What lengths would you go to discover someone else's fishing spot? 

This may be old news to some people, but I'm guessing most of you guys on this forum aren't aware of the story.

Back in late May I posted a link to a video in the trip reports section of this site which documented a 12 night trip to Algonquin Park with my 10 year old son. We had a spectacularly successful trip catching a number of giant wild brook trout in the 5-6 pound class. That is exceedingly rare for Algonquin. As one park biologist told me "what you guys did last May probably hasn't been accomplished since the year 1917".

The video was made purposefully vague for obvious reasons. I wanted to share the amazing experience with people, but I had no plans to divulge the location of the lake.

I suspected the video would cause a bit of a furor, but even I was surprised at what happened.

An unknown person filed a request for information under Canada's Freedom Of Information Act for a copy of my interior camping permit. Unlike Quetico, you must reserve specific lakes for each night of your trip in Algonquin. In theory if someone had a copy of my permit they could easily figure out which lake I caught the fish in.

I made a reference to what was happening on social media in July and was immediately contacted by a reporter from CBC who wanted to cover the story. The entire thing went kind of viral and was picked up by media outlets all over North America. At one point last summer this was the number 3 news story in all of Canada LOL!

What most people who have been following the story don't know is, it's still going on! Initially the person's request for info was denied and they subsequently appealed that decision. They were denied again, and once again they appealed. A decision on the latest appeal should be forthcoming fairly soon and I truly hope it will all end finally.

If anyone's interested here's a link to a short story and a radio interview I did with CBC on the subject:

(You need to Login or Register to view media files and links)

Nuts eh? 

solotripper wrote on Jan 1^st, 2018 at 2:04pm:


I hope so too. Truthfully though what bothers me even more than the freedom of info claim, it's how the MNR chose to handle the situation. The Freedom Of Information Act in Canada was never intended to be used in this manner. The request should have been immediately dismissed. Because the MNR seems more interested in following protocol to the Nth degree rather than using common sense, a gigantic can of worms has been opened. IF the info is released it will set a precedent with far reaching implications for every citizen in Canada.

The MNR's number one mandate and the very reason they exist is to preserve and protect our natural resources, something they're clearly not doing here. 

Whoever filed that is a supreme jerk.  I hope you get the person's identity and post it on here.  Maybe his phone number and home address too.

Old Salt ... you sly old devil you !

As with everything else, markers are multi-purpose.