Stakeout 2022

submitted by Luke Pomeroy

If you don’t know, the Stakeout is springtime (April-early June) in Northern Quebec and the Ottawa valley when the rivers get super high from snowmelt. The high water brings the best waves in the world and amazing big water rapids to form. Stakeout happens annually and there is always a strong group of local paddlers as well as a fair number of international paddlers flocking for the pristine waves. It is called “Stakeout” because generally these waves only come in for a small window of specific water levels so you spend a long time Staking out the waves (usually in a parking lot next to the wave. this year I spent 3 days staking out Molly and 1 week waiting for Cheese Wave levels to come in then another day

This Stakeout season the Rockstar V was an insane level up from anything I had paddled before and it directly contributed to me having one of my best spring seasons ever. The Rockstar V paired with epic water levels made for a spring I’ll never forget. We surfed almost every wave known in stakeout, including : Minibus, Big bus, Short Bus, Spartacus, Gladiator, Ruins, High Tension, Middle earth, Trigger, YouCat2BeKittenMe, Molly, Black Mass, Susan Murphy, Ginormica, Low side Molly, Lucifers, Guantanamo, and last but certainly not least, Cheese wave (my personal favourite).

I was able to do some personal new rotations this spring which was super fun, some new stuff includes: Right airscrew to airscrew, Right airscrew to blunt, Proper Left airscrew to clean blunt, spin to airscrew to clean blunt, right bread and butters, valley screw to clean blunt, Sasquatch to airscrew, valley screw to airscrew (almost), vertical flashback to airscrews, and probably more that I can’t think of. It goes without needing to say that it was an extremely progressive spring for myself personally and everyone there as a whole.

Overall it was an amazing spring and I can only hope to get another like it next year.

Here is a link to my 2022 Stakeout edit, I hope you enjoy!