Fun, fun, fun!

Its been a busy couple weeks! With several firsts. We went to Albany, Montreal and central Quebec as well as some fishing firsts. We were in Albany to attend Phil and Brandi’s wedding (with Rev. Bob presiding) and had a delightful time with the entire Baxter/Poczic/Colombi clan! The wedding was short and sweet with what I would call a moderate amount of (for non-catholics) imaginary friend mumbojumbo and the reception was as fun as a reception can be!

I got a shot of Bob telling Phil to “Stay away from those crazy Newtons until after the service!”

I also got a picture of some “angels in the architecture spinning to infinity hallelujah.” Or perhaps they were ordinary cherubim. The food and refreshments were absolutely fabuloso too! In retrospect though I would forgo the entire reception if the cost of the reception were to be given to Phil and Brandi to get them started off well – but what the hell we lucked out they wanted a fantastic reception. I am also looking forward to Phil coming to camp this week for some great fishing.

On our way home we opted to take the long way back through the Adirondacks, Montreal, Mont Tremblant, and central Quebec. It was a long drive but absolutely gorgeous. The rugged Adirondacks looked like they would be great hiking and trout fishing! Montreal must have anticipated our visit because there was an enormous black cloud hovering!

Montreal as Something Evil This Way Comes.

The Art Walker/Brian Tisdale crew were in camp this past week and we were kept busy drinking (way too much) and fishing. All Hail Caesar!!!! They also had their annual fishing tournament. Janet – in a drunken stupor, (this nickname may supersede The Evil Janeeto from the Planet Janetron!) signed the Fucking Owner’s (our team name) up! So I was forced to go out and catch enough bass in two days to win the bass category. Janet was supposed to help as with the other two person teams but let us just say she was a no show. I caught and measured 16 bass in two days over 14″ long, 5 were over 18″, three over 20″. The biggest was 22″ – caught on my fly-rod on a drifted minnow (no weight). The bulk of my fish were caught on – all together now – a number 3 silver Mepps with red tape on its treble hook. Who’d a guessed it??? Pickerel, walleye, wallerel, pickeye, yellow pike perch were also in great evidence this past week. Its only natural since the weather has been overcast and cool for the past three weeks. Out of the entire crew I think there were ~35+ 14″ and above fish caught! The vast majority of these fish were released after being measured. The weather has been so rainy that Art gave me a boat building book and advised me to begin the Ark! I’ll call it Art’s Ark. One of the great things about having the young guys in camp is that I can usually get them to carry a canoe (and me on my palanquin chair) into a pike lake. So Billy and Mike (the notorious Team Brokeback Bassholes), winners of the fishing contest three years running, were kind enough to take me into a small nearby pike lake. We had a great day there between light showers. I caught 6.5 pike, Billy caught 7.5 pike and Mike caught 4 pike. We only counted pike over 24″. This thus begs the question and leads me to one of the highlights of our day – a first for me – Me and Billy caught the same pike! And there was absolutely no foul hooking, both lures were down in his greedy gaping maw!

One Greedy Ass Pike!

Here’s a shot of the Brokeback Bassholes with the two pike that were later released. It was a fun day.

I have to get some things done, so must sign out soon. The weather continues to be overcast in the mid 60’s F with light winds, rain, and lake temperature around 67 to 68F. The bass seem to be massing to nest. The Serpentine, Upper Wapus and Slim portages have been cleared of trash left last week by a band of slobs  and the black-flies are on their way out too – its always nice to see unwanted pests go. I wish the Walker crew would come for two weeks. But I am not entirely sure my liver agrees. The mosquitoes are in fine fettle though! We need some sunny weather for the dragon flies to work them down next.

Yeah, Yeah, I know – “You’re complaining?? You get to spend the summer at Sportsmen’s Camp.”

But the long and short of it is that gas and fuel prices are screwing everybody. Our clientele are reasonably refractory to it because they are all friends and have been coming here for many tens of years and like me would probably die if they missed a pilgrimage to the far north. The other camps that rely on single shot advertising generated trips must be having a hellacious time of it. But we have had a couple cancellations due to financial difficulties and one “no show” already and are not having gaps filled in the schedule as they normally do either. But what the hell – Janet won’t let me raise prices based on fuel costs saying that the letters she sent out estimating guest costs would then be rendered inaccurate. Oh well, insolvency sure beats the hell out of inaccuracy! OK – Enough bitching.

We went fishing with Pat and Carol down the Montreal yesterday. It was a beautiful day but with hurricane force gusty winds making fishing almost impossible! I caught about 10 small pike and a small bass but did get to see three moose, a mink, several hawks, an eagle and much gorgeous scenery.

Here’s a shot of one of my favorite bays and 7″ waves generated in about 100 feet of fetch! The north end of Metikemedo had waves about 3 foot high! But it was warm and I can tell you we weren’t bothered by black-flies! They would have needed a jet ski or fighter jet to approach us!

Here’s a picture of the moose Janet and I saw on Penassi Lake. I spotted him when we beating back to the narrows at about a mile off. We trolled over to him as he munched new vegetation and got this great shot of the famed Northern Wood Goat. He was definitely enjoying a respite from the flies! We also saw a cow with two new born calves up in the narrows.

The lake temperature is now 66F and we are seeing some of the reddish “forest pond” dragonflies about and anticipate the major lake dragonfly hatch any day now. Great stuff! I am going to turn my boat over and paint it and work on getting the foundation of the new trebuchet prepared.