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.