Goddamn Fantastic!
The fishing and weather have been wonderful. The lake temperature is in the upper 70’s F near 80 and the bulk of the mayflies (Janet suggests that they be called “July flies”) have hatched and the fish are nailing leeches and minnows. They are also responding very well to hardware and jitterbugs. Last night me, Janet and the boys spent about 2 hours on the lake at dusk. I caught about a dozen bass on my mepps none smaller than 12 inches and a good one at 17 1/2 inches. I also caught a very well built 30″ pike. Janet nailed a few bass on her jitterbug as well as a small pike. We didn’t do any fishing over deeper shoals, we were fishing the deeper weed beds where the minnows are schooling. Carol Fuller also got a nice perch north of elephant rock – we could hear her squealing in delight from about a quarter mile!
It won’t be all that long until the summer holidays of Vodka on the beach day, Mojito monday, Beer contest on the beach day, All Hail Caesar day, Polish dinner and cocktails, sailing in blustery or calm conditions (depending on the age of the crew – except for “I’m up for any conditions” – Bob Poczik) and the daily bean bag competition as well as all night darts. The Evil Janeeto (from the planet Janetron) has been doing a great job of turf management for beer croquet as well as cross country bocce too! We never run out of beach and lake driven activities and we sometime enjoy a cold drink during the fun!
It rained pretty good today and has cooled to about 75 F so its a very comfortable day. Firth lake levels are not all that different from dryer years. We seem to be getting enough rain to keep up with the demands of the growing season but levels are dropping steadily on the Wapus/Montreal river system and the Grassy is going to record lows this summer. I expect that it will end up about 6.5 to 7 feet below the norm. Sinclair is about 5.5 – 6 feet down now – you can actually walk around the lake now and vast amounts of shoreline rocks and hundreds of feet of gorgeous beach are exposed that haven’t been seen before in this lifetime. The fishing is still very good though and the landing is still in good shape. I actually think that its easier to put a boat in and out this year. I am thinking about a trek to Kapiskong to see the conditions there. It would also be a great year to take another group into Sinclair for beach combing, picnicking, shore lunching and swimming as the die-hards beat the water. So its all good. Is this heaven? No, its the boreal forest of northern Canada – Sportsmen’s Camp to be specific.