Howard Cosell (recently raised from the dead for this event) reporting.

(Please read in a Cosellesque voice)

The results of the Cherry Pikers Pike Tournament Final are now consigned to the august annals of piscatorial history! But please allow me to duly digress to properly set the gravity of the situation by elucidating you as to the egregious trash talking and severely strenuous training regimen prior to this momentous milestone in fishing history.

The training regimen of each contestant was startlingly similar – dipsomaniacal imbibage of brew into the small hours of the morn, daily bass fishing, playing hearts, bumper pool, quad riding into the wilds, and eating massive gustatorial repasts of fish, moose, spaghetti, and meatloaf (prepared entirely by the heavyweight champ herself). Every meal was a sans vegetable debauch that would make even the erstwhile roman senatorial candidate blush to its egregious excess! The trash talking would have made Muhammad Ali and Joseph Frasier pale by its excessive comparison! “Float like a warm turd, set hook like a bee – the pike that you catch will never catch me!” a quote from that pikefishing leviathan Jannie – Queen Of The North, world heavy weight pike fishing champion as she mercilessly taunted her opponent. Many people believe that tourney promoter Don King had set this bout up as a patsy roll over for the Champ but this was not seen to be the case in the course of the day long Spider Lake slugfest. Brian “Love Master” Rice replied with a curt to the point and succinct reply of “Shut the fuck up Newton” in response to her constant barrage of relentless taunting as they caught monster bass after monster bass in the days leading up to the momentous event – the tournament to end all tournaments.

We cut now to the actual day of the tournament – after an arduous and strength sapping double portage into the field of play, that crystalline clear pike filled paradise known as Spider Lake – the trash talking soon ceased as the casting began. The third member of the tournament was soon to rear its crocodilian piscean head – Esox lucius was soon to join this fated fray. The lead swayed from competitor to competitor like the ass of an overweight fertility goddess in pink stretch pants. Pike after pike was hooked and subsequently hauled to the boat with expert facility that would make a Japanese longliner blush by its cold expedient competence. The Designated Pike Tournament Observer and Guide (yours truly Howard Cosell) recording each contestants catch methodically to avoid any shady shenanigans on the wily contestants part. Weed bed after weed bed was drifted, double header after double header, troll after troll, lure change after lure change, were all duly noted to be logged in Pike Fishing Hall of Fame for all posterity to marvel at in perpetuity! It was neck and neck for the first half of this daylong fishing fest. Would the contender Brian “The Love Master” Rice be able to maintain this blistering pace set by the Champ or would he wither from the vicissitudes of waning strength in this onslaught of the hook setting melee perpetrated by Jannie “Queen Of The North” Newton? Some might say that this was a “patsy set up” but I can relate to you all now that this was truly a battle of titans set on neutral aquatic turf as neither of these contrary contestants had ever wet a line in this Pike fisherman’s paradise. The second half of the day was a blustery cloud filled romp through one of the greatest pike filled weed beds in the entire North American Continent. Every cast could conceivably be the cast that broke the resolve of either contestant. But slug on they did cast after cast clearing their hooks of the bothersome water plants that are the home of the Monster Pike. So as the sun slowly set in the western horizon the final count was announced – 12 to 9 in favor of Jannie “Queen Of The North” still heavy weight pike fishing champeen of the world. So I say to you all, cogitate twice, nay thrice before you enter the piscatorial ring against this legend of the pikefishing world!

Of My Discontent

Yeah, Yeah, I know – “what’s he belly aching about now?” But its that time of the year again – Labour Day and frost approaches. The trees haven’t started changing colour yet but I get the occasional whiff of fall in the air. I shit you not! The fishing is still good too. I know so what’s not to like. I started dismantling the old trebuchet so I guess I am a little down. What the hell though I am going to use some of the lumber from the treb to make the wood lathe to true up the new treb pivot arm. But I do have to start digging to free the lids of #9’s septic tanks. It probably has a fatty concretion blocking the cross over. So a digging I will go a digging I will go Hi ho the derry oh a digging I will go! That reminds me of one of Dad’s little songs – (sung to Off to Work We Go) Hi oh hi oh its off to school we go – we learn some junk and then we flunk hi oh hi oh hi oh hi oh- its off to school we go – they kick our ass and then we pass – hi oh hi oh hi oh hi oh! Hope you enjoyed it.

I am doing some laundry cause it’s a beautiful clear day and I think I’ll go out fly-fishing for a while – it’s the best thing for the psyche ya-know! And besides its fun!

It’s a fly rod.

Janet is on a 4 day drunk in Pa (the state not Ying’s kind!) so after I took the garbage to the dump cleaned 100 cabins, rebuilt the diesel, filled out 256 bear Licenses and 1406 fishing licenses, bailed out 350 boats, brought in 550 cords of wood, dug 200 septic systems by hand, made breakfast for everyone in a 300 mile radius, and watched The Price is Right I thought it was time to do a little fishing! The lake was a mirror of great expectations seen through the starkly clear day. I took my fly rod and tied on a well worn Mickey Finn streamer and took off from the dock at warp 9 in the Pesarius (my cedar strip boat) for the red jug shoal. As a very slight breeze ghosted the boat to the red jug shoal. I lowered my anchor about a foot from bottom and waited for the anchor to catch. After the boat silently caught bottom I let the Mickey Finn fly. Bite after bite ensued – no cast went unscathed. Bass after bass was caught. After my ~ 1 hour tenure on the shoal I must have caught 30 plus bass! The only problem was that their total weight was around 2.5 pounds! He he he he but what fucking fun! Several of the lil’ devils jumped 3 times on the way in too! After my “anchovy fun fest” at red jug I warped up to Elephant rock and caught several more bass with most of them around 12”. Too much fun! When the cat’s away the mice will play – Janet will be back tonight and has already demanded that there be cold 50 in the Pepsi cooler – what a dictatorial bitch! Imagine that, she wants cold 50 and a campfire when she gets here! Boy of all the nerve! I just drank the last one too. I guess I’ll have to go into Quick’s (formerly Bullock’s) to get some. The things I go through for her! Geeesh! Hope your day was as good as mine was yesterday!

Every Saturday!

Every Saturday here at Sportsmen’s Camp its Xmas because it’s the changeover day for the cabins. Everyone leaves eggs, butter, cheese, lunchmeat, broken fishing poles, fishing lures, coins under the beds, big jars, pickles and all kinds of crazy stuff.

This week its leech city! Leeches – leeches – leeches! The Barks – Wards and several others left orphaned leeches. Ever since the advent of leeches for sale by the pound through the Internet there has been a veritable plethora of orphaned leeches. They aren’t as tough as the locally caught leeches but with the high fuel prices it’s probably cost efficient to not have to check leech traps daily. We won’t have to set any for quite some time. I just got done giving the leeches a bath and splitting them into three containers. The Camp is populated by many members of my family this week so they will be the beneficiaries of the leechy largess. Gene Duda always tries to scam leeches when he comes up too but the leechy windfall may be exhausted by the time he arrives. Gee he’ll just have to set leech traps like the rest of us.

One of this weeks rare finds from a vacated cottage was a really cool Arkansas wet stone for sharpening knives! It was probably left because they had been using it dry and had blinded all the pores in it rendering it useless. But with some strong detergent and a wet buffing with some coarse steel wool it was as good as new. It’s now capable of putting a fine razor sharp edge on any fillet knife lucky enough to be honed on its pristine surface.

The fishing yesterday was fantastic. We wanted fish for supper so we went out and parked on a favorite shoal. We boated more than enough fish to feed five people in about 45 minutes then fished for fun till suppertime. I used a couple leftover (from cabin #5 – more cabin cleanup largess) rubber leech substitute worms for a while and caught a nice 17” bass (released of course). The rubber leech substitute works well – the number of bites is slightly less but the size of the fish is generally a little bigger. I was getting some walleye bites – soft pick up and then release when any line pressure was applied – but it took Janet’s soft touch to nab one of the crafty devils.

Another crystalline sunny day in the 70’s F here. Perhaps I’ll go fishing or sailing or stay on the beach and have a beer after lunch and the dump run. Hmmmmm maybe there will be some neato stuff at the dump – Xmas on Saturday again!

Is this heaven? No, its Sportsmen’s Camp

Of Elephant Rock!

The past two weeks have been a time of many firsts. The sail boat was named, new baits were investigated and proven, Andrew and I were the first to sail around Elephant Rock in the newly christened “Firth Lady”, Joan and I almost went over in the Firth Lady but were able to sail well even with about 300 gallons of water on board, Andy had his jaunt in a sailboat under blustery conditions and an unsuccessful trek to find the portage to Seganku were among them. We also enjoyed a lot of great fishing, bean bag games, rebuilding the horseshoe pit, horseshoe games, card games and darts! But alas all good things must come to an end the Baxter/Poczik/Colombi clan have pulled up stakes and headed back to points south. The end of the summer is nigh.

But what the hell – there’s still a lot more to come many more friends and family are on their way. After some cabin cleaning and some various sundry jobs we’re going to go fishing in the beautiful crystalline Canadian day. The fishing has been fantastic and from what I understand it was even better this morning! Yesterday was cool with a northerly and we had a cool clear night. That seems to have provoked the larger pike into feeding and the larger bass were hitting topwater lures! Can’t wait! Off to clean cabins – on friday yet!