Summer fishing seasons may be winding down and trip plans for anglers probably involve outings arranged for the 2011 season, but late-summer fly-in angling at remote lakes can make for awesome outings.

Early season fishing brings walleye, northern pike and assorted trout species close to shore.

Mid-summer runs vary with the amount of bait presence, water temperatures and a combination of currents and shoreline weed presence that affect fish movement.

But when much of the baitfish (minnows, chubs, and smaller of fish species) and the benthic  (bottom) bunch become brunch (crayfish, hellgrammites, and emergent larvae), late-summer and early-fall fly-in fishing all across northern Ontario can be a great place to go and catch  bunches of fish.

Many a Web site search program offers options for fly-in fishing, from basic tent camping to lodges with indoor plumbing. But before a fish strikes the first lure and prior to the first shore lunch hitting a fry pan, a few packing plans have to be in place.

Those quiet, remote destinations, with loons calling across the water, offer no shopping centers. Most food items will be kept on ice or in coolers with less cooling and freezing capacity than units back home.

Here are a few packing tips that have worked on fly-in trips taken away from porcelain and power sources.

Freeze everything that can take the solid cold: baked goods, pre-cooked entrees, milk, OJ, cold cuts, cheeses and snacks that will endure ice.

Egg cartons are messy. Break eggs into a quart jar (glass or plastic) with a tight-fitting lid. About 18 eggs will fill a quart. If the eggs will be used only for fish-fry batter, mix in some milk and seasonings. Stored next to frozen foods and ice, this mix will be good for about a week.

For genuine home fries, bag onions with potatoes to get a good exchange of flavors. On every trip, onions always win for odor and the potatoes gain in flavor.

As for cold cuts, the thinner the cut the earlier it tends to spoil. Slices of roast beef have been discarded in the fire rather than eaten later in the week on many a trip, from Nakina to

Gogama in decades past, especially when there have been fish to fry on the first day of an outing.

Fish kept on a stringer for a length of time might render less-than-fine fillets at day's end.

A small cooler or those newer roll-up chill bags can keep fish meat neat when fishing well away from the cleaning table back at camp.

One great feature of fly-in trips has to be enjoying fish fried or baked fresh out of the water. After decades of cleaning and cooking fish -- and watching experts process fillets everywhere from South Africa to northern Ontario -- I'm convinced that no two folks fillet fish the same way. Also, as every interested fry cooker and consumer will affirm, no two cooks prepare fish dinners exactly the same.

Removing northern pike Y bones is a good example. Many anglers won't clean northerns for dinner. Some slice off the "back strap" section from gills to the front of the back fin and then slice slabs off the center backbone. This method requires removing the triangle fillets at the tail and slicing downward to the belly. It results in many smaller cuts, but that pure white boneless meat from a pike often appeals to diners more than a walleye fillet. But, then, no two diners have the same tastes for fish dinners either.

Others have neat ways of taking off the entire fillet slab from each side and then sliding along both sides of the exposed center bone that ends in that pesky Y bone that discourages anglers from cleaning and eating tasty pike fillets.

One fish-fillet processing tip just may result in skittish diners enjoying your fish servings.

Do this: Just after cleaning a batch of fish, immerse the fillets -- with or without skins attached -- in water and gently squeeze the mass a few times. In all fish I've cleaned, a milky residue comes out in the water. Do this immersion-squeeze three or four times until that residue no longer appears.

A recent family outing to the Duck area of the Outer Banks re-confirmed this processing success. After a morning charter trip for small bluefish, I used this squeeze method. Blues are notorious for that maroon/brown lining under their skin similar to an old salmon. Diners were not blue eating those blues on a Friday the 13th fish fry.

Best kept check lists and repeated runs do not ensure all items in ample quantity will be on board when unpacking at fly-in camp. But being there -- away from cyber space, traffic lanes, and AM car commercials -- makes all the preparations, packing and a long road run all the more fun.

Keep these travel tips in mind for future fly-ins or just an at-home Labor Day fish fry/bake this weekend. Here are some good sources for fly-in trip planning: airivanhoe.com; Derry Air Charter Air Service, gogamalodge.com; or listings at flyinfishingontario.com/ontario-fly-in-lodges.html. A listing of fish-cleaning techniques, including a pike-filleting video, can be found at niagaraoutdoors.com.

odrswill@gmail.comnull