What’s not to love about fishing?
Fishing with Ed Robertson of the Barenaked Ladies

Ed Robertson
Special to Sun Media

I’ve been fishing for my entire life.  I’ve fished for pike through the ice of Cooke’s Bay on Lake Simcoe in February, walleye in the rivers around Moose Factory in June, bonefish in the Bahamas, cod off the southwest coast of Newfoundland. I fly fish, ice fish, cast, troll.  I’ll try anything.  For all my persistence though, I don’t catch much! That’s ok, cause that’s not why I fish.

I fish because it’s fun. I fish because it’s relaxing. I fish because it’s challenging.
My favourite thing about fishing is how it connects me to the planet. It’s one of the only situations in my life where I actually acquire, and prepare the food I consume. It makes me feel somewhat capable of survival in the wilderness!

A fishing trip to remote lakes in Northern Ontario as a youngster was what got me hooked on aviation. I’m a pilot because of fishing! I keep a collapsible rod in my plane at all times.

I’ve got lots of great fishing memories. There are the big fish highlights.

Jigging up a 10-lb. walleye right at sunset on a beautiful summer night. A 45-minute troll that had 15 double-digit fish in the boat. And, sometimes, it’s not even the fish. I think of the time while casting in a small bay south of Algonquin Park, when a huge bull moose waded in off the point, and swam a complete circle around my boat. Or once while fishing for stripers off Boston harbour, a 45-foot whale surfaced less than 10 feet from the 21-foot bow rider we were in. My youngest of three kids landing his first big pike on his own, and saying excitedly “That’s the proudest of myself I’ve ever been!”

There are a lot of things I love about fishing. I love fishing because no matter how far we¹ve evolved with our opposable thumbs, and our tools and our technology, those fish are somehow still smarter than us. I love fishing because while the sponsored fisherman with the matching 150s on the back of his colour-co-ordinated bass slayer screams around the lake with his high-tech equipment, my six-year-old dangles a worm over the dock and catches a 5-lb. smallmouth with his SpongeBob fishing rod!  I love catching a lake trout too big for the hole I’d cut into the ice. I love the ones that got away as much as the ones that didn¹t ‹ although the ones that didn¹t tasted considerably better.

Barenaked Ladies are currently recording a new record due out this fall.
For more info visit www.bnlmusic.com.