Canada
2014 continued . . .
The
wind blew almost the entire time we were in camp this year. We would
wake up to white caps out on the lake, bounce and buck to a fishing
spot during the day, and watch as it brought us piles of billowing
clouds, some thunder boomers and occasional lightning bolts in the
distance, and then it would serenade us outside our open cabin
windows while we slept. When the wind quit, it got a mite tepid. A
guest from Tennessee complained one evening that they came all the
way up to Canada to escape the heat and it was hot here. The winds
and breezes kept any bugs down to a minimum. I only got one bug bite
(that from a black fly while fishing) the entire week.
On
Wednesday morning, after breakfast sandwiches made with eggs, cheese,
bagels, and leftover Steve's Meats pork sausages, we tried the weed
lines in Convention Bay. We didn't find much for a while, but
sometimes you have to hunt, and when we moved three times, we found
'em - perch and walleye. We anchored a 100 yards off shore on some
weeds and commenced to yank up walleyes and an occasional perch or
crappie. We both hooked northerns. We practiced mostly catch and
release, but we kept the crappies and a couple 16-inch walleyes for
our fish fry later that day. We watched eagles and sea gulls, who
were no doubt watching us to see if any of the released fish were not
resuscitating so well, thus making easy pickings for the birds. The
sun came and went with the wind.
That
evening we caught fish at “the Mounds,” a rocky bar with a steep
drop off by it. While we were pulling in an occasional pike, Ellen
noticed a huge bull moose, feeding his way through the shallows a
couple of hundred yards away. I got a couple good pictures of it.
Very cool. After a dinner of bar-b-qued pork ribs, we watched
Grumpier Old Men.
Did I mention before that we were really roughing it as I forgot the
remote for the DVD player and monitor?
While
we caught lots of fish, the highlight of Thursday was for the birds.
That is, a deeply hooked fish didn't swim away fast enough after the
catch and release. No sooner did it splash in but a bald eagle and a
sea gull spied it and started circling and making passes trying to
zero in on a free lunch. The sea gull was the bolder of the two, but
not necessarily brighter. It landed by the fish that proved to be a
load for it, so it ferried it - tail in mouth - to a tall rock
nearby. We laughed at the bird style Laurel and Hardy antics as it
tried to pull the fish up the rock only to drop it back in the drink.
Finally, the exasperated sky carp ferried its dinner over to a shoal
some twenty yards away from us and managed to get it in place to put
on the feed bag. The hungry gull had just tied on its napkin and got
out its knife and fork when the eagle swooped down out of nowhere,
right in over our heads, snatching the fish in its talons right out
of the beak of the startled sea gull and flying away, presumably to
its nest. We laughed so hard at the indignant gull and his flock of
johnny-come-lately friends that came, too late to the rescue, but
sounding like the calvary on the way to save the day.
Did
you ever want to be a resort owner? I used to think I'd like that.
You know, talking fishing all day, guiding clients, living along a
lake - all the time, kicking back at night in my own boat while I
catch dinner, etc. but I wonder. We have never stayed over a
Saturday at Keystone, so we got to observe much of what goes on
behind the scenes on the change-over day (when guests leave and new
guests arrive) and during the week for that matter. A crew of young
people including all but one of the Frostiak's children showed up
Saturday morning to help clean cabin bedrooms, bathrooms, and
kitchens; do laundry, haul garbage, and generally help out getting
the lodge ready for a new crop of campers. Someone also has to man
the office and bait shop, greeting and checking in new guests,
answering questions and the phone, rounding up fresh water bottles
for each cabin's water coolers, getting bait, watching and updating
the weather board, handling problems, running the camp fishing guide
meeting at 4 PM on Saturdays, and just keeping order. I don't know
how often the bait guy shows up to fill the minnow tanks, but it must
be pretty often. (The week before we came, they were going through
150 dozen minnows a day!) During the week, there was plenty of lawn
to mow and building maintenance to work on. For two days, Dave and
Doug worked on the fish cleaning shack on our side of the camp (there
are two cleaning shacks). They were re-leveling it after winter frost
heaves using jacks and large chunks of timber, digging new drainage
ditches around it, and general maintenance. I have observed them
having to deal with a guest-plugged septic system (the guest wasn't
caught in it, but something they dropped down the comode was) and
with all kinds of varmints, including bears. There was brush to
clear and burn, garbage to be collected from each of their 11 cabins
every day. Someone also has to haul out the fish gut buckets each
day by boat to a spot where the eagles and gulls feast nightly. (On
our last day in camp, I saw Doug's newly
arrived-for-the-holiday-weekend girlfriend - who drove six hours from
Thunder Bay - go out on the gut bucket run, so she may be a keeper.)
Another daily chore is filling up gas tanks for all of the boats in
the camp. (I counted over 20 boats at the docks one day.) We had a
little engine trouble one day and Doug had to quit what he was doing
to fix or replace our Merc. (It was raining while he worked on it;
we were in having coffee.) The Frostiaks also try to put a new metal
roof on a cabin each year. Leanne drives the hour into town on
Mondays for supplies for the camp, for the camp fry dinner, and also
for her own kitchen. They have to check the 8-miles of bush road
back to the highway to keep it clear of downed trees and washouts
every day too. While they do some of the All-Canada sports shows and
try to go some place warm for a vacation after the camp closes in
mid-September, they all work “real” jobs in their hometown some
two hours north of the camp during winter, so . . . Anyway, I am
getting tired just thinking about it.
On
Sunday morning, after moving around Cedar Lake in a fruitless search
for jumbo perch, we anchored in Button Bay, so dubbed by Angie and
her new husband Brent on a trip here a couple of years ago. There
were no perch to speak of, but the walleyes were there in schools,
no, universities maybe! The famous pink jig was the hot lure and we
caught and released 20-inch plus walleyes one right after the other
for a couple of hours, keeping two smaller ones for lunch. After our
fish fry, the clouds looked a bit threatening, so we decided to start
packing up for the trip south. Before the storms came in, we had
most everything we didn't absolutely need loaded. We went down to
say goodbye to the Frostiaks and confirm our reservation for next
year. They were getting reading for the Canada day holiday week and
we talked a bit about that. After nachos and cocktails in the cabin,
we (okay, Ellen) fixed a dinner of pulled pork, baked potatoes, and
salads. We watched Australia before hitting the sack and
drifting into a northwoods dreamland to a loons on the lake and
breeze in the trees serenade.
We
left like thieves in the night at early-thirty Monday morning. There
were rain drops on the wind, but the trip home, while a bit blustery,
was mostly dry. We had a great week. We fished in a lot of new
spots and traveled to new areas on the lake including the burned out
bridge on the stream out of Cedar Lake on the way to Perrault Lake.
We got to try some of Leanne's spicy peach jam - awesome! Learned
some new tackle, met some new people, and just plain relaxed. I saw
a wolf cross the road ahead of us, but didn't manage to get my camera
up in time. The water was back under the road at Buller Creek near
Vermillion Bay, but when we were coming into Fort Frances, near one
of the fly-in base camps, we observed a guy off-loading gear into a
float plane from a Ford pickup that was parked in the lake up to the
doors because of the flooding there.
Until
next time, get out - it is the 5th of July this morning.
We had a good 4th, seeing lots of old friends and feasting
at the 100th Annual St. Charles Fourth of July Picnic in
Genoa at mid-day. We spent that evening relaxing over cocktails and
Smores by the fire pit at our friends, the Sikoras. I played catch
with Jake a bit - my shoulder is still punishing me. If anyone is
interesting in checking out Keystone, their website is:
http://www.keystone-lodge.com/; other wise send me an email at:
grousehollowjournal@gmail.com. Or write to: Greg Koelker, N2436
Proksch Coulee Road, Stoddard, WI 54658. Enjoy.
No comments:
Post a Comment