My Watermark is Lake Chemong, Ontario.

Now I fish Lake Chemong. My friend Anthony, who took a course in children’s literature, he said “why don’t you write a book about fish?”. And I thought “you know, there should probably be a book about fish”. How they live, the water that they live in. Today, we see so much damage being done to our lakes, though one of the number two killers of birds and fish in the world is a product called gum. Chewing gum. Chewing gum is flavored plastic and when the birds and the fish eat it, it actually kills them. There was a case where a little girl was swallowing the gum, and she was rushed to Sick Kids Hospital, because it takes seven years for the fibers to break down in a human body. She had over 12 pounds of gum in her stomach which almost killed her.

So it’s essential that I get this message out to people about fishing line – don’t throw it back in the lake – take it home with you! And if you’ve got lures, don’t toss them back in the lake, take them home with you and dispose of them properly. Maybe take the hooks off and put the lure on something that you could keep for later on, saying how many fish you caught with that lure, even though now it’s of no use.

Lake Chemong influenced me the most. There are so many different parts of that lake. It’s called the tombs. If you actually get on the lake, you have to be extremely careful and navigate your boat so that you don’t run up on a shoal. And always look for the points on the land, because you will find a series of rocks, and you could destroy your motor. I have my own personal boat, I have a 14-foot Lund, an aluminum boat. I have my rich friend’s boat, which is probably worth about $60,000, huge motor, it has everything you could possibly think of in terms of technology. He has vision with all the cameras on the nice boat, and it gives him the depth and everything. If you take your eyes off for one second you could end up in trouble, which he did, and he was only lucky that a rock only chipped his propeller. He had just taken his eyes off it for a moment and that’s all it takes.

It’s a wide open lake, and there are a lot of fishing areas that we like to go to, that we know the fish hang out there. Bass, pike, and pickerel are the main fish there, there’s also perch, which are actually very good eating.

I would be a little bit concerned now because last summer we had seven billion litres of sewage put into the St Lawrence River. If I dumped some garbage on the street and I was caught, I would be fined. But was there anything done? Nothing. We heard about it and that was the end of it. I don’t like to let it stop there. We need to make sure that everyone is aware. I’ve actually joined the group Blue Dot.