Mike Borger is a professional fisherman from Ontario who has spent most of his life fishing Canada’s wild waters. He has done everything from solo canoe expeditions—some of which took more than three months to complete—to fly-in fishing trips, amassing a wealth of knowledge on the country’s fishing opportunities along the way.
For the most part, Borger is willing to share that information with the public. He runs a website aimed at disseminating his wisdom, even publishes his own print magazine to educate the public on where to fish, who to fish with, etc. Although he normally shares the when, where, how, and with whom of his trips, there is a lake he has known about for more than 15 years that he decided to keep mum about. It’s that decision that has since caused him a governmental-sized headache.
In May Borger was fishing with his son on an undisclosed lake in Ontario’s Algonquin Park. Borger began fishing the area more than a decade ago but hadn’t been there in some time. He decided to revisit the water to see if the fishing was as good as it once was, bringing his son along for the ride.
“I have been in the fortunate position to have traveled all over Canada to fish, but at my core I am and always will be a paddler,” Borger wrote on his YouTube page. “Since the kids were born my canoe trips [have] dwindled, but I’ve never lost the desire. For me this was the first trip of substance in quite some time. For my 10-year-old son Brendan, it was his very first.”
The video is about 40 minutes in length, and if it had to be summed up in one word, “idyllic” would be that word. The father-son duo embarks on a canoe trip through a series of lakes, fishing and camping along the way. Borger was kind enough to share their special moments with the world, sans the location of said lakes.
Unfortunately, one viewer just had to know where the two had been landing their trophy-size trout. The unnamed person contacted Canada’s Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry and filed a FOI request for Borger’s camping permit info, which would easily lead him or her to where Borger had been fishing. The Ministry contacted Borger in early July and explained the situation.
“I’m going to give him credit, because it was an incredibly smart—underhanded and a little bit devious—but also very smart way to get this information,” Borger told CBC News.
Borger voiced his concerns to the Ministry, and after hearing Borger’s complaints the Ministry reportedly “told him they would not confirm or deny the existence of his record to the person pursuing it.”
At least 127 people have reportedly contacted Borger to request the lake’s name and location. For now, at least, the father and son’s fishing destination remains a mystery to everyone but them.