The Camp goes to Hell in a hand basket!

Well not really – everything is running quite smoothly but I thought I should blog before she got back so as to preemptively stop a “why didn’t you blog while I was gone!!?” rant from Janet. Barb and Jane and I went out fishing yesterday in the beautiful sun and caught 4 nice bass on leeches had a few beers and then headed back to the beach for evening bean bags. Sled and Jane are beating Basha (AKA Barb) and me like rented mules. I am holding up my end of the game but Jane is kicking Barb’s ass! (In a falsetto voice) “I sucks to be you Basha – he he he.” They are good games though. I was swimming yesterday – the lake temperature was 77F in the afternoon and not badly stratified down to about 6’ – very nice swimming. Baxter TWD is enjoying Amy and Gary’s dog Maxwell! They run each other ragged on the beach then Baxter TWD goes and lies in the lake panting. Jane and Amy went berry picking (actually foraging would be a better term) with limited success. But the prognosis was slightly heartening since they said there were indeed some green berries in the under story of the bushes that would be ripening in the next few weeks. Good news for the bears. I went to the Beauty Lake dump yesterday after picking up leeches and saw three little bear cubs in the dump worrying each other over a good bag of garbage. Each of the identical cubs where no more than 3 times Baxter’s size. Cute as all hell (not as much as Baxter TWD though)! No mother bear was in evidence but I left the door of the truck open whilst tossing the bags into the dump. The three stooges never missed a beat whacking at each other and growling! On the bear front here at camp – the camp is full and we have had no bear sightings whatsoever! Brandy, as the midget lady in Poltergiest said, (in a little whiny voice) “this Camp is clean!” No worries for drunken wanderings in the coming weeks, save for the occasional foray by Jim Baxter into the internal (infernal) Camp bush!

The lake temp at noon is 75F the water level 0.80 feet on the gauge with very little breeze and lot of sun. The ambient temperature is in the 80’s and the air is fresh and delicious with just the slightest overtone of balsam – mmmmmmm yes! It sucks to not be here.

Perfectly ordinary day.

I went down the Montreal with the Shepherd/Bunfil crew. It was a beautiful day – hot with some clouds and a little breeze. We caught so many fish we never made it to Penassi Lake. We got a fine group of big perch and several really nice bass. I caught one of the nicest bass of the day fishing with the tail of a night crawler about 3’ deep supported by a pin bobber! The bobber went down real slow and I thought, Jeesh, that perch is so small he’s having problems taking down the bobber. I set the hook lightly because I didn’t want the poor lil’ perchie flying into the boat but – BAM out of the water flies a 20” bass! Surprise would be an understatement I just about shit my pants LOL. It was a titanic struggle but I eventually prevailed. Nice fish. Later in the day near Penassi we got into some fine fishing by drifting with the current with leeches about 3 feet down from a bobber over between 4 and 8 feet of heavy rubble. We were picking up fine fish every drift! We only got one medium sized walleye though and of course the obligatory slew of small pike whilst fishing for perch. After several drifts we started counting fish and realized that if we didn’t get back soon we’d miss supper and be cleaning fish all night. It was a hot afternoon, the breeze on the way back to the landing felt good on our sunburn.

The weather has been beautiful in the upper 80’s low 90’s slight southerly breezes with the lake temperature reaching ~ 76F in the later afternoon. Perfect for swimming and lazing with a beer at the beach. The only way it could be better is kicking Jim Baxter’s ass at beanbags while we’re at it! It won’t be long till we get to do that! Janet, the Rev. B and me are going leech fishing now, “Hey who put all the beer in the cooler?!”

It’s Off to Breeze we go!

We went pike fishing on Breeze Lake yesterday and had a great day. This is especially heartening since Breeze Lake was hammered so badly after the logging road was put in. It appears to be recovering nicely after about 7 years. The average size fish are not as big as they used to be but at least the numbers are back. Baxter TWD, Janet, Ryan and me each caught about 10 to a dozen fish over the few hours we were on the lake. Baxter didn’t really catch any pike but he did give a few a good licking after he was done chewing his bone. Janet lost one very nice fish when it took the whole shebang (12” wire leader and spinner) and nipped her off! So there are still some nice ones in residence. We did not take or kill any fish providing only a tutorial to the pike on what not to bite. We did well at all the deep weed bed areas. The lack of water staining allows the short “xmas tree” like weeds to propagate in water up to about 10’ deep! The pike love this and lay in the short weeds ambushing congregating small fish. We also had some success in the shallower weeds but only where schools of minnows were evident.

The lake had a pair of loons successfully rearing a chick and some muskrats grazing. Breeze features a group of emerging boulders that have several varieties of mosses and small ferns that puts me in mind of a bonsai mountain meadow in the karst mountains of China. It was nice to get back to the lake.

The Piscarius (my boat) is back in the lake and is once again cutting the waves of Firth like no metal boat can. The lake temperature is up to about 70F again and Janet is marveling at the forecast for next week – All sunny and hot with no rain! I’ll believe it when I see it! As Dad used to say “live in hope – die in despair!” The fishing has been excellent on Firth – we’ve started picking up nice big bass in the weeds and have had problems catching small ones on leeches. I expect that we will soon have some excellent surface water action with the (alleged) onset of warm weather. The Fullers and Slocums have also caught some walleyes trolling Rapalas. Is this heaven? No it’s Sportsmen’s Camp.

In my Maidenform Bra!

OK! I must tell you about the bear dream! I had this dream the day before the bear met with his untimely end and after investigating several possible solutions to the problem. So I had this dream….. The MNR called and said they would send guy with a pack of “bear dogs” to menace the bear and kill him. So I call the MNR and tell them that the bear is walking through camp – they tell me that the bear killer is on his way. The bear killer pulls in with his pack of bear dogs in dog carriers in his truck as I get off the phone. (Hey it’s a dream!! – We all know the MNR actually has the reaction time of a corpse of an over dosed heroin junkie that has been dead for 11 years!) So I go out to meet him and he lets out the “dogs” – OMG they are all black STANDARD POODLES!!!! And away we go after the soon to be torn apart bear! Eventually the bear is cornered at the end of my workshop and is surrounded by a pack of black poodles with cute little poofies on their tails and legs. At least Marcel had the good sense to realize these were working poodles and did not have them in a full show dog clip! So the poodles settle into yapping incessantly at the poor bear and I approach Marcel and scream, “So how do you kill the bear?” Marcel replies, “Derr iss no need – you seee da barking eet drives de bear MAD!” Yeah me too! At this point I think to myself – If I had a gun I would shoot them all!

We had a fire and sauna last night in celebration of the bears demise. Janet and the Bunfil children broke their previous sauna record of 8 trips to the lake! I will be putting my boat into the lake today and possibly going to a pike lake or fishing on Firth. Its weather dependant – even though the forecast is for no rain, past practice has been for a clear morn followed by several rainstorms interspersed with clear beautiful weather. C’est la vie – De wedder eet iss driving me mad!

And the bear will come down and give you 100$

I mean rip out your screens and steal the cooler off your porch. After several incursions at cabin number 9 and a host of problems in Northern Pine camp Mr. Bear has met with an untimely end. High velocity lead poisoning.

Whilst talking with Ken Slocum in the Fabulous Sportsmen’s Camp Emporium (the Famed Roadayoh drive of the north) I looked out the window and saw a large black area across the drive. Hmmmm – I thought that’s strange – I don’t recall… IT’S THE GODDAMN BEAR! All 300lbs of his majestic pulchritude. I alerted Janet and the others in the lodge and we went outside to observe and photograph his ponderous progress down the drive to the east. No more than 50 unconcerned feet from us. After he turned into the bush near cabin 8 – Janet called Northern Pine to let them know that he may be on his way and I went down to cabin 9 to engage the Antibear-device and alert our guests. Ryan and I had prepared The Antibear device the night before by soldiering some wires to heavy galvanized mesh and placing it on the screens where the bear had entered cabin 9’s porch two times before. Once the Device is plugged in the screens are effectively electrified. We were hoping that this might provide some deterrence to future forays on to the porch. But apparently the bear continued his slow progress to Northern Pine Camp and his eventual demise. There was much rejoicing.

It is sad to say that the incidence of nuisance bear reports has been very high over much of the north these past few weeks. The vagrant frost that occurred in late June has ruined much of the pin cherry, blueberry and service berry crops this year and the bears are having a difficult time stocking up on the massive number of calories necessary to sustain them through their long winter hibernation. When I noticed the bear out front of the lodge I couldn’t make out the outline of a bear because his head was turned away from me as he snacked on the larvae and eggs that he had just excavated from a small anthill. There is the possibility that three, count’em, three, bears have been visiting Northern Pine camp – but I believe the big one is the only one that has visited us. In an effort to keep any bears from seeking food here we have instituted a daily collection of trash from each cabin prior to dark (say after supper) and have been extremely strict in the no wash water, grease or scraps, or squirrel food outside. It has also been shown that gifts of large bottles of Luksusowa Vodka, to the camp owners have been extremely effective in deterring bear incursions! Presently studies are being conducted pertaining to large hand rolled cigars (preferably 50 ring gauge natural wrapper) and cases of Labatt 50 and study materials are in great demand.

The weather seems to have permanently settled into a pattern of unsettled weather – reasonably warm but with several rainstorms plowing through daily. It seems to keep the fishing in a state of flux. Many weed beds are not developing properly this year. The water temperature is lower than normal (~67 F) so the weeds are slower to grow and the water in the lake is about 6” higher than normal so the weeds receive less energy from the sun and weed beds just haven’t developed. The green drake and slate drake mayfly hatches appear to be over so that fishing impediment is out of the way. I haven’t tried working with leeches over the deeper shoals yet but I will be setting some leech traps today and will be making an excursion to a pike lake later this week. Stay tuned for reports and don’t forget – If you want to prevent any further or future bear incursions to camp BRING LARGE BOTTLES OF LUKSUSOVA VODKA.

A thicker sheet of plywood

The bear has moved on. I heard from reliable sources this evening that “our bear” has found the mother lode at Northern Pine Camp. Apparently they keep their bear bait in Cabin #1. That cabin is the closest cabin to the road. After the bear tore down the door one night, Dave nailed plywood over the opening. Sunday night the bear ate a hole through the plywood to get inside. According to my sources there were about 25 five gallon buckets of grease stacked inside and a couple barrels of various other kinds of bait.

In other news: It stopped raining. It has rained every day for the past 10 days except for Monday. The water level has gone up 2 inches. The lake temperature is finally above 70.

For the first time this year I caught a fish over weeds on a jitterbug in the “big weed bed”. Summer may really be coming to northern Ontario this year after all.

The Bear Chronicles

Sunday 3 AM: Mike Neal from Cambridge NY was awakened from a deep sleep when something struck the cooler that was underneath his camper about 2 feet from his head. He was camping in a pop-up camper in the field between the shop and cabin #9. It was a night that was very bright due to the full moon. When he looked out he saw what he described as a “big bear”. Mike yelled and the bear ran off into the woods behind the shop.

Sunday 11:30 PM: Mike hears the bear at the garbage can. There is garbage strewn around the can and a trail of debris into the woods. This time Mike yells and the bear just grunts and snorts and comes back. The bear stays for about 45 minutes.

Monday 1 PM: I call the MNR Bear Hotline to report these incidents.

Monday 10:30 PM: This time there is no food for the bear to get into. All the garbage has been double-bagged and stored in the shop and all coolers are inside the truck. Mike watches the bear grunting and snorting in the bushes by the woodpile. Two guests approach the shower house and Mike shines a flashlight at them and tells them to turn around. Later he hears the bear scratching at plastic behind the shop.

Tuesday 9AM: I receive a message from the MNR giving me the name of the guy in charge of nuisance bears in this area. I call and leave a message for him.

Tuesday later afternoon I checked behind the shop to see what the bear had been scratching at. I believe it was the bear hunter’s barrels and buckets. No scratch marks on the shop.

Wednesday I received a call back from Dan “the bear dude”. He basically said there was nothing he could do. “Northern Ontario has lots of bears and just keep the camp clean of garbage and get rid of any bird feeders.”

Mike left on Tuesday morning and everyone else in camp is staying indoors after dark so there have been no more sightings. I assume the bear has been back but I have seen no evidence.

MORAL OF THE STORY: For those of you that are coming up this summer: MAKE SURE ALL YOUR GARBAGE IS INDOORS AND COVERED OR SEALED IN BAGS. DO NOT DUMP ANY GREASE OUTDOORS. DO NOT THROW ANY FOOD OF ANY TYPE OUTDOORS. IF THERE IS AN ACCIDENTAL SPILL CLEAN IT UP OR COVER IT WITH SAND/GRAVEL. We do not want to give this bear or any other bears reason to come in to camp.

Bite mark in paper plate from second night:

Mother Ship of Sportsmen’s Camp Fleet

The Admiral Pater Familias has left on an away mission to the Bryson quadrant and has left me, Commander Mommy (aka The evil Janeeto from the planet Janetron) in control. While Ensign Baxter has taken great strides in patrolling the northern regions of the Ehh Quadrant in pursuit of the Squirrelons and curtailing the abundant squatter species Lepus Americanus, he is no match for the invasion of the Canadian Soldiers. These cavalrymen are alleged to be from the division Ephemoroptera in the branch Paleoptera. They have inhabited all the shuttlecraft and have attempted the takeover of deep space Firth every evening at dusk by covering the surface every meter or two. What is worse, the fleet has reported diminished food supply due to the soldiers’ tactic of becoming symbiotic organisms with the basse de petite bouche. I am dismayed to report that during our recent shuttlecraft mission Ensign Baxter made a failed attempt to waylay the invasion. He ate only the dead ones. Our only hope is that our research and experience with this squadron has told us they have a very short lifespan.

The water temperature is still in the low 60’s and the lake level continues to drop. I caught bass on the surface last night until dusk when the mayflies descended. Then squat. Stay tuned for the Bear Chronicles….