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!