When the fish are working the cover like this your chance of doing well ae greatly increased, if you know how to fish them. If you just cast your lure back in the cover you will have a mess as they have a lot of power. YOu can get away with it with bass but pike with wrap you up so bad on the logs that you will be lucky ot get them or your tackle out.
What you have to do is work the edges. They are feeding so they will come out to the lure if presented right. You can sometimes see them coming and the excitement will make you yank the lure right out of their mouth if you are using a surface lure like a surface flatfish or lucky 13. It is the most exciting way to fish for me. I have seen huge pike, shallow water, come out of the water and come down on the lure. Makes you almost fall out of the dang boat setting the hook and most times you yank it away from them. This is a ball.
We eased up to casting range of the lillys and since there was no wind back there, just
drifted and started casting our trusty rapallas. You don't just cast and reel. To lure them out you toss the lure, I like floating lures like the Rapalla or Bassorena or the surface flatfish. I toss it out to the edge fo the cover and then wiggle it a little. Wait a second or two, wiggle it again. You can many times see the pike working its way through the lillys toward the action, sometimes more than one. The action was almost instant. The
first pike I had strike got away because I ripped the dang lure away from him in my
excitement but not for long, he just charged it again and latched on. This was more
like it! I was fighting this log and one of the others yelled, "Fish On!" and he was
fighting a fish. I had not gotten my pike in before the other yelled that he had one
too. Man the fishing was fast and furious! It was just like in Field and Stream. The
fish were not 30 pounders but maybe five or six and when you have three pike on at a
time in a drifting boat, who needs thirty pounders?
I have no clue how many pike we caught that day. Maybe fifteen or twenty, I don't know
but the fishing finally slowed down. We had caught so dang many and drifted into the
lillys and spooked the fish. That little bay had no name but that soon changed.
I backed the boat out a bit and moved up the shore to another likely place, still in
the same little bay but north a little. We started casting, me in the rear, Gary in the
middle and Bruce in the bow. We had all cast toward shore, to our left and were reeling
in. Concentrating. Unknown to us, a dang beaver had eased up on us from behind, I am
not even sure he knew we were there, but when he saw us he slapped that dang water with
his tail as they do to signal danger and we all set out hooks. Into nothing it turned
out but the slap startled us and we all thought we had a fish on. From then on that was
known as Beaver Bay.
We fished that little bay quite often that trip and it never disappointed us. We sure
never always had triples but we had a couple. We never caught a Walleye in there but
sure caught a lot of pike. I am guessing but there had to be maybe forty or fifty
caught by us in the bay in the time we were on the lake. Maybe less but not much less.
Number three when I get in the mood.
Just because one side is wrong doesn't mean the other side is right
We would venture out farther every day. We wanted to see all of the lake that we could but I have been thinking about it and I don’t think we had a map that first trip. We knew the Shabodic River, where Orie fished, was at the far end of the lake. Most people that fished it did so in the spring and this was September. I don’t remember seeing another boat the whole week but maybe we did. It was one huge lake and we sure didn’t see it all, in fact I didn’t see the Shabodic River until my third or fourth trip to the lake. I think it was the third.
We spent most of our days on the Western side of the lake and even considered moving camp if the weather was not so rotten. The side we were on was featureless and very un-Canadian lake like.
We would spend the days on the west side and then head back home, hoping to make it before dark. Most days we did but getting to that shore in the daylight did not make it easy to find camp. We finally decided to head for Pike island and when we saw it head north along the shore. We would then watch for the camp. It was still not easy to find as it was back in the woods about 10 ft and that make it hard to see. If we ventured out in the afternoon we would sometimes leave a Coleman lantern on low to guide us in but we hated wasting the fuel. We tried tying a white t-shirt on a tree and that helped.
I remember one morning we got up and it had rained and the wind blowing all night long. We had pulled the boat up on the shore but the waves were big enough to swamp the boat. It was full of water and still coming in. Crap! We got out there with buckets and started bailing and eventually we beat lake and got it floating. Maybe the wind let up and the lake let us win. We hauled it up further and then went back for breakfast.
After days of relentless rain every dang thing we owned was wet. The only heat we had was a Coleman cook stove and we strung lines in the tent and hung the cloths over them and cranked up the heat. Heck it was September and hot as heck anyway and we like to have roasted.
Our sleeping bags were the worse because the water got in them and they just never dried out. There was no way to dry them. We tried in the tent but it never seemed to be very successful. If the sun came out for a few minutes, and we were in camp we would rush to get them outside to dry. It helped some but they just never dried.
There was at least one day that we just could not get out on the lake because the wind was from the west and blowing hard. That lake would have some HUGE rollers and it was an odd lake. It is the only lake I can ever remember being on that the waves could be rolling in from Two directions. It made impossible to head into the wind when the waves got bad.
One night we were all three laying in our sleeping bags, wet and trying to get to sleep when we heard a grunting outside the tent. It was rustling and grunting and seemed to be working its way around the the tent
I don’t know who asked me but one of them asked me what it was. Like I was a dang Daniel Boone. I said, “It sounds like a bear to me”
“What the hell we gonna do?” says Gary. We had no firearm with us. I lay there and with no clue what the hell to do I said, “I am gonna go to sleep. If it comes in it will wake us up for sure” then I tried to do just that. In the darkness I saw Gary set up and grab the double bladed axe and set there holding it, as the noise continued. I did go to sleep. That just shows you what an inexperienced dope I was.
The next morning we got up and went out and looked things over. Sure enough, down on the beach there were tracks of TWO bear that came from the south and you could easily see where they had worked their way around the tent and then on north. Now that could have been bad for sure.
One night after that we heard wolves howling but they were far off. Fine with us.
We woke up one bright and early morning, well early anyway and again decided to head west. We had seen some kind of inlet to the south of Beaver Bay and were wondering what was back there. It was a long run in that boat with the little motor but what did we have if not time. The map shows the route we took.
We found the inlet and it was pretty wide but it was what we expected when we dreamed about fishing a Canadian lake. The south shore was like a dang cliff. Not straight up but a good 45 degrees or more, covered with pine. The north side of the inlet was lower and all cedar and pine. Many of the cedar were laying in the water and looked like prime Pike area.
We took the inlet in as far as we could and saw a narrow inlet to the left, you can see it on the little map. It was just beautiful. There were high cliffs on each side, as you went in and it opened up a bit to a flood plane. It was all covered with Lilly pads and grasses. At the far end we could see an old run down trappers cabin, long abandoned. Eventually we explored it but found nothing that I remember. I wish I could go there with a metal detector though. There were a number of places on that lake that I will eventually tell you about that would be fun to detect.
As I remember it, we pulled back in there and the sun finally came out. It was just gorgeous! We took off our cumbersome rain gear and started getting ready to fish. Many people shun fishing for Pike but I just love it . If there is any action at all it is with Pike and the chance of catching one of over 10 lbs is good. Well there were a lot of them in there.
As anyone that has fished pike will tell you the dang things will sometimes follow your lure in and not hit at it. Just follow it in and then lay under your boat. This is maddening but especially so when it is a dang hammer handle. That is a pike that is small. You don’t want to catch the dang thing but they will lay under the boat and nail your lure as you lift it out. Some times a BIG one with do it too and it is britches changing time!!
The bay was thick with weeds , which lay abut three feet under the surface and Lilly pads. I decided to use a SPS Silver Flatfish. This is a spinning size and a floater. That way the chances of getting into weeds is eased. A Rapalla or spinner is constantly fowling on you but these things can be killers. Great for bass too.
I would flip that bad boy out to the edge of some Lilly's and slowly work it back. The thing to remember is slowly. It will wobble just under the surface and drives Pike nuts. that shallow water it is very exciting fishing because the fish just explode out of the water and
try to swallow the thing. I can still clearly remember a fish that did that that day. It came completely out of the dang water and down on the lure, or where the dang lure was before I screamed and yanked the dang thing half way back to the boat. No problem though. I flipped it back and he took it again.
We were kept very busy that day in that little bay. Gary caught a fish and on landing it found that he had hooked it in the eye socket. Made me sick. We took the hook out and tossed it back but ever after that has been One Eye Bay to us.
This is enough for number three. I don’t want to bore those of you that don’t have an interest in fishing
One day we were fishing about where the red dot is. Things were slow and it was raining as usual. Not a pouring down rain but just a on and off type of thing. We would look at the sky, we did a lot of that and every lite spot gave us hope that the weather was breaking.
We never took a radio with us on these trips and had no idea what the weather was going to be. In fact we knew nothing at all about the outside world. One year we were up there through the entire Six Day War. Came out and heard that there had been a war. Sorta made us stop and think.
We were fishing and not doing very well, as I remember in. I was running the motor, heck I always was running the motor and we were trolling. That lake had great fishing in it but not just anywhere. You had to know where to go. Orie had told me that most of the fishermen fished at the mouth of the Shabodic River and camped down there too. He said that in the spring there would sometimes be 20 or 25 boats of fishermen down there and almost all of them camping. He said that in the spring especially the storms can make it impossible to return across the lake. Because of that, I always had a popup tent and food and fixings with me. I didn’t the first year but sure did afterwards. There were islands, as you can see by the map but when you were out on the lake it was hard to distinguish them from the far shore. Almost impossible for those of us that had never been there.
I have talked to fishermen that would never think of camping on shore because of bear. One guy told me that they went fishing and left a perfectly useful camp and when they came back the place was distroyed. A bear or maybe more had gone in the door of their new tent and made a back door. Their food was scattered all over the place and nothing much was usable. We were sure lucky that those two bear had not given us problems.
Anyway, we were trolling and nobody catching anything. One of us said we ought to have a contest. First big fish won a pot made up of five bucks each. Five bucks was a lot of money back then. Well I was up for it! We headed over to the island and started trolling.
We caught a few small fish, almost all the pike we caught were at least two feet long back then, some 36 with a few 40 inchers. The walleye usually ran smallish but great for eating. Most were maybe 12 inches or so with many of them running 16 or 18 inches. My biggest was 6 ½ lbs but it was not on this trip. My buddy Jay caught a 9 Pounder and I heard of fish over 12 lbs-Walleye- being caught on the Shabodic in the spring. Big females full of eggs.
Well we caught a few walleye and my cousin was riding the heck out of me that he was gonna win my money. It was part of our fun to ride eachother like that. Gary was quieter but still got his jibes in at us both.
Finally that hairball Bruce hung into a big sucker. It fought hard and from the way it fought it was a pike. Walleye fight deep and usually when you get them to the boat the line is straight down. The hug the bottom until you pull them off it. Pike will fight hard if you ram the hooks home and with the big ones you can actually feel them shake their heads, trying to rid themselves of the hook. It will not be a fast shake either, it will be a slow back—and ---forth with the big ones. That is what Bruces dang fish was doing. The dang runt was gonna get my money. He was laughing and hollering, “I win you rat Bastud! I win you Rat Bastud!” I told him that he didn’t have the sucker in yet but he had it hooked good.
I got out the net and his big mouth kept a going. Laughing and stupid going ons. The boy had no pride going on like that. A person should be humble I always figured
He brought that dang fish over to the side. It was a big one. Dang big for us newbies. I would guess about 36 to 38inches. He said, “you see that? You see that? You Rat Bastud?” I saw it.
I slipped the net under that sucker and with a heave brought it aboard. It was a nice fish. “Gimme my money. Gimme my money!” the stupid arse kept a going on. No grace at all in that boy..
I had the pike rag in the fish. I call it a pike rag because them dang pike are the slimeist dang fish I ever tried to hold down. We decided to carry a towel and throw it over the fish and then we could hold it down. Worked great. Anyway, I toss the rag over the fish and pinned it. It was trying to wreck the dang boat and they can make a mess out of your tackle. I pinned it and got out the needle nose pliers and went to work on that Rapalla. I Worked the hooks loose and held up the fish. Bruce was a grinning and I threw it overboard. Too small I told the boy. The look on that boys face has me laughing as I write this 42 years later. He sputtered and stammered and you know what? I thought I was gonna have to fight the boy. Gary was laughing his arse off and I was laughing and watching Bruce pretty close. Seems I might have been wrong in the boys eyes when I said it was too small.
Man Rat Bastud was the nicest thing he called me for the next few hours. In fact Bruce died last spring and he still was bitching about that fish after all these years if fishing was brought up. I brought it up a lot actually. By that time the dang fish was a hundred pounder.
He finally settled down but we had to quit laughing for that to happen. It ended up that he screwed me out of the kitty too. I didn’t want to have to watch my back the rest of the trip and what he heck, he was a Marine and I was a feared the boy would cry.
I think that was probably the biggest pike he caught the whole week too. Too bad it wasn’
Gary was not much of a fisherman like Bruce and I and he hung in the like a trooper. He was a trooper and never butched a bit, I did but he didn’t. A little while later we were trolling and gary hung one on. Another pike and it was a nice one. Maybe 30-32 inches. Man that fish fought. Gary was holding the rod against the gunnel of the boat instead of up in the air and just a cranking that bad boy in. The fish was fighting like mad and Gary was a cranking.
I was watching and holding the net, prepared to scoop the fish up when I could. I looked down and the pike was right at the tip of Garys rod. Gary kept a cranking. He cranked tha dang pike right up to the tip of the rod and kept cranking. That dang rod tip went into the pikes mouth and he kept a cranking. He must not have noticed what had happened. All fo a sudden the end of his rod broke right off at the second eyelet. I looked at Gary and told him that I thought he could quit cranking now. I will never forget the look on his face! We got the fish in and were lucky that we had a spare rod.
One day we were fishing Pike Island and doing pretty well. The pike were hitting and hitting hard. I have no idea how many fish we caught but we threw most back anyway. I only kept count of my fish on one trip. I marked them on my tackle box for some reason. I just counted pike. I caught 76 that week, not counting one heck of a bunch of walleye. That was not White Lake though.
We were not trolling that day but casting the shallows. We were having a ball too. We were casting to the fish and watching them come to the lure. Many would not take but many did. I was fighting one in. a fish about 28 inches as I remember, and looked closely. I yelled for them to look a that dang fish. There was not a hook in it but when it had sturck the Rapalla it had flipped the lure and the hook caught the line. In doing so it had looped around the fishes mouth plate or lip or what ever you call it and there he was, ready for neting without a hook in it.
We had a ball that week but it was because were were in wonderful country and were friends. We were miserable some of the time but it was the trip of a lifetime for me. I made 19 more trips to Canada but neither of them went again.
I will have many more aditions to this series of posts but they will be from other trips. I am ging to stick with White Lake until I run out of things that I feel will be of interest to you folks.
One year, it was in the spring, a group of us headed for White Lake. That lake can get so rough in bad weather we decided to camp in a sheltered area. Just to the north of One Eye Bay was a long cut, seen on the map and it led to Ravine Lake. This lake is just what its name implys, a long and narrow ravine..
The beginning of the lake is where the blue dot is. We figured that if we camped there we would be able to fish no mater how much the wind blew and it could sure get rough.
One morning we saw four guys on a big pontoon boat come in the cut. We went out to talk to them and they said they had spent the night in One Eye Bay because the big lake got so rough that it almost flipped the pontoon boat!! The pontoon boat was a fairly large one with two 35 hp Johnstons on it! Man it had to be rough out there! We hardly noticed it back where we were camped. I remember one day we were looking back toward One Eye Bay from our protected bay and something looked odd. We could not figure what it was we were seeing but decided to investigate.
A couple of us hopped in a boat and headed out to look it over. As we neared the chanel we could see that it was huge waves we were seeing. They were coming across the opening – see yellow arrow and were about 10 or 15 ft high and crashing into that little bay. We were in the sheltered bay to the north of the opening. That was scary because we had camped the year before on the edge of that little bay. Thankfully we had no storm like that.
One day we decide to take a run to the northern end of Ravine lake. As you can see by the map it was quite a run. We fished along the way and picked up enough fish for a shore dinner. One odd thing worth mentioning is that just north of our camp, blue dot, our compass would go nuts. It would spin like a top. There must be a lot of iron in the area or something.
As we neared the north end of Ravine lake we noticed smoke coming from an old run down trappers cabin. There was a boat there and you could see someone had made some rough patches to the cabin. There was a tarp tied over the top to shed off rain and the window had been crudely boarded up.
We pulled into shore and two guys came out. We got into a conversation and we found that they were also from Pontiac, where we lived. The cabin was just an old trappers cabin and they had been up for a couple weeks and were staying a month.
They invited us into the cabin, which was fairly large for a trappers cabin and as we walked in we saw that there was a tent pitched, inside of the cabin. They laughed and said that the roof leaked and the tent had mosquito netting. They used the rest of the cabin for cooking and such but at night they slept in the tent. Smart.
I noticed a rifle leaning against the wall and mentioned it. They said that it was for a bear that had been hanging around camp. We were supprised and they took us outside and pointed out what we had not noticed before. The wooden door of the cabin was all clawed up and there were some cans laying around that had been all chewed up. They said that the bear had been coming around almost every day and that they had a lisence and were gonna shoot the thing. THey said it would often come at night and raise hell trying to get in the cabin. I asked them what was holding them back and they said that they were waiting until the end fo their vacation because they had no way of preserving it and it would cost some money if they were to take it to a freezer in White River. Sounded smart to me. I don’t know if they ever got it or not.
They told us about another lake to the east of them, accessable by taking a moose trail- see yellow line, the cabin is at the yellow dot at the north end of Ravine lake. This lake was a fly in lake and was full of nice fish. There were a couple boats left there and they were rented by a lodge out on the main highway. We would have to pay at the lodge and then just hike to the boats and go fishing. Easy huh?
Now like I said we were camped a the narrows where White Lake and Ravine Lake met. W were camped in an old lumber camp and there were a lot of junk around including old trash piles and such. I was not much interested in relics back then but sure wish I had paid more attention to what I saw.
As I have been thinking about it I remember that this year I was with my cousin Terry, who is a barber in Oscoda Michigan and his best friend Norm. They had done a bit of fishing but this was their first trip to Canada.
I remember one day in One Eye Bay. It was a great day and the weather was just perfect. The water was high and the woods were flooded. This lake was an impoundment and I honestly didn’t realize it until my last trip to the lake. In the spring the water would come up at least five feet or more and it would flood back into the Forest. This was great fishing but if a big old lunker grabbed on back in that brush it was tough to get them out. The weeds back in there were hard bark and nothing like lake weeds. A pike gets wrapped around something like that it is almost a guarantee of a lost bait. We only have so many lures so if a fish did bust our line we would watch for a while because they would usually jump and try to throw them. Since most of what we were using were floaters we usually eventually got them back.
I was standing up in the back and casting my Rapalla toward the emerging Lilly pads. I got a strike and that fish took off and I could hardly slow it down. I was up and a jumping and yelling, loving it. The fish fought like it was possessed and since the water was only about six ft deep it had no place to go but away. In my experience not many pike jump. I have seen it happen but not as a rule.
Terry was in the bow and I had him pull anchor and ran to the bow. The dang fish was slowly pulling us and I was scared that it was going to get in the brush. This big sucker was gone if he reached that stuff. Even if he didn’t get to the flooded Forest he had plenty of logs and cedar trees laying along the water line and you can bet they know where every one is.
I finally got it turned or at least he stopped his run and I started working him back my way. I had no idea what the heck I had on but I knew it was big! I have caught a lot of pike but this one was in a class of his own. At least that was the impression I had at the time. Still do
I yelled for one of them to get the dang net because I was sure not gonna be able to horse this sucker in. Terry grabbed the net and stood at the side while I worked it his way from the bow, man I was excited. We still could not see the dang fish as the water was stained with tannin and the back of a pike is dark anyway. All we had to go by is the angle of the line and it was straight down. It started coming up and all of a sudden Terry said Holy Shat! And stared. Then I saw it. That was the biggest dang pike I have ever seen! I yelled at Terry to net it but was worried that the net was not big enough. Terry slipped the net in the water, at the head end and the dang fish took off and headed down. I held on and all of a sudden the dang line snapped.
I just stood there and stared at the black water, still able to see the swirl where its monster tail left its mark. Terry just looked at me and said he was sorry but it was not his fault at all. The dang big fish are just big enough to get off some times.
I have not idea how big it was but it was the biggest I have ever had on and the one thing that sticks in my mind is that when I saw that sucker at the surface, right next to the boat, I thought, “It’s back looks like a loaf of bread” It was as wide as a loaf of bread! Now that sucker would have been on my wall right now if I had landed it.
I have caught some nice pike up there, mostly released but that was the biggest I have ever had on . I did see one bigger on Oswald Lake but that will be another story.
When we went up there camping we always had to take in a stock of ice. One year we took dry ice and it worked great. When we took ice of course we had coolers and the first thing we would do is bury them up to their lids in the sand. The ice would last a lot longer that way.
One day we were drifting in One Eye Bay and we had picked up a few pike along one area where the land climbed rather steeply from the water. We could not see it as the shore line was a solid mass of cedar and pine. Many cedar were hanging into the water, having their roots undercut by the waves over time. We had picked up a few fish and I looked down in the water and saw a lot of minnows there. I wondered why. I heard a noise and told my companions to listen.
It was water. Sounded like falling water. I looked at the shore line and the weeds on the bottom and could see there was a current coming out from the shore. Heck, there was a stream here and it attracted the minnows and the minnows, the pike.
I forced the nose of the boat up in the brush and we looked into the trees and could see a little brook, not more than a foot or two wide , that went up the hill, winding among the trees and moss. It was dark up there too. Sorta spooky.
I got out, always wanting to explore and walked a short distance up along the brook. I could see something white up ahead on the hillside but it was hard to see what the heck it was. The noise was coming from there I called to Terry and Norm to join me for a bit of exploring, which they did.
We worked our way up the hill and came to the white object I saw. It was a frozen waterfall! There was one heck of a lot of ice there too. Plenty for our camp and more. We went back to our boat and headed for camp where we picked up an empty cooler and headed back. We also grabbed the camp axe.
We went back to the waterfall and filled the cooler with ice. It was great. We never had to worry about ice again on all the rest of my trips. That ice fall is there today I bet because it was in June that we usually went.
Heck, more happened that trip but I will have to tell that next time, if you guys are not getting tired of this Canada fishing stuff I sorta like reliving these trips as I have not thought about them in many years
Like I said, Terry, Norm and I were camped at the old lumber camp at the opening going into Ravine Lake. It was a nice camp site and well protected. No matter how the winds raged on the big lake we could find a place to fish.
We saw a lot of game too. Moose were common as were beaver and otter. Loons were heard calling every evening on almost every lake I ever camped on. There is nothing like the mornful call of a loon on a glassy lake in the evening. The sound carrys for ever.
Terry had a thing for bears. He worried about them all the time. I did all I could to help the boy too. I would clean the fish and then yell, “Hey Terry! Look!” and I would take the guts and throw them into the woods as far as I could behind the tents. He would panic and take off after them and I would yell, “Hey Terry” and toss a handfull in another direction. Now it was stupid but funny as heck watching him running and hunting for the fish guts.
We would set around the campfire at night and just talk as guys will and I always managed to get the converstaion around to bear. It would really get him upset and he would start watching the blackness around us. There would be natural noises in the woods around us but I would keep saying, “What’s that” at every noise. This did no good for the boys nerves, I will tell you that.
It was real strange too because he was raised I Oscoda at his parents resort and he had spent much more time in the woods than I ever had and killed much more game. Bear just spooked the boy.
We were gabbing one day and he was whining about the bear coming in at night. I told him that he ought set up an alarm system to alert us if one came snooping around. I suggested that he take a bunch of cans, of which there were plenty in the old camp, and put a pebble in each one and string them on a string around camp. That way if a bear came in we would be warned.
I was just messing with the boy but in a little while he was up a scrounging around the trash pile and came back with a bunch of cans. The boy was a gonna do it. What a character.
He messed with that dang thing for a couple hours. Stringing the cans on a line and putting pebble in each one, then testing them to see if they could be heard from the tent. What a nut. I don’t remember where the heck he found the string he used, maybe it was fishing line, I don’t remember.. Where ever he got it I got a piece too. Unknown to him of course.
Some time during the day or maybe it was later, I waited until he was gone, fishing or something and I took my length of string and tied it to the alarm line, in a hidden spot of course and much like I did to Jay one the Chapleau River I brought the line under the back of the tent to my bedroll.
We sat around the fire that night and I was teasing him. I told him that the thing would not work and he wasted his time. There were no bear around there anyway was there? We had just been down visiting the two guys in the cabin at the end of the lake the day before so I was not going to have much luck convincing him of that.
I started talking bear and said, “Whats that?” at every sound. It was making him a bit jumpy but I guess that was the point.
Well we finally called it a night and crawled in to the sleeping bags. Everything quieted down. We were tired from a long day. We would usually get up at dawn, at least at the first part of the week. Dawn came pretty early up there. I do not really remember the hour but I am guessing at 4:30 or 5 AM. It didn’t get dark until around 10PM and then we would have campfire time and BS time and it was around midnight before we hit the sack. Some times we would fish until dark and it was a sure thing that we slept well.
Everything was pretty quiet and I gave the line a little jerk. Now I had not idea wher the noise would come from because the dang fool had cans with pebbles in them all over the place it seemed. I said, “Whats that?” and he didn’t make a dang sound. I asked him again and the dang fool was asleep! Well that was not gonna float and I threw a dang boot at him. He woke with a start and asked what the hell was the matter with me. I tolt the boy that his bear signal was a working and he had better go out and see what he had caught! That wasn’t a gonna happen! I offered him my flashlight and gave the string a little yank and a can rattled from his side of the tent. It was off in the woods a bit but since we really had not cleared any more than necessary, the noise was close.
Now the boy used the lords name in vain and I weren’t proud of him. I told him not to worry because it sounded like it was only one bear but that didn’t seem to ease his mind a bit. Norm asked what we were going to do and just like with Bruce and Gary I told them I was going back to sleep.
I don’t think they got much sleep that night and until morning and when they found my string, they were thinking I was the bravest feller in the woods. As soon as they saw the string they were calling me the biggest @#$%& in the woods. We laughed about it later but they were rather pizzed at the sleep they lost.
Another thing I remember happening at that camp was when I was cooking dinner one afternoon. I do remember it was during the day. I was frying up some taters and needed some milk for something. I can not remember what. For milk we used condenced milk and mixed it with water, half and half.
Now this is one of the dumbest things I ever did. I have done worse things but none dummer. I am gonna try to discribe it but will probably have to include a picture so you can understand what a bone head I was.
In the picture the yellow is where I stabbed the first cuy, blue was where the second air hole was suppose to be. Red is where my second cut actually was. The blade went it bahind the skin on my palm! It went two dang inches if it went in at all!!
I was standing over the coleman stove, with the tater a frying away. I grabbed the can of Carnation Milk in my left hand, after opening my jack knife. Now to open the can I just jabbed the knife into the can on lthe outside, away from my hand and twisted it back and forth. They to make an air hole I jabbed the dang knife into the can the opposite of that hole, which made it next to the web of my hand. Problem is, my aim sucked!
I drove that dang knife into the web of my hand, between the thumb and forfinger and under the skin down into the palm! I figure I use the lords name wrongly about them but I misremember. That sucker hurt and started suirting blood. Man I set down that can rite quick and grabbed my hand and tried to pinch it off but it would not quit. Hell the blood was all over in the taters and I grabbed the pan and took it off the fire. I think I might have been a squeelign like a dang pig too because my two companions came a running.
I went to the lake and tried to wash it off but it just kept a bleeding and that was probably good as the knife went in at least and inch and a half to two inches. It hurt like hell and was just a dumping blood. Terry went and got me a bandaid and I kept a squeezing that thing together and when I released the dang blood came a running. It had me worried because we were a long way from any doctor. I don’t know of any arteries in the dang palm of the hand but what the heck. I didn’t know where any artery was at all.
I kept a washing it in the cold water and squeezing it and finally it quit bleeding and we bandaged it up. I bet it took a good ten minutes for it to quit.
Terry went and got the fryng pan of taters and was gonna pitch them. I yelled and told him they were still good, just a little bloody. They looked at me like I was nuts but I was not gonna throw away perfectly good taters! I grabbed the pan and took it to the lake and stuck it in the sworled it around like I was a panning gold. As I remember it now the pan must not have been on long and was not very hot because the blood washed off pretty well. They gave me a sorta sneerly look but I knew them, food was food and if the taters were not red, they would eat them and I was right.
After a little moaning and such and I told them I was gonna eat them all my ownself, they dug in.
You know, it made perfectly good sense back then but I would probably not do it now.
Heck, I remember on another trip, with some other guys to the same lake that we all met at noon on an island for a noon meal. It had been raining off and on for a couple day sand it was dang near impossible to start a fire. Heck we even snapped the dead branches off some small pines and dumped gasoline on them but when the gas burned off the fire went out.
I got an idea, something I had read somewhere. There were some birch trees on the island and I peeled some bark off them. I rolled it up and set a match to it and I will tell you, that is one hot flame. Birch is full of pitch and it burns hot and it can be in water for YEARS and it will still burn. I found a birch tree on tlhe bottom Lake Charlevoix one day and it had to have been there for more than sixty years, maybe a hundred. I peeled some bark off it, the wood was rotten. I bought it to shore in my BC and after it dried, it burned hotter than heck.
Anyway back the the point I was making. I think there was four of us on that island and when the food was broken out, after the fire was a going good, the hotdogs were found to be bad. Bad was not the word for it. Flys had lain eggs all over the dang things and they stunk. We only had hotdogs and bread. They were a griping and started to pitch them to the gulls but I was hungry. I told them that if the gulls could eat them I could too and proceeded to scrape the eggs off with my knife and cooked them up. I will tell you one thing. I had them all to myself.
I must have been a dumbarse back then because I doubt I would do it now. Unless I was hungry that is.
Man every time I start one of these story’s it turns out to not be what I had intended when I started. This one was suppose to be about fishing on that lake beyond the Ravine Lake. In fact the last three were gonna be about that but as I start typing I remember some other dang thing that happened and I get off course.
What you have to do is work the edges. They are feeding so they will come out to the lure if presented right. You can sometimes see them coming and the excitement will make you yank the lure right out of their mouth if you are using a surface lure like a surface flatfish or lucky 13. It is the most exciting way to fish for me. I have seen huge pike, shallow water, come out of the water and come down on the lure. Makes you almost fall out of the dang boat setting the hook and most times you yank it away from them. This is a ball.
We eased up to casting range of the lillys and since there was no wind back there, just
drifted and started casting our trusty rapallas. You don't just cast and reel. To lure them out you toss the lure, I like floating lures like the Rapalla or Bassorena or the surface flatfish. I toss it out to the edge fo the cover and then wiggle it a little. Wait a second or two, wiggle it again. You can many times see the pike working its way through the lillys toward the action, sometimes more than one. The action was almost instant. The
first pike I had strike got away because I ripped the dang lure away from him in my
excitement but not for long, he just charged it again and latched on. This was more
like it! I was fighting this log and one of the others yelled, "Fish On!" and he was
fighting a fish. I had not gotten my pike in before the other yelled that he had one
too. Man the fishing was fast and furious! It was just like in Field and Stream. The
fish were not 30 pounders but maybe five or six and when you have three pike on at a
time in a drifting boat, who needs thirty pounders?
I have no clue how many pike we caught that day. Maybe fifteen or twenty, I don't know
but the fishing finally slowed down. We had caught so dang many and drifted into the
lillys and spooked the fish. That little bay had no name but that soon changed.
I backed the boat out a bit and moved up the shore to another likely place, still in
the same little bay but north a little. We started casting, me in the rear, Gary in the
middle and Bruce in the bow. We had all cast toward shore, to our left and were reeling
in. Concentrating. Unknown to us, a dang beaver had eased up on us from behind, I am
not even sure he knew we were there, but when he saw us he slapped that dang water with
his tail as they do to signal danger and we all set out hooks. Into nothing it turned
out but the slap startled us and we all thought we had a fish on. From then on that was
known as Beaver Bay.
We fished that little bay quite often that trip and it never disappointed us. We sure
never always had triples but we had a couple. We never caught a Walleye in there but
sure caught a lot of pike. I am guessing but there had to be maybe forty or fifty
caught by us in the bay in the time we were on the lake. Maybe less but not much less.
Number three when I get in the mood.
Just because one side is wrong doesn't mean the other side is right
We would venture out farther every day. We wanted to see all of the lake that we could but I have been thinking about it and I don’t think we had a map that first trip. We knew the Shabodic River, where Orie fished, was at the far end of the lake. Most people that fished it did so in the spring and this was September. I don’t remember seeing another boat the whole week but maybe we did. It was one huge lake and we sure didn’t see it all, in fact I didn’t see the Shabodic River until my third or fourth trip to the lake. I think it was the third.
We spent most of our days on the Western side of the lake and even considered moving camp if the weather was not so rotten. The side we were on was featureless and very un-Canadian lake like.
We would spend the days on the west side and then head back home, hoping to make it before dark. Most days we did but getting to that shore in the daylight did not make it easy to find camp. We finally decided to head for Pike island and when we saw it head north along the shore. We would then watch for the camp. It was still not easy to find as it was back in the woods about 10 ft and that make it hard to see. If we ventured out in the afternoon we would sometimes leave a Coleman lantern on low to guide us in but we hated wasting the fuel. We tried tying a white t-shirt on a tree and that helped.
I remember one morning we got up and it had rained and the wind blowing all night long. We had pulled the boat up on the shore but the waves were big enough to swamp the boat. It was full of water and still coming in. Crap! We got out there with buckets and started bailing and eventually we beat lake and got it floating. Maybe the wind let up and the lake let us win. We hauled it up further and then went back for breakfast.
After days of relentless rain every dang thing we owned was wet. The only heat we had was a Coleman cook stove and we strung lines in the tent and hung the cloths over them and cranked up the heat. Heck it was September and hot as heck anyway and we like to have roasted.
Our sleeping bags were the worse because the water got in them and they just never dried out. There was no way to dry them. We tried in the tent but it never seemed to be very successful. If the sun came out for a few minutes, and we were in camp we would rush to get them outside to dry. It helped some but they just never dried.
There was at least one day that we just could not get out on the lake because the wind was from the west and blowing hard. That lake would have some HUGE rollers and it was an odd lake. It is the only lake I can ever remember being on that the waves could be rolling in from Two directions. It made impossible to head into the wind when the waves got bad.
One night we were all three laying in our sleeping bags, wet and trying to get to sleep when we heard a grunting outside the tent. It was rustling and grunting and seemed to be working its way around the the tent
I don’t know who asked me but one of them asked me what it was. Like I was a dang Daniel Boone. I said, “It sounds like a bear to me”
“What the hell we gonna do?” says Gary. We had no firearm with us. I lay there and with no clue what the hell to do I said, “I am gonna go to sleep. If it comes in it will wake us up for sure” then I tried to do just that. In the darkness I saw Gary set up and grab the double bladed axe and set there holding it, as the noise continued. I did go to sleep. That just shows you what an inexperienced dope I was.
The next morning we got up and went out and looked things over. Sure enough, down on the beach there were tracks of TWO bear that came from the south and you could easily see where they had worked their way around the tent and then on north. Now that could have been bad for sure.
One night after that we heard wolves howling but they were far off. Fine with us.
We woke up one bright and early morning, well early anyway and again decided to head west. We had seen some kind of inlet to the south of Beaver Bay and were wondering what was back there. It was a long run in that boat with the little motor but what did we have if not time. The map shows the route we took.
We found the inlet and it was pretty wide but it was what we expected when we dreamed about fishing a Canadian lake. The south shore was like a dang cliff. Not straight up but a good 45 degrees or more, covered with pine. The north side of the inlet was lower and all cedar and pine. Many of the cedar were laying in the water and looked like prime Pike area.
We took the inlet in as far as we could and saw a narrow inlet to the left, you can see it on the little map. It was just beautiful. There were high cliffs on each side, as you went in and it opened up a bit to a flood plane. It was all covered with Lilly pads and grasses. At the far end we could see an old run down trappers cabin, long abandoned. Eventually we explored it but found nothing that I remember. I wish I could go there with a metal detector though. There were a number of places on that lake that I will eventually tell you about that would be fun to detect.
As I remember it, we pulled back in there and the sun finally came out. It was just gorgeous! We took off our cumbersome rain gear and started getting ready to fish. Many people shun fishing for Pike but I just love it . If there is any action at all it is with Pike and the chance of catching one of over 10 lbs is good. Well there were a lot of them in there.
As anyone that has fished pike will tell you the dang things will sometimes follow your lure in and not hit at it. Just follow it in and then lay under your boat. This is maddening but especially so when it is a dang hammer handle. That is a pike that is small. You don’t want to catch the dang thing but they will lay under the boat and nail your lure as you lift it out. Some times a BIG one with do it too and it is britches changing time!!
The bay was thick with weeds , which lay abut three feet under the surface and Lilly pads. I decided to use a SPS Silver Flatfish. This is a spinning size and a floater. That way the chances of getting into weeds is eased. A Rapalla or spinner is constantly fowling on you but these things can be killers. Great for bass too.
I would flip that bad boy out to the edge of some Lilly's and slowly work it back. The thing to remember is slowly. It will wobble just under the surface and drives Pike nuts. that shallow water it is very exciting fishing because the fish just explode out of the water and
try to swallow the thing. I can still clearly remember a fish that did that that day. It came completely out of the dang water and down on the lure, or where the dang lure was before I screamed and yanked the dang thing half way back to the boat. No problem though. I flipped it back and he took it again.
We were kept very busy that day in that little bay. Gary caught a fish and on landing it found that he had hooked it in the eye socket. Made me sick. We took the hook out and tossed it back but ever after that has been One Eye Bay to us.
This is enough for number three. I don’t want to bore those of you that don’t have an interest in fishing
One day we were fishing about where the red dot is. Things were slow and it was raining as usual. Not a pouring down rain but just a on and off type of thing. We would look at the sky, we did a lot of that and every lite spot gave us hope that the weather was breaking.
We never took a radio with us on these trips and had no idea what the weather was going to be. In fact we knew nothing at all about the outside world. One year we were up there through the entire Six Day War. Came out and heard that there had been a war. Sorta made us stop and think.
We were fishing and not doing very well, as I remember in. I was running the motor, heck I always was running the motor and we were trolling. That lake had great fishing in it but not just anywhere. You had to know where to go. Orie had told me that most of the fishermen fished at the mouth of the Shabodic River and camped down there too. He said that in the spring there would sometimes be 20 or 25 boats of fishermen down there and almost all of them camping. He said that in the spring especially the storms can make it impossible to return across the lake. Because of that, I always had a popup tent and food and fixings with me. I didn’t the first year but sure did afterwards. There were islands, as you can see by the map but when you were out on the lake it was hard to distinguish them from the far shore. Almost impossible for those of us that had never been there.
I have talked to fishermen that would never think of camping on shore because of bear. One guy told me that they went fishing and left a perfectly useful camp and when they came back the place was distroyed. A bear or maybe more had gone in the door of their new tent and made a back door. Their food was scattered all over the place and nothing much was usable. We were sure lucky that those two bear had not given us problems.
Anyway, we were trolling and nobody catching anything. One of us said we ought to have a contest. First big fish won a pot made up of five bucks each. Five bucks was a lot of money back then. Well I was up for it! We headed over to the island and started trolling.
We caught a few small fish, almost all the pike we caught were at least two feet long back then, some 36 with a few 40 inchers. The walleye usually ran smallish but great for eating. Most were maybe 12 inches or so with many of them running 16 or 18 inches. My biggest was 6 ½ lbs but it was not on this trip. My buddy Jay caught a 9 Pounder and I heard of fish over 12 lbs-Walleye- being caught on the Shabodic in the spring. Big females full of eggs.
Well we caught a few walleye and my cousin was riding the heck out of me that he was gonna win my money. It was part of our fun to ride eachother like that. Gary was quieter but still got his jibes in at us both.
Finally that hairball Bruce hung into a big sucker. It fought hard and from the way it fought it was a pike. Walleye fight deep and usually when you get them to the boat the line is straight down. The hug the bottom until you pull them off it. Pike will fight hard if you ram the hooks home and with the big ones you can actually feel them shake their heads, trying to rid themselves of the hook. It will not be a fast shake either, it will be a slow back—and ---forth with the big ones. That is what Bruces dang fish was doing. The dang runt was gonna get my money. He was laughing and hollering, “I win you rat Bastud! I win you Rat Bastud!” I told him that he didn’t have the sucker in yet but he had it hooked good.
I got out the net and his big mouth kept a going. Laughing and stupid going ons. The boy had no pride going on like that. A person should be humble I always figured
He brought that dang fish over to the side. It was a big one. Dang big for us newbies. I would guess about 36 to 38inches. He said, “you see that? You see that? You Rat Bastud?” I saw it.
I slipped the net under that sucker and with a heave brought it aboard. It was a nice fish. “Gimme my money. Gimme my money!” the stupid arse kept a going on. No grace at all in that boy..
I had the pike rag in the fish. I call it a pike rag because them dang pike are the slimeist dang fish I ever tried to hold down. We decided to carry a towel and throw it over the fish and then we could hold it down. Worked great. Anyway, I toss the rag over the fish and pinned it. It was trying to wreck the dang boat and they can make a mess out of your tackle. I pinned it and got out the needle nose pliers and went to work on that Rapalla. I Worked the hooks loose and held up the fish. Bruce was a grinning and I threw it overboard. Too small I told the boy. The look on that boys face has me laughing as I write this 42 years later. He sputtered and stammered and you know what? I thought I was gonna have to fight the boy. Gary was laughing his arse off and I was laughing and watching Bruce pretty close. Seems I might have been wrong in the boys eyes when I said it was too small.
Man Rat Bastud was the nicest thing he called me for the next few hours. In fact Bruce died last spring and he still was bitching about that fish after all these years if fishing was brought up. I brought it up a lot actually. By that time the dang fish was a hundred pounder.
He finally settled down but we had to quit laughing for that to happen. It ended up that he screwed me out of the kitty too. I didn’t want to have to watch my back the rest of the trip and what he heck, he was a Marine and I was a feared the boy would cry.
I think that was probably the biggest pike he caught the whole week too. Too bad it wasn’
Gary was not much of a fisherman like Bruce and I and he hung in the like a trooper. He was a trooper and never butched a bit, I did but he didn’t. A little while later we were trolling and gary hung one on. Another pike and it was a nice one. Maybe 30-32 inches. Man that fish fought. Gary was holding the rod against the gunnel of the boat instead of up in the air and just a cranking that bad boy in. The fish was fighting like mad and Gary was a cranking.
I was watching and holding the net, prepared to scoop the fish up when I could. I looked down and the pike was right at the tip of Garys rod. Gary kept a cranking. He cranked tha dang pike right up to the tip of the rod and kept cranking. That dang rod tip went into the pikes mouth and he kept a cranking. He must not have noticed what had happened. All fo a sudden the end of his rod broke right off at the second eyelet. I looked at Gary and told him that I thought he could quit cranking now. I will never forget the look on his face! We got the fish in and were lucky that we had a spare rod.
One day we were fishing Pike Island and doing pretty well. The pike were hitting and hitting hard. I have no idea how many fish we caught but we threw most back anyway. I only kept count of my fish on one trip. I marked them on my tackle box for some reason. I just counted pike. I caught 76 that week, not counting one heck of a bunch of walleye. That was not White Lake though.
We were not trolling that day but casting the shallows. We were having a ball too. We were casting to the fish and watching them come to the lure. Many would not take but many did. I was fighting one in. a fish about 28 inches as I remember, and looked closely. I yelled for them to look a that dang fish. There was not a hook in it but when it had sturck the Rapalla it had flipped the lure and the hook caught the line. In doing so it had looped around the fishes mouth plate or lip or what ever you call it and there he was, ready for neting without a hook in it.
We had a ball that week but it was because were were in wonderful country and were friends. We were miserable some of the time but it was the trip of a lifetime for me. I made 19 more trips to Canada but neither of them went again.
I will have many more aditions to this series of posts but they will be from other trips. I am ging to stick with White Lake until I run out of things that I feel will be of interest to you folks.
One year, it was in the spring, a group of us headed for White Lake. That lake can get so rough in bad weather we decided to camp in a sheltered area. Just to the north of One Eye Bay was a long cut, seen on the map and it led to Ravine Lake. This lake is just what its name implys, a long and narrow ravine..
The beginning of the lake is where the blue dot is. We figured that if we camped there we would be able to fish no mater how much the wind blew and it could sure get rough.
One morning we saw four guys on a big pontoon boat come in the cut. We went out to talk to them and they said they had spent the night in One Eye Bay because the big lake got so rough that it almost flipped the pontoon boat!! The pontoon boat was a fairly large one with two 35 hp Johnstons on it! Man it had to be rough out there! We hardly noticed it back where we were camped. I remember one day we were looking back toward One Eye Bay from our protected bay and something looked odd. We could not figure what it was we were seeing but decided to investigate.
A couple of us hopped in a boat and headed out to look it over. As we neared the chanel we could see that it was huge waves we were seeing. They were coming across the opening – see yellow arrow and were about 10 or 15 ft high and crashing into that little bay. We were in the sheltered bay to the north of the opening. That was scary because we had camped the year before on the edge of that little bay. Thankfully we had no storm like that.
One day we decide to take a run to the northern end of Ravine lake. As you can see by the map it was quite a run. We fished along the way and picked up enough fish for a shore dinner. One odd thing worth mentioning is that just north of our camp, blue dot, our compass would go nuts. It would spin like a top. There must be a lot of iron in the area or something.
As we neared the north end of Ravine lake we noticed smoke coming from an old run down trappers cabin. There was a boat there and you could see someone had made some rough patches to the cabin. There was a tarp tied over the top to shed off rain and the window had been crudely boarded up.
We pulled into shore and two guys came out. We got into a conversation and we found that they were also from Pontiac, where we lived. The cabin was just an old trappers cabin and they had been up for a couple weeks and were staying a month.
They invited us into the cabin, which was fairly large for a trappers cabin and as we walked in we saw that there was a tent pitched, inside of the cabin. They laughed and said that the roof leaked and the tent had mosquito netting. They used the rest of the cabin for cooking and such but at night they slept in the tent. Smart.
I noticed a rifle leaning against the wall and mentioned it. They said that it was for a bear that had been hanging around camp. We were supprised and they took us outside and pointed out what we had not noticed before. The wooden door of the cabin was all clawed up and there were some cans laying around that had been all chewed up. They said that the bear had been coming around almost every day and that they had a lisence and were gonna shoot the thing. THey said it would often come at night and raise hell trying to get in the cabin. I asked them what was holding them back and they said that they were waiting until the end fo their vacation because they had no way of preserving it and it would cost some money if they were to take it to a freezer in White River. Sounded smart to me. I don’t know if they ever got it or not.
They told us about another lake to the east of them, accessable by taking a moose trail- see yellow line, the cabin is at the yellow dot at the north end of Ravine lake. This lake was a fly in lake and was full of nice fish. There were a couple boats left there and they were rented by a lodge out on the main highway. We would have to pay at the lodge and then just hike to the boats and go fishing. Easy huh?
Now like I said we were camped a the narrows where White Lake and Ravine Lake met. W were camped in an old lumber camp and there were a lot of junk around including old trash piles and such. I was not much interested in relics back then but sure wish I had paid more attention to what I saw.
As I have been thinking about it I remember that this year I was with my cousin Terry, who is a barber in Oscoda Michigan and his best friend Norm. They had done a bit of fishing but this was their first trip to Canada.
I remember one day in One Eye Bay. It was a great day and the weather was just perfect. The water was high and the woods were flooded. This lake was an impoundment and I honestly didn’t realize it until my last trip to the lake. In the spring the water would come up at least five feet or more and it would flood back into the Forest. This was great fishing but if a big old lunker grabbed on back in that brush it was tough to get them out. The weeds back in there were hard bark and nothing like lake weeds. A pike gets wrapped around something like that it is almost a guarantee of a lost bait. We only have so many lures so if a fish did bust our line we would watch for a while because they would usually jump and try to throw them. Since most of what we were using were floaters we usually eventually got them back.
I was standing up in the back and casting my Rapalla toward the emerging Lilly pads. I got a strike and that fish took off and I could hardly slow it down. I was up and a jumping and yelling, loving it. The fish fought like it was possessed and since the water was only about six ft deep it had no place to go but away. In my experience not many pike jump. I have seen it happen but not as a rule.
Terry was in the bow and I had him pull anchor and ran to the bow. The dang fish was slowly pulling us and I was scared that it was going to get in the brush. This big sucker was gone if he reached that stuff. Even if he didn’t get to the flooded Forest he had plenty of logs and cedar trees laying along the water line and you can bet they know where every one is.
I finally got it turned or at least he stopped his run and I started working him back my way. I had no idea what the heck I had on but I knew it was big! I have caught a lot of pike but this one was in a class of his own. At least that was the impression I had at the time. Still do
I yelled for one of them to get the dang net because I was sure not gonna be able to horse this sucker in. Terry grabbed the net and stood at the side while I worked it his way from the bow, man I was excited. We still could not see the dang fish as the water was stained with tannin and the back of a pike is dark anyway. All we had to go by is the angle of the line and it was straight down. It started coming up and all of a sudden Terry said Holy Shat! And stared. Then I saw it. That was the biggest dang pike I have ever seen! I yelled at Terry to net it but was worried that the net was not big enough. Terry slipped the net in the water, at the head end and the dang fish took off and headed down. I held on and all of a sudden the dang line snapped.
I just stood there and stared at the black water, still able to see the swirl where its monster tail left its mark. Terry just looked at me and said he was sorry but it was not his fault at all. The dang big fish are just big enough to get off some times.
I have not idea how big it was but it was the biggest I have ever had on and the one thing that sticks in my mind is that when I saw that sucker at the surface, right next to the boat, I thought, “It’s back looks like a loaf of bread” It was as wide as a loaf of bread! Now that sucker would have been on my wall right now if I had landed it.
I have caught some nice pike up there, mostly released but that was the biggest I have ever had on . I did see one bigger on Oswald Lake but that will be another story.
When we went up there camping we always had to take in a stock of ice. One year we took dry ice and it worked great. When we took ice of course we had coolers and the first thing we would do is bury them up to their lids in the sand. The ice would last a lot longer that way.
One day we were drifting in One Eye Bay and we had picked up a few pike along one area where the land climbed rather steeply from the water. We could not see it as the shore line was a solid mass of cedar and pine. Many cedar were hanging into the water, having their roots undercut by the waves over time. We had picked up a few fish and I looked down in the water and saw a lot of minnows there. I wondered why. I heard a noise and told my companions to listen.
It was water. Sounded like falling water. I looked at the shore line and the weeds on the bottom and could see there was a current coming out from the shore. Heck, there was a stream here and it attracted the minnows and the minnows, the pike.
I forced the nose of the boat up in the brush and we looked into the trees and could see a little brook, not more than a foot or two wide , that went up the hill, winding among the trees and moss. It was dark up there too. Sorta spooky.
I got out, always wanting to explore and walked a short distance up along the brook. I could see something white up ahead on the hillside but it was hard to see what the heck it was. The noise was coming from there I called to Terry and Norm to join me for a bit of exploring, which they did.
We worked our way up the hill and came to the white object I saw. It was a frozen waterfall! There was one heck of a lot of ice there too. Plenty for our camp and more. We went back to our boat and headed for camp where we picked up an empty cooler and headed back. We also grabbed the camp axe.
We went back to the waterfall and filled the cooler with ice. It was great. We never had to worry about ice again on all the rest of my trips. That ice fall is there today I bet because it was in June that we usually went.
Heck, more happened that trip but I will have to tell that next time, if you guys are not getting tired of this Canada fishing stuff I sorta like reliving these trips as I have not thought about them in many years
Like I said, Terry, Norm and I were camped at the old lumber camp at the opening going into Ravine Lake. It was a nice camp site and well protected. No matter how the winds raged on the big lake we could find a place to fish.
We saw a lot of game too. Moose were common as were beaver and otter. Loons were heard calling every evening on almost every lake I ever camped on. There is nothing like the mornful call of a loon on a glassy lake in the evening. The sound carrys for ever.
Terry had a thing for bears. He worried about them all the time. I did all I could to help the boy too. I would clean the fish and then yell, “Hey Terry! Look!” and I would take the guts and throw them into the woods as far as I could behind the tents. He would panic and take off after them and I would yell, “Hey Terry” and toss a handfull in another direction. Now it was stupid but funny as heck watching him running and hunting for the fish guts.
We would set around the campfire at night and just talk as guys will and I always managed to get the converstaion around to bear. It would really get him upset and he would start watching the blackness around us. There would be natural noises in the woods around us but I would keep saying, “What’s that” at every noise. This did no good for the boys nerves, I will tell you that.
It was real strange too because he was raised I Oscoda at his parents resort and he had spent much more time in the woods than I ever had and killed much more game. Bear just spooked the boy.
We were gabbing one day and he was whining about the bear coming in at night. I told him that he ought set up an alarm system to alert us if one came snooping around. I suggested that he take a bunch of cans, of which there were plenty in the old camp, and put a pebble in each one and string them on a string around camp. That way if a bear came in we would be warned.
I was just messing with the boy but in a little while he was up a scrounging around the trash pile and came back with a bunch of cans. The boy was a gonna do it. What a character.
He messed with that dang thing for a couple hours. Stringing the cans on a line and putting pebble in each one, then testing them to see if they could be heard from the tent. What a nut. I don’t remember where the heck he found the string he used, maybe it was fishing line, I don’t remember.. Where ever he got it I got a piece too. Unknown to him of course.
Some time during the day or maybe it was later, I waited until he was gone, fishing or something and I took my length of string and tied it to the alarm line, in a hidden spot of course and much like I did to Jay one the Chapleau River I brought the line under the back of the tent to my bedroll.
We sat around the fire that night and I was teasing him. I told him that the thing would not work and he wasted his time. There were no bear around there anyway was there? We had just been down visiting the two guys in the cabin at the end of the lake the day before so I was not going to have much luck convincing him of that.
I started talking bear and said, “Whats that?” at every sound. It was making him a bit jumpy but I guess that was the point.
Well we finally called it a night and crawled in to the sleeping bags. Everything quieted down. We were tired from a long day. We would usually get up at dawn, at least at the first part of the week. Dawn came pretty early up there. I do not really remember the hour but I am guessing at 4:30 or 5 AM. It didn’t get dark until around 10PM and then we would have campfire time and BS time and it was around midnight before we hit the sack. Some times we would fish until dark and it was a sure thing that we slept well.
Everything was pretty quiet and I gave the line a little jerk. Now I had not idea wher the noise would come from because the dang fool had cans with pebbles in them all over the place it seemed. I said, “Whats that?” and he didn’t make a dang sound. I asked him again and the dang fool was asleep! Well that was not gonna float and I threw a dang boot at him. He woke with a start and asked what the hell was the matter with me. I tolt the boy that his bear signal was a working and he had better go out and see what he had caught! That wasn’t a gonna happen! I offered him my flashlight and gave the string a little yank and a can rattled from his side of the tent. It was off in the woods a bit but since we really had not cleared any more than necessary, the noise was close.
Now the boy used the lords name in vain and I weren’t proud of him. I told him not to worry because it sounded like it was only one bear but that didn’t seem to ease his mind a bit. Norm asked what we were going to do and just like with Bruce and Gary I told them I was going back to sleep.
I don’t think they got much sleep that night and until morning and when they found my string, they were thinking I was the bravest feller in the woods. As soon as they saw the string they were calling me the biggest @#$%& in the woods. We laughed about it later but they were rather pizzed at the sleep they lost.
Another thing I remember happening at that camp was when I was cooking dinner one afternoon. I do remember it was during the day. I was frying up some taters and needed some milk for something. I can not remember what. For milk we used condenced milk and mixed it with water, half and half.
Now this is one of the dumbest things I ever did. I have done worse things but none dummer. I am gonna try to discribe it but will probably have to include a picture so you can understand what a bone head I was.
In the picture the yellow is where I stabbed the first cuy, blue was where the second air hole was suppose to be. Red is where my second cut actually was. The blade went it bahind the skin on my palm! It went two dang inches if it went in at all!!
I was standing over the coleman stove, with the tater a frying away. I grabbed the can of Carnation Milk in my left hand, after opening my jack knife. Now to open the can I just jabbed the knife into the can on lthe outside, away from my hand and twisted it back and forth. They to make an air hole I jabbed the dang knife into the can the opposite of that hole, which made it next to the web of my hand. Problem is, my aim sucked!
I drove that dang knife into the web of my hand, between the thumb and forfinger and under the skin down into the palm! I figure I use the lords name wrongly about them but I misremember. That sucker hurt and started suirting blood. Man I set down that can rite quick and grabbed my hand and tried to pinch it off but it would not quit. Hell the blood was all over in the taters and I grabbed the pan and took it off the fire. I think I might have been a squeelign like a dang pig too because my two companions came a running.
I went to the lake and tried to wash it off but it just kept a bleeding and that was probably good as the knife went in at least and inch and a half to two inches. It hurt like hell and was just a dumping blood. Terry went and got me a bandaid and I kept a squeezing that thing together and when I released the dang blood came a running. It had me worried because we were a long way from any doctor. I don’t know of any arteries in the dang palm of the hand but what the heck. I didn’t know where any artery was at all.
I kept a washing it in the cold water and squeezing it and finally it quit bleeding and we bandaged it up. I bet it took a good ten minutes for it to quit.
Terry went and got the fryng pan of taters and was gonna pitch them. I yelled and told him they were still good, just a little bloody. They looked at me like I was nuts but I was not gonna throw away perfectly good taters! I grabbed the pan and took it to the lake and stuck it in the sworled it around like I was a panning gold. As I remember it now the pan must not have been on long and was not very hot because the blood washed off pretty well. They gave me a sorta sneerly look but I knew them, food was food and if the taters were not red, they would eat them and I was right.
After a little moaning and such and I told them I was gonna eat them all my ownself, they dug in.
You know, it made perfectly good sense back then but I would probably not do it now.
Heck, I remember on another trip, with some other guys to the same lake that we all met at noon on an island for a noon meal. It had been raining off and on for a couple day sand it was dang near impossible to start a fire. Heck we even snapped the dead branches off some small pines and dumped gasoline on them but when the gas burned off the fire went out.
I got an idea, something I had read somewhere. There were some birch trees on the island and I peeled some bark off them. I rolled it up and set a match to it and I will tell you, that is one hot flame. Birch is full of pitch and it burns hot and it can be in water for YEARS and it will still burn. I found a birch tree on tlhe bottom Lake Charlevoix one day and it had to have been there for more than sixty years, maybe a hundred. I peeled some bark off it, the wood was rotten. I bought it to shore in my BC and after it dried, it burned hotter than heck.
Anyway back the the point I was making. I think there was four of us on that island and when the food was broken out, after the fire was a going good, the hotdogs were found to be bad. Bad was not the word for it. Flys had lain eggs all over the dang things and they stunk. We only had hotdogs and bread. They were a griping and started to pitch them to the gulls but I was hungry. I told them that if the gulls could eat them I could too and proceeded to scrape the eggs off with my knife and cooked them up. I will tell you one thing. I had them all to myself.
I must have been a dumbarse back then because I doubt I would do it now. Unless I was hungry that is.
Man every time I start one of these story’s it turns out to not be what I had intended when I started. This one was suppose to be about fishing on that lake beyond the Ravine Lake. In fact the last three were gonna be about that but as I start typing I remember some other dang thing that happened and I get off course.
I was never much of a camper myself... I prefer a motel room key, turn on the a/c!