I’m in Canada this week, just over the border from Minnesota on sprawling Lake of the Woods. Other than trips to St. Clair, which feels much more like Detroit than the Great White North, even on the Canadian side, I haven’t fished in Canada in several decades. The last time I was there before the recent trips to St. Clair was a semi-drunken jaunt into the Yukon from Alaska in the summer of 1995.

It's the land of toothy critters, but I’m most excited about chasing after some dumb-as-a-box-of-rocks northern smallmouths. When I last fished Lake of the Woods, circa 1984, I didn’t know much at all about fishing, but I still caught a bunch of them, so I’m hoping that this time around I would be at least as good, if not better. Still, I wanted some insurance that I was packing correctly. Fortunately, my gig as an outdoor writer provides me with a lot of phone numbers and a semi-legitimate reason to call people like Elite Series hammer and LOTW resident Jeff Gustafson.

Gussy offered up some suggestions that I really wanted to hear, like a mid-range craw-colored crankbait and topwater walking baits and Ploppers, but he also made it abundantly clear that we need to bring some Ned Rigs. I’m not sure if that’s because he has no faith in my fishing skills, or because he expects it to be tough, or simply because it works. Nevertheless, it made me realize that we’ve reached an inflection point – you no longer need to be ashamed to claim that the Ned was the reason for your success.

So out I went to the garage, a bit panicked that I wouldn’t have the right sizes or colors of jig head. Fortunately, I had plenty. I also have more than my share of Ned-oriented soft plastics, including a copious supply of the new floating Yamamoto Ned Senkos. In fact, even though I’ve ordered enough to give a pack to everyone named Ned across the continental US, this will be the first chance I’ve had to throw them. It made me a little nervous to realize that. Will fish – in Canada or otherwise – eventually become attuned to the Ned. I mean, they still eat a Plopper or an A-Rig or a buzzbait, but not nearly as well as they did when those lures were newly-introduced. Will there be a time when we have to go even finessier than the stubby little piece of plastic to get bit? As I see it, there’s not much you can do to make it simpler because the darn thing has no tail or appendages or twists and turns. It is what it is. Fortunately, the closest corollary we have is the Senko, and while that may be a smidge less effective than it was two decades ago when it first emerged, it’s not that way by a measurable amount. So I think that my worry about Ned overload is misplaced. If I have to order more, that will be a truly First World Problem. I’m still ordering Senkos, and I’m sure at some point I had the same thoughts about them.