Sportsmen’s Camp Blog

Global warming.

Over my many (some would say thousands) of years residing in the family estate here in scenic Screw Castle I have traipsed, traversed, trekked, and otherwise extensively hiked the local woods, parks and environs. I could tell you where to find the relict populations of the giant (6″+) purple millipede, the hellbender, and the rarest of the woodland spring dwelling salamanders as well as rare and extraordinary species of trees. Over my many years I have observed much change in the flora and fauna (“ya wanna” – F. Zappa RIP) of the region, All of the changes previously attributable to completely direct human intervention. Mechanical and physical intervention by way of foreign species introduction and land form interventions have caused the major changes but this year I have seen the future. The future is that climate change is occurring. This year I have seen two species here on sheep hill  that were never here before in my lifetime. They are from the south – that is to say south of here, and they have moved here on their own. What I would call a true northward range expansion. I saw my first mocking bird here on sheep hill this fall! And this bird was flying within a few 10s of feet from two young (less than 3 year old) eastern red cedars!  Neither of these native species have no fucking business here!  Granted, the two are physically linked - the cedars were probably brought here by way of seeds in the digestive tract of the mocking birds so I may infer that the birds have been here for a few years but that is how they expand their range.

The Chinese curse – “May you live in interesting times” is being visited on us.  

Happy winter solstice and new year to all.

So sad that it should come to this.

I tried to warn you all but, oh dear.

You may not share my intellect.

Which might explain your disrespect.

For all the natural wonders that grow around you!

So long, so long and thanks for all the fish!

Our world’s about to be destroyed.

There’s no point at getting all annoyed.

Lie back and let the planet dissolve.

Despite those bills of bought-off senators,

I still thought that most of you were sweet dilettante gaia rentors.

Specifically redneck and gun toting bluedog democrats,

 and especially that disgusting ratfuck Lieberman.

So long, so long and thanks for all the fish. 

And so it goes on. The money of the great insurance corporations and wealthy interests out-weighs anything that is good for the country. The bribes (campaign donations) to our representatives have subverted any good that can come from our governmental process. Anthropomorphic climatic change is just an artifact of all our greatest scientists, just ask all the pig ignorant conservative radio talk show hosts feeding talking points to great unwashed imaginary friend deluded gullible masses. Health care for our masses unlike all the other developed countries is just completely undeserved. The working class and poor are most undeserving of the fruits of their meager labor. Only the rich should reap any rewards of the massive TARP and bailout funds. Only wall street types deserve a bailout any other sort of money is a handout for the most completely undeserving sort.

I don’t have the time or energy to bring the socialist movement into port.

So I resolve to vote Green Party from now on.

So long, so long and thanks for all the fish!

Our government has been hijacked by the filthy lucre of corporate “free speech”  conservative activist suckpreme court ruling sanctioned bribery. We have been BETRAYED in BOLD FUCKING LETTERS! It has played out in the bright light of nonrepresentive nonresponsive  partisan power politics, designed by the moneyed powers that be, to fuck the middle class.

So long, so long and thanks for all the fish!

And so I go to the cellar to recalibrate the vaunted AntiSnow Generator and do some common good in my own way. Hal asks what he has missed, I retort that it has gone to shit by a betrayal of all that we had hoped for.

So long, so long and thanks for all the fish!

Dump all your shit in the streets – it can’t stink any worse than the stench in the wind blowing from the Washington creeps.

So long, so long and thanks for all the fish!

Unfortunately I can’t leap from the water skyward to leave all this shit.

Or believe me that would be that and this would be it.

So long, so long and thanks for all the fish!

The planet if not the galaxy is surely just the domain of the conservative corporate Vogons and their butt fucked delusional lackeys.

So long, so long, so long. And thanks for all the fish!

Staying overnight at Camp.

This will be the last blog from camp for 2009. We are pretty well buttoned up here at camp. The boards are on the windows, lower water system winterized, boats in the shop, sign in, etc and so on. Its been in the 40’sF and rainy here since Saturday – the day when Mike and Billy showed up for a couple days of fall fishing. I was hoping that the good weather would hold but noooooooooo – it turned miserable. We went out fishing in the cold downpour on Sunday and caught a few fish nothing much size-wise and they were biting very tentatively. Several times I was fishing, with no weight with a minnow, detected a bite and put just the lightest pressure on it to make sure it wasn’t a snag and the bas(s)tard or pick(y)erel let go! Son of a bitch! Touchy touchy touchy! But we did get a few fish, drank a few beers, and after a few hours got totally soaked! (from the rain too!) And it was with a due Easterly! Its a testament to the fact that Firth just doesn’t seem to totally shut down even in the worst of weather. The weather the next day of Mike and Billy’s stay turned even colder and the wind rotated to come from the north at about 20  – 30 mph with nasty whitecaps and bone chilling cold. They elected to beat it for home after sleeping in. It was too bad they didn’t get any of the nice weather but they did help us finish off a bunch of beer and count the Beer Caps for the Contest.

We had a great time counting as Janet kept adding new rules – “Every beer beginning with a W give some one a drink, every V cap all drink, every Mikes Hard lemonade you drink” and so on. We added a rule every time we dumped more caps on the table and it took a few “dumps” so we drank a few beers! I am still very confident that the count was accurate (+/- 500 or so caps). Really its probably good to about 5 – 10 caps. But is was a good time and we did finish up before dawn and then we opened the box of guesses and determined who the winner is. Ok everybody, to quote the most annoying of people – Melissa Wertz ” Hey what do you want the number to be???? think about it… are you ready I’m gonna turn over the trump suit… are you ready…” Yeah it just goes on and on till someone yells at her to “Turn over the fucking card already!!!” Then we hear – “There’s no reason to yell at me – do you know what trump suit you want…?” OK, the total count was…..4,899 caps! The closest guess was 4,999.

And The Winner is….. dah tah dah dah dah tadah … Debbie Jackson! (she is pictured in the previous posting) No tie breaker necessary! She was only off by only 100 caps. We then called her and informed her of her good fortune – it was only about 1 Am so we delegated the task to Billy.  She was very happy.

Well that about wraps it up for the year. So now I can start railing against the moneyed interests fucking the working class. Hell, I might even post some pictures from the summer that didn’t make it to the blog over winter.

Time of the year!

Closing camp is always my worst time of the year. I enjoy it here so much that its home and I don’t want to leave. Its also exacerbated by that hold over from my school days when I realized that school was starting next week and I had to start getting up at the crack of fucking dawn. But oh well, all good things must come to an end and I warm myself in the thought that the winter won’t last forever and I’ll be back next summer.

Additionally I have had a particularly traumatic and depressing event (that is in addition to my financial insolvency) – the new diesel experienced a catastrophic failure. The diesel as assembled on the steel “pallet” had undersized bolts that were not fully tightened – the diesel thus  vibrated considerably more than normal. Paul noticed the problem and we replaced the bolts with perfectly sized large bolts and the engine smoothed right out. We also tightened every nut and bolt on the machine. But unbeknownance to me the key to the power take off (PTO) pulley had loosened. The PTO pulley threw the key and devolved to the end of the shaft and wobbled on its end – destabilizing the crankshaft. The bolts holding a crank counterweight failed sending the weight through the side of the crank case. Bad bad bad! Depressing to say the least, but the warranty on the engine will provide me with all the parts necessary to rebuild the lower unit. So looking at it from the bright side – this is a minor inconvenience and I will end up knowing the engine much better. C’est la vie! I will do what I must do. But enough about this.

Before Al and Deb left, we (me, Charlie and Paul included) made a run up the grassy to catch a mess of huge perch and some pike. It was a gorgeous day and we caught fish like crazy, drank a few beers and came home and had a great supper.

The perch were huge and with three people filleting we made short work of them with a minimal amount of bloodshed.

Yesterday I put the docks away – another one of those things that I can’t stand doing. I always think – “I just put them into place!” We need to petition our imaginary friends to lengthen summer by at least 10 months!!!! As I was putting the docks away I recalled the yearly questions about how the dock system operates so I took some pictures of the process. First I remove 3 out of 4 lag screws from a pair of the dock pilings and then “pop” the piling with the crowbar and the dock drops into the water. Its quite a ride.

Here’s a shot of the outer two pilings on top of the dock after I dropped the dock into the water. I then carry the pilings to shore and move to the next set.

Two more sets of piling to go. I then nail a motor bracket onto the dock tether the boat to it (for the return) then take the dock over to store in the weed-bed bay inlet.

It always helps to have some able bodied seamen to help out with the perilous lake crossing. Captain Bart was ready to steer the boat. Notice the motor on the end of the dock. I then push the dock out into the lake  start the motor and pilot the dock to its storage location. This year the boys insisted on riding on the dock with me so I pulled the boat over and they hopped onto the dock. On the way over they ran up and down the dock and barked at some unfortunate loons – while the crazy loon steered the dock. They had a great time and it made for a much lighter day for me to see them having so much fun.

We expect to be leaving in about a weeks time and there is still much to do in the way of closing the camp but the weather seems to be holding and I must relish each day remaining here. Is this heaven? No, its Sportsmen’s Camp.

Yes folks much to the chagrin of everyone on earth Janet Queen of the North abdicated her crown of Butt-wiper Drinker of the Year to Pussy Boy AKA Brian.

Here they are at the beginning of the debacle appearing sane. Brian’s stratlegee this year was to never sit down. He claims that his demise in the previous contest was that he passed out without noticing and thus lost the contest. I sincerely doubt that that was the case but what the Hell who am I to argue with success! Janet has had a cold all week and was just feeling better but she claims no excuses at all – “The new Champ won fair and square!” she said. But as an entirely impartial observer I saw a complete parallel to the last competition. Janet had a hard time getting through number 15 and caught her second wind and Brian appeared reasonably lucid. The difference is that on number 17 Janet was sick of drinking Butt-wiper and thought that Brian was doing entirely well playing horse shoes. So she capitulated and gave into what she always does when she gets drunk – she went up to the house and started calling people. But true to form Brian crashed and burnt on beer 19 just like last time – as Janet sat around the fire and giggled and told stories. She later evacuated her system of the offensive brew and then had supper and stayed up till about 1 AM. Brian passed out about 11 – 11:30 as per normal. Today both contestants are awake and feeling great. We’ve had a hearty lunch and are preparing for a day of fishing in the sun. It is rumored that any further competitions will be conducted with Schmidts. Janet said “I’m never drinking that crap – Butt wiper again!”  So that’s the way it is from here at Sportsmen’s Camp.

The new diesel – Dick AKA chuggabugga is up and running and powering the camp. Janet has also put a video of the chugga running on Youtube – entitled “Dick lives”. The video is also  grouped among the Sportsmen’s Camp Videos. One of my new favorites is the beer bottle bowling on the beach one! Check them out – you’ll get to hear the new diesel too.

Its a beaut of a day here in Northern Ontario, crystal clear int the upper 70’s low 80’sF and with just a very slight breeze. We’re going out fishing now. Seeya!

Dreaded Firthy!

The, some would say, mythical beast of Firth Lake was caught on film sinking an ill fated victim. Yes dear reader the Firthy was caught in the act of sinking a hapless boat anchored offshore here at Sportsmen’s Camp! First I present the notorious and oft debated” Pastor Bob photo” taken nearly 100 years ago off of Castle Paraquat.

Yes the photo above has been debated for decades. Is it a fake to drum up the tourist trade? Is it authentic? Could a man of the cloth actually fake such an audacious photo? Could it actually be true???

Yes it happened just two days ago – we were down at the beach enjoying a few beers and tossing granite boulders into the lake with GordoWulf II  when the forth boulder went clean through the bottom of our target vessel. As it began its slow descent into the dark depths of Lake Firth the unthinkable occurred – The Firthy appeared from nowhere! This most fey of freshwater beasties apparently awakened by the multiple boulder impacts swam into view and approached the target vessel!

Everyone at the beach was awed to silence as the beasty approached the hopelessly crippled vessel and actually looked over the transom to survey the sinking vessel! Quickly everyone called, “To the boats save the vessel from its evil clutches!” – yet no one moved from their seats in fear! No one had the courage to move! The beasty having surveyed the damage quickly receded back to the murky depth of  Firth Lake.

We were transfixed with horror and disbelief as the Firthy slipped from view into the tea stained depths as quickly as it appeared. The was nothing more that we could do but watch in horror as the stricken vessel slipped slowly below the cold forbidding waves.

There was little for us to do but wait for its ultimate demise. The following day after we were absolutely sure that the Firthy was no where near a crack team of salvage divers retrieved the boat from the bottom of the lake. After a forensic team from the Canadian Maritime Institute surveyed the damaged hulk of the boat it was determined that the dreaded Firthy was not responsible for the ultimate demise of the vessel it was indeed caused by a boulder flung form our resident trebuchet. Our photos of the incident were reviewed by the Committee on Mythical Beasts Sitings but we were informed that it was just a case of mass hysteria (similar to the Bush/Cheney years) and that it was just some “Swamp gas or a weather balloon or something.” In any case I am happy to report that Gordowulf II is functioning like a Swiss watch.

Especially for Bart.

This years Mond expedition was a day of many firsts. It was supposed to be a beautiful sunny day but turned out to be overcast and cool – Gee who woulda thunk it! That certainly wasn’t a first!  So we trailed our three boats to the Grassy Landing and unloaded our gear. Prior to disembarking I perused the turtle breeding ground and saw several turtle nests that had been ransacked. There was no evidence of nesting in the sandy renovation areas. This could be a good thing though – if the turtles that found the sandy areas were able to cover their nests properly the nests wouldn’t be ransacked and thus wouldn’t be visible. Or the worse of the alternatives is that the turtles don’t like the sandy renovation areas and didn’t lay eggs there. I’ll have to wait to next year to see how this years eggs hatch out. So with out further  messing about we began our meandering boat ride through the rice beds of the upper grassy to the Mond cut off.

Up the winding Grassy river we rode. Bart was excited to be out on a trip without his big brother and had to sit in the front seat with his uncle Phil and watch the ducks and water birds clear out in our passing. On one of the tight turns disaster struck! Bart was standing with his little feet on the side of the gunwale and they slipped as we made the turn. Bart plunged into the dark cold grassy river! I saw him go over and put the motor into neutral and prepared to dive in to save my baby. The little devil popped up and started swimming for the boat like an epileptic muskrat. I guided the boat back to him and uncle Phil plucked the plucky lil’ wet boy from the cold river. He was then toweled off with the clean unused pike rag. He sat down next to his uncle Matt but started to shiver. His most compassionate uncle Matt noticed and took off his only sweatshirt and wrapped the hapless wet cur in it.

After warming up and drying off Bart was no worse for the wear and soon resumed his prime position sitting next to Phil on the front seat, but this time no paws were on the gunwale! We were soon into Mond and catching numerous pike. Normal fare, no real large ones, but lots of action  and fun. Phil then hooked and landed a big honking perch as we drifted a deep weedbed. We immediately deployed the anchor and worm baited lines. Perch after large perch were hauled in. Then the unspeakable occurred!!! One of us, I don’t know who, caught a large SUNFISH! Yes a sunfish! A nice big circlefish! The Ontario record is 10 inches 1 pound and these monsters were around 8 inches!! I was taken aback! I have never seen sunfish up in this neck of the woods before – the dreaded rock bass yes, but not sunfish. About this time Jim Baxter (that bastard) and his crew came over to see what the commotion was and then lent a hand securing and sumptuous pan-fish repast. We hauled sunnies and perch in till we filled two stringers.

That’s just one of the two stringers! And yes those are the toes of my size 11 footboats! The sunnies had nice wide shoulders and would fillet quite nicely. We completed our stringers and even had some time to  boat a few more pike before starting our trek back to the landing.

Bart made it to the landing without mishap and enjoyed eating daddy’s second sandwich entirely. We disembarked at the landing and made a speedy reloading just beating the oncoming liquid sunshine!

The only sunny that was to be had that day was on the stringer. The drive back was quick and uneventful with the drizzle keeping the dust down for any following vehicles. We got back to the aroma of roasting turkey and all the trimmings.  The three surgeons took care of the catch as the rest of the crew off loaded the equipment. It was decided to have the pan-fish fry the next day at a decent hour. We then had our heavy dinner and Bart dreamt of vanquishing Grendel in the black forbidding murky depths of the Grassy river.

A perfect ending to a day of firsts.

It rained for forty days and forty nights – not constantly but in an intermittent sneaky sort of way so that the optimistic would be caught in the rain and soaked to the bone pursuing their favorite activities. The weather forecasts have been eerily reminiscent of the beer sign in the Florida keys “Free Beer Tomorrow!” Yes its more like “Beautiful Sunny Weather Tomorrow!” But today’s weather is extremely consistent – cool with intermittent showers with periods of bone soaking rain! Oh well. But there have been several beautiful bright mornings! (so I have been told)

The card games, darts, drinking and bean bag games haven’t suffered much though and the fishing has been just fine. But I would recommend that raingear be a permanent fixture in every-one’s boat this summer (using the term summer in a purely empirical way). The rain has made the threat of forest fires nearly nil as it would take saturation napalm bombing on the order of the allies bombing of Dresden to start anything self sustaining! Taking this into mind, I decided to have a small  “bonfire” on a warm rainy windless night. It would serve to amuse us and to remove the the fuel from the bush that may cause a problem some dry hot summer. I have been told they existed by the old timers! It usually goes like this “Yeah, yeah, I ‘member when the Tin-mill was goin’ strong back in aughttree and I was ridin’ home in mah buggy from midnighturn and the night was so hot that the lightnin bugs was eatin’ the bats…”

So the fire managed to provide some meager warmth and the moon managed to peak out just as it was dying down and the revelers were leaving.

The lake temperature is hovering around 68-69F and the weed beds are lush but we haven’t had a decent night for jitterbugs yet this year. The walleye/pickerel have been quite active. We are planning an expedition up the Grassy tomorrow to take advantage of the projected beautiful sunny day. (Yeah right! I’ll believe it when I see it!) The trip should generate some cool pictures and a report on the possible breeding success of the painted turtles up that way.

Well I believe I must now gird myself as this day may yet develop into National Vodka on the Beach Day!

Princess Di and Michael Jackson still dead. Film footage at eleven!

As for here at Sportsmen’s Camp its still raining daily but at least there are enough breaks to get some work done and some fishing in and the docks are not awash.

Everything takes more time here at camp and many unlikely chains of events occur. For instance Jim Baxter wanted to get to his fishing spots quicker so we  purchased a larger motor for him. After putting it on the fiberglass boat and extensive testing. I noticed the boat leaking and had to pull it out and fix it. After emailing Jim about the new motor he put the “mal oche” on me inveighing the Evil Janeeto from the planet Janetron to nag me to trap a bunch of leeches. This also prompted the “Evil One” to note “You know your stupid sister is gonna want leeches TOO!” Sooooo hen pecked as always I get the leech traps out. But Gee, we have 5 leech traps but no fresh fish cark-eye (plural of carcass). So we’re gonna have to go fishing, but we’re nearly outta beer! So off to Quick’s we go to buy more beer. Then we pack the provisions to go fishing with extra ice to cool the beer properly. There just so happens to be five people here to feed and five leech traps so we have to catch five eating sized fish. We caught the required fish quickly but there were 7 beers in the cooler so we had to stay out fishing longer. After returning I filleted the fish and fried them in beer batter and remembered – those fish carkeye are down in the fish house! So I retrieved the carkeye put them in the traps and drove to the leech pond and set the traps. All the beer and food and activity made me sleepy so I went to bed early! 12:30! So now I am up early (got up at 9 AM!) and feel like shit and I have to get the garbage. When I take the garbage I’ll have to go to the Beauty Lake dump so I can pick up the leeches on the way back. So that BASTARD JIM BAXTER is making me go to the Beauty Lake dump in a few minutes! And to top it off he made me get up early so I have time to write this stupid fucking blog while I drink my tea and now all of you idiots are reading this shit — all because of that BASTARD JIM BAXTER!

The fishing yesterday was excellent – Janet (Evil One) caught two nice eating sized walleye and I caught several bass and a pike. Three of the bass I caught were 18 / 19 inch class I caught the majority of my fish on mepps and I think Janet caught most of her’s on mepps. Several were caught on leeches as well and we didn’t have any luck locating the perch here on Firth. The water temperature is at 68F and the water level is back down to 0.90′ on the lake gauge.

No folks those aren’t woodpeckers – however its not a far drive to crazy from here. The pecking is the hammering at the Villa Colombi addition! We’ve got a couple nice days here and Janet and I have made great progress on the addition. I am posting a picture as promised. However I was enjoying Phish Phry’s eloquent comments and was thinking about being lazy and just stirring that pot a little more to see what additional dross floated to the surface.

Janet and I painted the floor last eve at 2 AM and it was reasonably dry before one of the Carols from cabin # 6 walked on it this morn. It took me a little while checking shoe prints but I soon ascertained who the culprit was. Nobody expects the Spanish inquisition! Amongst our weaponry are such diverse elements as fear, surprise…

The screens are now in. The corner trim, window trim,  end eve siding, insulation, paneling, ceiling, door and side trim need to be completed so it should be completed this week.  Janet  has sewn the curtains and is locating single beds so its will all come together very soon.

We went fishing yesterday and it  was a little slow. The green drakes mayflies were hatching and the fish are eating their fill of them – making fishing a little slow. But slow fishing here at Firth is still great. We caught several eating sized fish on minnows and leaches over the deeper shoals and drank several beers so we weren’t fishing seriously. We’ve had too many shitty rainy days not to just go out and enjoy the sun and a brew! The water temperature is around 69F and the lake level has dropped 2.5″ since I ripped out the beaver dam. The slate drake mayflies have yet to hatch but they are generally not a massive hatch so the fishing should be excellent in a couple more days. If we continue to get a few more sunny days the lake temperature should rebound nicely for some good swimming too. Sled and his work crew have just blown into camp so I can go back to getting the new diesel set up – sweet!