10 Traveling Tips

Planning for a fishing trip to a foreign country is an exciting process.  However, numerous simple items and important issues are often overlooked when traveling.  Here are 10 brief and helpful tips for planning a smooth and successful trip to Big Hook Wilderness Camps.

• One of the first and most important steps is to accustom yourself with border crossing requirements.  Remember US Citizens will need a passport or a passport card to reenter the USA.  A great site for border crossing information is: Canada Welcomes You .  Please also remember Canada has a different criminality code.  If you or a party member have had a criminal conviction in the past i.e. Impaired Driving charge, please contact the Canada Customs office you are planning to pass through for admissibility requirements and/or restrictions. 
• An important issue with fly in resorts is WEIGHT. Guests are limited to 100 pds of gear per person and are subject to overweight fees if exceeded. If possible, please pack your personal gear in one or two duffel or gym bags.  Please, no coffin sized boxes or coolers. Bags should fit into the airplane without having to make a new door or hire extra staff to lift them.  If it takes more than one man to lift or carry it – it is too big!  Note that a case of beer is 22 pds and a case of water is 26 pds, these two items eat up your 100 pd allowance quickly.  
• If you are planning on staying in Red Lake the night before your departure to Big Hook Camps book a hotel reservation EARLY.  Presently, Red Lake is experiencing a gold boom and hotel rooms are in high demand with miners and prospectors. A list of hotels in the Red Lake area is listed here . 
• Prepare yourself for the weather.  Stay up to date with weather patterns at Big Hook by visiting this blog or our web site.   
• Remember we provide a list of staple foods to help customers keep weight to a minimum.  Review this list so you are not packing items we stock. 
• Upon your departure from Red Lake to Big Hook, please arrive at Wasaya Air in Red Lake at least 45min-1 hr in advance.  Make sure to have ALL of your bags marked with your destination outpost.  If your flight is delayed due to weather, please be patient. Know that if the pilots don't want to fly, you don't want to fly. 
• Before you travel northbound you can watch a quick tutorial and familiarize yourself with Mercury motor operations.
• Read the fishing regulations provided at each outpost or visit the Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR) fishing regs page for more information. Make sure you understand the rules.  Note: Big Hook has a no trophy take out policy, meaning all walleye over 18" and pike over 27" must be released.   
• When at the outposts, properly disposing of fish guts, cooking oil and scraps is important and keep unwanted animals out of camp. 5 gallon buckets are provided at all the outpost, make sure to place fish guts and your daily food scraps in them, then transport them across the lake for disposal.  Seagulls and eagles are natures amazing vacuum cleaners.
• We go through extensive lengths to make sure our cabins are properly stocked with the items we provide. During your stay should you require additional staples, a member of your party may really really like the peaches or baked beans, notify us as soon as possible.  All outposts have communication to the main base at Central Lake.  If you are at an outpost with radio communications we have the radio operational from 5:00-5:30 pm every day.  Or if your outpost is equipped with a satellite phone just call and leave a message.  A last resort to communicating with us is to simply leave a message on the table, it is something we keep a lookout for when doing camp checks.  

Hopefully these listed items above will aid you in planning and experiencing a truly spectacular Canadian fly-in fishing vacation with us at Big Hook Wilderness Camps.  The fishing season is quickly approaching and we are very excited for the 2011 season.  We look forward to visiting with everyone this summer.