“You want to stay in a tent - in the wilderness - for a couple of days; just the two of you?” hubby asked.

“Why not?” I responded. “We’ve had plenty of experience fishing and camping with you and Dave over the last 15 years or so, and you two have gone together dozens of times...”

“Yeah, but I’d be worried about bears and coyotes...”

“We never worried about them before. What do you say, Wanda, next weekend?”

“Fine with me,” she said. “We’ll make a list today of what we need, then get it all together during the week. I should be able to take off from work by lunch hour on Friday, so we’ll leave then, eh?”

“It’s a plan.” By 12:45 on Friday we were highway bound, stopping for a quick lunch in Clarenville and then on to one of the small “no name” ponds that the four of us discovered a few years earlier.

I looked at my watch later in the day: “It’s not yet 4 o’clock, Wanda, and we have the tent and everything set up; all ready to go fishing.” We didn’t bother taking our 14-foot boat this time because, from where we had to park the van, it would have had to be dragged a couple of hundred feet. We knew our limitations.

Wanda has grown accustomed to fly fishing over the last couple of years, while for the most part, I still like spinning gear to catch trout. It’s a little less effort, you don’t have to worry about hooking shoreline trees, and the person with the bait and lures usually catches the most fish. Most times, anyway.

We conquered our first challenge with powerful insect repellent, then donned our hip waders and hit the water; me tossing a gold Mepps Syclops that the Sportsman magazine boys seem to have so much success with, and Wanda casting some sort of small - #10 or 12 - red and black ant pattern.

“The water is fairly flat today and it must be at least 20 degrees,” Wanda said, “so I have a feeling the trout will be near the top of the surface after flies today and I’m gonna hook a few.”

She was right. She missed a couple of fish while stripping in line, then just as she was about to back cast, a 10-inch brook trout sucked in the fly and she brought it to shore.

Four or five casts later and she had another about the same size.

“Breakfast tomorrow,” I suggested.

“Yup; two more that size will be perfect.”

Another 30 minutes went by before she landed another, about eight inches, and seconds later I dragged a chunky 11-12-incher over the rocks.

We readied our lanterns and cooked some hotdogs that evening while listening to the lonely call of a loon on the other side of the pond.

I admit being a little nervous when the sun went down, and a fox that wandered near camp around 10:30 did little to ease my apprehension. My friend wasn’t bothered in the least, however, and after shouting at the fox and driving it away, she laughed and assured me there was nothing to worry about.

Wanda drifted off to sleep long before I did, but once my eyes closed, I slept soundly until just before 7:30 the next morning.

“It’s cloudy out there today,” Wanda reported while unzipping the tent door.

“Looks like we may get a few showers. A bit more wind than yesterday, too... You want breakfast yet?”

“Naw, let’s go fishing for a while and catch a few more to bring home to the boys.”

My Syclops was in the water for only the second time that morning when a large trout nailed it.

“That’s a really big one you have on there,” Wanda said. “Just look at the bend on your fishing rod!”

I tried reeling while slowly backing up on shore, hoping my line and rod would handle the strain. It had been a while since I hooked a brook trout this size. It kept tugging the line as it went for the bottom, occasionally zig-zagging from left to right until I dragged it into the shallow water and Wanda moved behind and used both hands to flip it on shore.

“Wait until the boys see this one!” Wanda screamed. “It’s definitely over three pounds!”

We didn’t have a scale to weigh the fish, and of course we had to gut it before heading home the next day, but it was indeed in the three-pound range.

Wanda walked knee-deep in the water and resumed casting until she hooked a colourful 14-15-inch brook trout that peeled off several feet of line before she eventually managed to drag it to shore.

“Almost as big as the one you just caught,” she said.

By the time we started to cook breakfast an hour later, we each had another 11-12-inch, fairly thick fish on the bank, plus we released a few smaller ones, vowing that this is the place where “we would be taking our husbands” later in the summer.

“What would you guess these two fish weigh?” I asked my friend.

“Close to a pound, I would think,” she answered.

We had our limit long before the sun set that evening and couldn’t wait to head home the next morning.

“I think I’ll have a glass of wine to celebrate,” I said while cooking supper that evening. “Care to join me?”

“Don’t mind if I do.”

Dave and hubby were watching a fishing show on television when we arrived early Sunday afternoon. I asked one of them to bring in the cooler from the van, knowing both were anxious to see if we’d caught anything.

“Well,” Dave began as he pushed himself off the couch, “I’d say they did okay, or else they wouldn’t ask us to get the cooler.”

“Yeah, and just look at the smiles on their faces,” hubby added.

“Nothing to it,” Wanda smirked.

They opened the cooler lid before taking it out of the van and I heard hubby comment to Dave: “Man oh man, fine catch!” Then he added with a chuckle, “I guess they’ll be offering to take us the next time.”

“That’s right,” I shouted from the door step. “If you’re good boys and promise not to be too much trouble, we’ll take you there for a weekend in August.”