd need to refill every few hours during any given outing. Not the end of the world. I returned to the spot about 1 week later. While I was able to get out in my float tube, the bite was off, I only managed to hook one small pike, but lost it near the float tube.

I spent the next few weeks wading or still fishing, and by the time I got on the float tube again it was already the second week in May, shortly after pike season re-opened. The spot has been slow over the past few seasons, but I did OK this time, landing 4 pike, as well as an incidental largemouth bass.

By far, the biggest surprise of the day was a nice 4 lbs tench that hit a big spinner I was casting. Being that Tench are normally bottom feeders caught while still fishing, it was the last thing I was expecting.

My next float tube outing came a couple weeks later, when I headed back to the same spot. Action was a bit slower than the previous outing, but still landed a few more pike.

As I went out of town early in June, I didn't get back on the float tube until later in the month, just after the bass season opened. By that point, I decided to give pike a rest, and start targeting some bass. On my first outing to a vert small lake I had some success on in the past, I managed to land some smallmouth bass, but nothing too big.

Again, after more travel, it was the second week in July until I finally made it up to my favorite smallmouth lake for the first time in the season. The bite was a bit tougher than expected, and the smallmouth were headbutting lures, as opposed to biting. I ended up losing the biggest one of the day, so had to content myself with a pic of this one instead.

2 weeks later, I returned for more float tube fishing on the same lake, hoping for redemption. This time, the bite was even tougher, with similar conditions. Worse, I lost the 3 biggest bass of the day, including one that was likely in the top 3 biggest I've ever hooked on that lake.

The following day, I managed a few hours of last minute float tube fishing during the evening. While I managed to land 5 largemouth bass, they were all quite small, so didn't bother with any pics. At that point, I gave float tubing a rest through the entire month of August, and into September.

Finally, due to a long heatwave through most of September, I managed back to back outings for smallmouth bass, back at my favorite float tube fishing lake. The bass were not where I expected to find them, and while fishing was tough, perseverance paid off with a few nice smallies landed to end my 2024 float tube fishing season.

Late season trip to Le Domaine Shannon

After our last trip to Le Domaine Shannon in July, I didn't have any plans to return until next summer. Then, my friend Jimmy contacted me about another potential trip we could do, this time to Buckhorn Lake in Ontario. When that trip didn't work out, I suggested going back to Lac Wahoo at le Domaine Shannon, for another shot at some big pike.

While I have fished for walleye at Le Domaine Shannon late in August on a number of occasions, I have always been to other lakes, targeting walleye. Namely, Lac Lenotre in 2010, again in 2014 combined with Lac Fig, and then LeNotre again in 2015 and 2017. This trip would be my first attempt at pike fishing on Lac Wahoo this late in the season.

Knowing that the weather up there can change on a dime this time of year, we came equipped for a variety of scenarios. Turned out, that we experienced every scenario of weather we had planned for, and made good used of our gear.

Day 1:

We arrived early Monday morning. After unloading and getting the boat set up, we started off by trolling for pike. Surprisingly, we were able to get any hits, so after about an hour or so, we switched to casting. Again, fishing was slow, but I did manage our first pike of the trip casting a topwater lure. We achieved our goal of catching one for the table.

After a couple missed hits while trolling, it was evident that the pike bite was about as slow as I've ever experienced on Lac Wahoo, despite seemingly perfect conditions.  Jimmy and I managed to land 1 more pike each, before calling it a day after 8 hours of tough fishing. Mirror like lake to cast or troll in hot weather, one would expect better results.

Day 2:

Still not much wind, but heavy clouds and increasing rain were what we were up against. Almost immediately, I landed my first walleye of the trip while trolling, a smaller under slot size fish, returned to grow bigger until next time we meet. As it became evident that the pike were still off, I suggested we simply target walleye. From past experiences at the other lakes at the outfitter late in August, the walleye bite is exponentially better in the rain, and with the pike bite non existent, I figured we'd switch it up for the day. Sure enough, I landed a bigger walleye while casting the Rapala Husky Jerk I had been trolling with.

Jimmy followed up with another walleye, and we headed back to the cabin for a succulent meals of pan fried walleye.

After lunch, we headed back out to try for some more walleye. Sure enough, I managed another walleye as well as a pike, before lighting and a strong thunderstorm  chased us off the lake for the rest of the day.

Day 3:

The storm that increased overnight, ended up being blown out by powerful winds, while the outer temperature dropped well into the single digits. By the time we hit the lake on Wednesday morning, the windchill was likely below freezing, in contrast to the t-shirt weather we enjoyed the previous couple days.

With heavy cloud still covering the skies, Jimmy landed another small walleye on our first trolling pass, again, too small to keep. As the day progressed, the winds kept intensifying, and eventually got rid of the clouds, at which point I knew that the walleye bite was very likely over. Sure enough, I landed another keeper sized pike, and after a few hours of nothing, I finally hooked into a bigger pike while trolling. I fought it to the side of the boat, at which point I realized it was barely hooked, Sure enough, it came off a couple feet away from the landing net, Jimmy and I estimated it to be in the 8-9 lbs range, as we both got a good look at it. That was all she wrote for day 3, despite us putting in a good 10+ hours of fishing in tough conditions.

Day 4:

The winds calmed down overnight, and the cool morning soon gave way to another warm and sunny afternoon that had us back in our t-shirts again. Unfortunately, this turned out to be the slowest day of all, with neither of us catching any fish, until Jimmy landed another keeper sized pike casting a spinnerbait about an hour or so before we called it quits, choosing to make an earlier fire and enjoy watching the lake calm down for sunset.

All in all, while the fishing was much slower than expected, Jimmy and I had a great time as usual. It's easy for people to put in many hours of fishing when the bite is on, but when the bite is off as it was during this trip, less dedicated anglers would likely not have put in the effort we did, especially given the weather we faced on 2 of the 4 days. The bonus was the non existent mosquitoes, black flies and horse/deer flies we normally deal with in July. For the first time, I was able to get by without using insect repellent or coils we normally light to fumigate the cabin. That being said, I'll gladly trade more bugs for better fishing any day.

Big pike and walleye at Le Domaine Shannon

Back from another fishing adventure to Lac Wahoo at Le Domain Shannon. The objective was to try to land some big pike over 10 lbs, and possibly some keeper sized walleyes for the table.

My friend Jimmy came along for this adventure. I'm always happy to fish with Jimmy, being that we are friends since childhood. As well, Jimmy's skill level when it comes to casting is second to none, and he regularly outfishes me by a long shot when we target predatory species like bass and pike. While I have fished Lac Wahoo many times over the past decade, Jimmy only came along with me a few years ago, during the month of June. We didn't get any big fish during that trip, and I mentioned that July was one of the best months to target bigger fish there. I figured that the combination of Jimmy's skill level, and my knowledge and experience on the lake, would give us a shot at some very good results.

Day 1:

After driving through the night, we ran into some car trouble on the last forest road, about 10 km away from our cabin on Lac Wahoo. I'll skip the details for now, and get to that at the end of this blog post...

After getting a later start than expected, we started off  casting lures, as the lake was still relatively calm. After a cast or two, Jimmy raised a giant pike that swiped at his lure next to the boat, but didn't get hooked. Sort of heartbreaking but hopeful for another one at the same time. Jimmy had the shakes, but I assured him that he would very likely have another shot at a big pike.

We kept casting, eventually landing some pretty small pike, including our first of many double headers. 

Soon after, Jimmy landed one big enough to feed both of us nicely, so we knew what lunch the following morning would consist of.

After the wind picked up and boat control became difficult, we decided to do some shallow trolling. I rigged a buzzbait on the shallower line, and Jimmy put a spinnerbait on for the deep line, while I trolled in roughly 5-8 feet. We caught a few more small pike, and eventually, Jimmy hooked into a much better pike. He didn't realized just how big it was until we landed it. 

A thick 38 inch / 12.5 lbs pike on our first pass of the lake! Way to start your trip...

After a short celebratory pause at the cabin, we got back to trolling. This time, I tied on a deeper running spinnerbait, and sure enough, I got hit within less than 1 minute. Another solid pike landed.

After some more pike, Jimmy landed a walleye, that we added to our fillets in the fridge back on shore, and we ended of the day casting topwater lures. Many more small pike, including this one I caught on the 3d bat lure.

Day 2:

After being up for 30+ hours Saturday to Sunday night, we slept in. Just as well, pike fishing had slowed down a lot, we were struggling to catch them most of the morning, no matter the trolling depth. Wind was too strong to try casting as well. At some point in the afternoon, I decided to hit another spot nearby on foot, where I've had some decent mixed bags of pike and walleye.

I tied on a Rapala Countdown, and sure enough, I hit walleye gold on my second cast.

By the time Jimmy joined my, I already had 2 walleye on shore, and we caught a couple more. Unfortunately, his was under the legal limit of 37 cm, but mine were all within the slot size limits. We kept the 3 walleyes I caught, and made quick work of them back at the fillet table.

Back on the boat, the evening bite was a bit better than the morning bite for pike as far as numbers, but nothing too sizeable was landed.

We noticed a large branch "swimming" across the lake, with the help of a busy beaver.

Day 3:

We started the day off by trolling a bit deeper with the help of my portable sonar. My goal was to stay in the 12 to 15 foot range, hoping to eliminate many of the smaller sized pike we had been catching over the first couple days, and focus on bigger fish. 

Once in a while, the plan works out better than expected. The first hit came on a Rapala Husky jerk I was trolling. From the big head shakes, I knew we hit a fish, much bigger than I'd keep for the table. After a good fight, I hoisted another nice pike out of the lake.

After releasing the pike, I noticed that it had broken one of the treble hooks on my lure. I decided to replace the broken hook before resuming trolling. While I was getting the hook changed, Jimmy started casting a spinnerbait, and sure enough, he hooked into another big fish. Another good fight, and another monster pike landed by Jimmy.

Talk about being at the right place at the right time with the right presentation. This one was slightly longer than his first big pike a couple days prior, measuring 39 inches and weighing 10.5 lbs. Released in good condition as usual.

That turned out to be the only success we had deep trolling for the day, most of the rest of the pike we caught were in shallower water, and quite small as well, except for this one. 

With a but of rain coming in, I decided to hit my shore spot, which produced my biggest walleye of the trip at 19 inches / 2.25 lbs. 

Not a monster by any means, but a very welcome addition to the fillet table, and subsequently, my freezer.

Day 4: 

This was our final day of fishing, as we planned to leave early the following day to to potential issues with my car, which I'll get to shortly.

We spent much of the day trolling various depths, 12 to 15 feet, 15 to 20 feet, and deeper as well. Each pass of the entire lake takes about 1.5 to 2 hours, we eventually switched back shallow trolling after spending half a day with not much to show for. Jimmy ran his spinnerbait on the shallow side, with a trolled a Mepps 5 spinner. Jimmy connect with many tiny pike, seemingly a lot small than most of the small ones we caught over the previous 3 days. Eventually, I hooked a nicer fish.

We decided to end the trip by casting the calm waters before an incoming storm. A few more tiny pike, and eventually, I caught another walleye casting the Mepps 5 spinner that I was trolling for pike.

That ended our trip, which turned out to be extremely successful. We landed well over 100 pike in 4 days, including 2 in the double digit weight class. Walleye fishing was better than normal with a total of 10 walleye landed, many of which we caught while we were targeting pike. The weather was great, most of the rain only came after dark and ended early morning, so we enjoyed a good 8 to 9 hours of fishing per day.

As a bonus, we found some decent sized patches of wild blueberries, and both of us picked a bunch before leaving.

Over the years, Lac Wahoo has become my favorite lake to fish at Le Domaine Shannon, though they have many other very productive lakes, for both pike and walleye. Hoping to head back there again, hopefully sooner, rather than later...

As for the car trouble I mentioned earlier on, here is the tale of that "adventure", for those of you that may be interested.

Travelling on forest roads many times over the past couple decades, I have come to expect tire trouble. Usually, picking up nails is the culprit, and as such, I travel with a patch kit, bike pump, car lack, and spare "doughnut" style replacement tire that came with my CRV.

Before this trip, my wife had a small fender bender, that added some tear to an already damaged plastic skid plate under the front end of the car as well.

As we got closer to our destination, the damaged skid plate kept getting worse, until it was partially dragging on the dirt roads. Sort of annoying, but nothing serious. Sure enough, shortly after turning onto the final (and roughest) road we take to get to our remote cabin,  my front tire goes flat. I had all the repair gear handy for a slow leak, but when I inspected the tire, it actually had a horizontal tear in it, about 1 inch long. Now way to fix it with a plug from my patch kit, we were forced to unload the trunk to get to the spare tire, and ended up changing it before making out way to the cabin. 

Skid plate damage:

Spare tire:

At this point, many thoughts were running through my mind. The spare tire is not designed for off road use, nor long highway trips. I was hoping that perhaps someone from the camps crew may pass by, but that was not likely, as we were the only ones out in the remote area, some 30 kilometers away from the main camp. With no cel phone signal or satellite phones, we had no way of reaching anyone to help, or maybe order a new tires for us and possibly have it delivered to the main camp.

Eventually, with incoming rain a couple evenings later, I brought the tire into the cabin, hoping that I could find some way to fix it. Luckily, that repair kit I bought a couple years earlier came with 6 plugs, one of which I used last summer during a trip to Mijocama. After getting the first plug in, I added a second, then a third, and eventually a fourth, which finally sealed the tear enough for the tire to hold full pressure overnight.

The makeshift workshop:

The improvised patchwork:

Not too beautiful, but now that the patch had not leaked overnight, it was time to see if it would hold the cars weight. Once the spare was off, and the car hoisted, we figured it would be easier to work on the skid plate as well.

First, we lifted the inner sections. With a rivet missing, I improvised by using a branch of the same diameter, and breaking it off at the opening, then covering it with duct tape, to avoid it moving or poking the tire. Then, I tied the bottom end to the main chassis, using braided fishing line, and covered with duct tape to protect it from damage.

See both duct taped areas:

Then, we made sort of "handles" out of duct tape, the threaded them through and around a couple slot at the front of the skid plate, twisting and sealed them down with more duct tape.

Behold, the miracle of duct tape and it's thousands of uses...

By now, the jack sank into the sand a bit, and we weren't able to raise the car high enough to get the original tire back on. I lowered the rotor onto a log to avoid damaging it, and used a couple flatter logs under the jack to get the tire changed.

The following morning, the tire kept it's pressure. I originally had planned to take it on a test drive, but Jimmy advised against it. Either way, whatever happed was going to be; either it worked like a charm, or we'd be changing the tire again...

Thursday morning, we left extra early just in case. Not knowing if I'd be changing another tire on the road, or if I'd be heading to a garage in Grand Remous or Mont Laurier to find a replacement tire, or maybe not even making it back to the main camp. We took the drive extra slow, instead of my usual 45 minutes or so, we took close to 1.5 hours to make the 30 km trek to the main camp. Lucky of us, as we saw our only moose of the trip on the way there.

One we got that far, I figured the worst was behind us. The tire was holding up, and eventually, hit pavement an additional 73 kilometers later, though on much better dirt roads. I checked the tire pressure again at that point, and it held up perfectly. 

Needless to say, I didn't bother looking for a new tire up there, and it held up find all the way home to Montreal, 300 kilometers later.

It's little wonder that most people driving on this sort of terrain opt for raised pickup trucks with off road tires. But for myself, who makes a trip or two per year, I'm comfortable enough using my city vehicle. That being said coming prepared, and with the right mindset, can make all the difference in these sorts of tricky situations.