Minnows always in demand
Larocque is the last person who needs motivation to do his job and do it well. Larocque has been trapping bait since 1980. Growing up, he trapped bait to make money while going to school. Now 63, Larocque is still breaking trails year-round to make sure area bait shops have fresh supplies of bait from minnows to suckers to leeches. It is a demanding business and one that can be humbling and downright difficult.
He braves the worst elements nature can throw at him 12 months a year for one big reason.
“It can be a dangerous job and if you’re not careful, you will not make it out of the bush,” Larocque said. “It is a job you have to love and I love doing it. I was once offered some good money for all my business. I took a day to think about it, and said ‘no’. I love being out in the bush. It’s a good place to be.”
Larocque was 17 when he bought his first township license. He now owns the bait trapping rights to 29 townships. He grew up on a farm in Chelmsford and routinely used snowshoes and skis to get to lakes and trap minnows and fish on Sundays. He has been working the trap lines steady for the last 20 years. He sells his bait all over Greater Sudbury and surrounding areas. He also worked for Falconbridge for 32 years, taking his pension in 2000. He still does masonry work on the side when he’s not in the bush.
Larocque spends a lot of time in the bush all year and year after year. He is out two to three times each week. The work to get live bait doesn’t end because the demand never ends.
“The minnows are always needed,” Larocque said. “There are other people doing this job, but a lot of them are getting old and it is an expensive job to get in to. Not everyone is willing to put on snowshoes and go far back into the bush and do the work to get bait. I’ve gone through eight helpers in my time. People are eager to learn from me and do it with me, but when the time comes to do it on their own, they are not so eager.”
Larocque battles the hordes of pesky black flies in May and mosquitoes through summer. He deals with scorching heat in summer time and blistering cold in the winter months. It doesn’t bother him at all.
“You get use to it,” he said.
The spring, summer and fall months are easier than the winter. In these three months, Larocque accesses lakes and ponds that are closer to roads and trails in his townships. He can gain access to these spots by truck or ATV or canoe or small boat. He leaves these spots alone in the winter as he uses a snow machine to penetrate the thick forest regions of his trapping areas where roads and trails are hard to come by or nonexistent. It takes a great deal of resources, both human and financial, to keep anglers in Northern Ontario happy with bait.
“Richard is one-of-a-kind,” Menard said. “I’ve known him since I was a kid. He was a good friend of my dad’s He is a workaholic and doesn’t stop. He is good at what he does because he knows a lot about the business and the bush. It takes hard work and a lot of time to get the bait. A lot of that goes into a bag of minnows. I hope people appreciate what Richard and others do to get them bait. It isn’t something you order out of a catalogue and pick up the next day. It takes a special person to do what Richard does day-after-day.”
The job does come with some peril. Falling through ice could spell your end. Larocque never goes on a lake in the winter without starting a fire first. In spring, summer or fall, a bear could find a bait trapper easy pickings when carrying two buckets full of minnows. Larocque has slept in the bush overnight a few times after snowstorms made it so he couldn’t see the trail. There are many ways to die in the bush, especially when you work the trap line by yourself.
“A lot of times you are alone in the middle of nowhere; one wrong move and you’re dead,” he said. “I carry a satellite phone because my wife worries. I can live in the bush. I go prepared to survive in the bush a few nights. You have to be prepared every time you go out.”
There is no typical day for Larocque out in the bush. It is always different.
Larocque grimaces as he combs his hair. It’s 5:30 a.m. It’s a cold day in early March. Temperatures have dropped to -20C. This is about the coldest he can do his job effectively and get minnows back safe, and not frozen, to his holding and separating tanks at his house. Larocque is preparing for a day checking his bait trap lines on a lake north of Cartier.
It’s going to involve a substantial amount of human labour. Cutting ice two-and-a-half feet thick with chainsaws. Breaking up ice on ropes with an axe. Lifting up minnow traps from freezing water by hand. Emptying and fixing traps back into the water to catch minnows again. He will do this about 70 times on this day. Sometimes he spends a night at a cabin he built on a small lake. He collects his bait, re sets the traps with bread and goes home to sift through the minnows and put different sizes into tanks for retail.
Both of Larocque’s shoulders are wrecked. He requires surgery on them to repair damaged ligaments. Larocque is in no rush to get the surgeries. That day will come, but not while there are minnows to be trapped and sold.
“I’ll get my shoulders fixed when I retire when I’m 85,” Larocque said while laughing and winking. “The minnows are needed. There is always a demand for more. I can never get enough. I always have to be out getting minnows.”
On this day, Larocque can feel the pain in his shoulders. He finishes combing his grey hair and gives his left shoulder a rub with his hand. He is anything but regretting go outside into the chilly darkness of the morning. He is eager to go.
It’s cozy in his 12-foot-by-12-foot cabin in the wilderness. A fire crackles in the wood stove. Bacon and eggs sizzle in a pan on a propane stove. Coffee steams from a pot.
A big breakfast is a must for Larocque. It sets the tone for his day. A day that will run 14 hours if all goes right. He gets into his truck and drives down a logging road. He unloads his snow machine and trailer with all his gear and a big drum.
Thirty minutes later and Larocque is driving the end of a 36-inch chainsaw into the ice of a frozen lake. Water and snow and chips of ice fly through the air. It is below freezing and the wind is howling on this day in Northern Ontario in early March. Larocque, working bare-handed, makes quick work of the ice and cuts a three-foot-by-three-foot hole. He breaks up the ice with a homemade chisel made out of rebar.
He firmly grips a yellow nylon rope tethered to a broken branch stuck in the snow and gives it a tug.
A smile cracks across his face.
“This has got some weight,” he says. “That’s what I want.”
Larocque pulls up one of his homemade steel mesh traps and it is a squirming blur and mess of hundreds and hundreds of minnows and suckers. He checks all his traps and fills the 45-gallon drum half way with water and bait. It was a good day. It was a day he wanted.
“Getting bait is a lot like fishing. There are bad days and there are good days. You are grateful for the good days,” Larocque said.