Fishing White Lake 1

One advantage of growing older is the fact that you have experienced many different things. Many that post here can attest to that. Someone will post something and it will bring back a memory that had been long lost, like the one about trying to cut the deers throat. Dumb but many of the things I have done have been dumb. I have sorta blocked out most but it just takes a little reminder to bring them back.

I am gonna do something a little bit different. I am going to post this under one header but am going to stick with things that I have experienced on my many fishing trips. Most of them will be Canadian trips but maybe I will have others. I will just do them as they come to me. I will just add them under this post to save room. I will get a little long winded at times but that is just me. I know no other way of telling some storys and encourage others to do the same. This is the place for long posts

I used to fish a lot. A lot like three or four times a week, from ice out till ice in. I used to ice fish but never took to it well.

What I thought I would do is post some of my memories of my Canadian fishing trips. I have mentioned them before but there have been so many and with so many people over the years that sometimes they get blurred a bit. It is somethimes hard to remember what lake or with who or what year something happened but as I think of them, I will just add them to this post.

I will tell them as best as I can remember but since I have made 20 trips into the bush and the first was in 1963 or 1964, some things get sorta confused like.

My first trip is pretty clear to me though. I am not saying that my brothers memory of it or my cousins memory of it might vary from mine but this is my story. They can do their own. Well Gary can as Bruce died last year.

As a young boy I always dreamed of fishing in Canada. Canada was a magic place in Field and Stream and Outdoor Life where the lakes were full of huge Pike and Walleye. The problem was that these lakes were not as accessable back then as they are now. There was no I-75 running the length of my state, Michigan straight through the Soo and into that magic land of Canada. Land of many dreams.

I lived in Keego Harbor and we had two daughters, Sherry and Carolyn. We had a small cottage like dump of 800 sq ft and not much in the way of money. I worked at Fisher Body's in Pontiac on production and there was not much money to spare. I neve, figured I would ever fish those lakes that I dreamed of but what the dreams are what makes life worth living.

I had a neighbor across the street, Orie Ellenwood, who lived to fish. I was about 24 or so and he was about 45, which made him an old man to me. He was an ice fisherman too and actually seemed to enjoy it.



Orie also went to Canada every spring to fish the Walleye run, which is right after ice out. He also made a fall trip. I would pump him every time I could about these trips and I never really knew if he was pulling my leg or not. I rememeber him telling me that he would have to weight his bait pretty heavily to get it down to the bottom fast or the dang pike would tear it up. He wanted Walleye and wanted big ones.

The lake he went to was White Lake, which is right on highway 17, north of Lake Superior. It is about 20 miles north of the little village of White River Ontario. I got a Ontario map and studied it, I found White River, followed the road north and there was White Lake! Man it was a big lake too. It was over 10 miles long and maybe 5 wide in places.

I started thinking about making a trip up there but with who. I usually fished alone but my cousin Bruce, who I joined the Marines with and went through boot camp with was a fisherman. We used to fish together quite a bit. My brother Gary was not a fisherman but when I started talking about making a trip he joined in too. I asked Bruce and he was interested too.

We didn't have much in the way of equiptment though. I had a boat, a 14 ft Starcraft Explorer with a 5 1/2 hp Evenrude on it. Not much of a motor for that lake but what the heck, it is what we had.

We had no camping gear to speak of, no tent and not much else. We sure didn't have much money to buy any either.

We started making plans, like we really had a clue what it would take. Fishing gear I had. At least fishing gear for bass. None of us knew diddly about fishing Pike or Walleye though but if they were as thick as the books said and Orie said, we could just dip them out of the dang lake. Orie did tell us that we should get Rapallas though. They were fairly new back then and Monkey Wards had them on sale for 80 cents each!! For some reason I remember that. I liked Rapallas as I had had great success with them for pike on Van Etten Lake near Oscoda, in the past.

We all three stocked up on Rapallas, maybe 10 each and leaders. We were not gonna be using live bait because it was too hard to keep or even get up there. We had no clue what we were getting ourselves into really.

We really had plenty of time to plan this trip as we had started thinking about it in the winter and our time off was not until September. I borrowed a tent from a friend at work, not one of these modern tents but one made of heavy canvas and there was no screen for it either. Heck, was a screen really necessary? Black flys were only there in the spring anyway. Skeeters could not be all that bad, could they?

Gary had to buy all new fishing gear, as I rememeber it. He was not married and could get away with that. We amassed a huge pile of gear on my garage floor, over the ensuing months, trying to think of everything.If we forgot anything, we were screwed. We had no idea where we would be camping, Orie suggested one of the many islands because Bear could be a problem. That was a real danger, but what did we know?

Bruce was a year older than I and Gary two years younger. Bruce was a computer tech and he started with IBM in 1960 when we got out of the Marines. He and I were about as much different as a dog and a popcycle stick. He was very bright and was the type of guy that enjoyed problems. He would dig into a problem and chew on that sucker until he bested it and he usually did. Then he lost his interest. Take golf as an example. He had a bad ticker and had his first heart attack at the age of about 26. The doc told him to take up golf for the exercise. He was a short little runt, legs about as long as a turtle and he walked like a bloody duck which our DI was quick to bring to his attention, but that is another story.

Bruce took up golf and studyed it like it was a problem to be solved. He practiced at the range and golfed. In those years I rarely saw him I had little interest in Pasture Pool. The little sucker played golf until he was a one handycap and quit. Lost his interest. He got into astronomy. This was many years ago. He wanted to photograph the planets and stars but to do this he had to have a tracking system because the planets are constantly moving and the photos were timelaps shots. Did he buy a system? No. The goofy sucker went to a junk electronics store and bought a bunch of servo's and other magic junk and designed his own. It took a while but it worked great.

He wanted a computer program to these photos but there was none at the time so he designed his own program and ended up selling a bunch on the web. He learned programming to do this. The guy was friggin nuts but he and I got g just fine. For some reason he always called me a "Rat Bastud" He did for years Heck I could go on and on about the goofy sucker but this is about our first Canadian fishing trip. I figure you ought to know the people involved. I can see this is gonna be a long sucker but I don't know any other way to tell a story. Bruce and I were different but we could be together and always be able to finish the others sentences. It was wierd, like we could read each others minds.

I had two brothers Gary and Skip. None of us are much alike in any way. I never had much ot do with Skip as I did not believe in his life choices and Gary and I never had much in common either. He was into motorcycles, I think he has four but he has always been single, except for a couple marriges that lasted a year or so. He was always able to do as he chose. Gary always had a sensible way about him. He wants something he will study it and know all about it before he buys. Me? I buy it and then think about it. That is why I have a house full of THINGS! I never had any sense. Gary and I always got along, as adults but never did much together. Gary joined the Marines after I got out. Like me, he worked at GM as an electrician and is about to retire.

Well back to the story.

Like I said, none of us knew what to expect on a Canadian fishing trip other than lots of fish without having to work for them. Right? That is how Field and Stream discribed it but of course those guys flew into the great lakes like Great Slave Lake and we were going to White Lake. Now White Lake was not a great name for a Canadian lake like Lake Nimigosinda or Lake Gopukeyourgutsout or some exositic named lake like that but we did not care because Orie said there was great fishing in this lake! To a young kid like me Orie was a hero because he was "THE MAN" He had fished in Canada and I knew nobody else that had back then.

That summer the only thing I could think about was the great fishing we were gonna have in Canada. We slowly assembled our gear on my garage floor. Tent, cooler, Colman stove, fishing gear-enough for ten men, Boat and motor, extra gas cans as there we had to take plenty back on the lake because it would be a long way to get more. It would take time too and our time was gonna be used hauling in huge Pike and Walleye. I prefered the Pike because they were bigger. I heard of a 12 lb walleye coming out of White Lake though and the largest any of us caught-not our first year, was a 9 pounder my buddy Jay- of the Lorenze Lake story caught.

We read everything we could find about Pike and Walleye fishing. I drove Orie nuts about where to go and how to fish. He told us he only fished Walleye and did all his fishing in the Shabodic River, which flowed into the lake at the north end. That was a bloody long way from the launch site but we would check it out. He said a lot of people fish down there and I prefered to fish away from others. It is funny but I never saw the Shebodic river until my sixth trip to the lake.

Well the great day came and we had the boat loaded and all our gear was jammed in it, covered with canvas. That boat was loaded!! I didn't know where the heck we were gonna set but we would worry about that 620 miles north of where we were now.

That poor old Nash Rambler I had could hardly pull that load but it did. I always timmed my departure from my home at a time so that we would arrive at the Soo at dawn. I wanted to be able to see the country. And what beautiful country it is.

We would take I-75 north and it ends at the Soo. We would cross the bridge, which is the border and then head north on Highway 17, which follows the norther shore of Lake Superior. What a wonderful drive. The road sucked back then because it was before they rebuilt it. I think they started rebuilding, they rerouted it too, in about 1967 or 68, I am not sure but the original road really sucked. That had to be the crookedist dang road in existance because it twisted around and between every dang little pond and lake on the north shore! They were just beautiful though and we wanted to stop and fish ever dang one of them and there were at least 50 of the things. The country is extremely rough though, all what we would call mountains in Michigan and rock! I saw telephone poles that were set in holes drilled in the dang bedrock! After we got out of the Soo a ways there were not even any telephone poles and the next town was Wawa! That was a long way north of where we were!

There were places that we were high above Lake Superior and we could see probably a hundred miles out and there was not a boat to be seen. None! There were places that the bluffs came out of the lake an went up hundreds of feet. We were watching every dang little lake and pond for Moose and we saw some along the road north of Wawa. We were all in hog heaven and the excitement kept three tired guys awake. The new road was straightened quite a bit and some of the small ponds were just filled in. The old road just went around them. There are parts of the old road still in existance but not much. That road was rough too!! It was like taking a dang tow track through the Michigan northland. I remember telling Bruce that it looked like the road crew just took trucks of tar and dumped them on the hills and let it be road.

Some of the hills were really something too. There is one hill, south of Wawa and runs along the big lake that is 5 miles long! I was going up that thing with my Rambler, towing all our gear and kept going slower and slower. By the time we topped out my gas pedal was on the dang floor.

We stopped at Wawa for gas. Only place to get it. It was and is a small town on a beautiful lake, Wawa Lake. Wawa is the place I wrote about where my buddy was in a bar having a burger and a beer and an Indian got mouthy with a Mounty anthed the Mounty just shot him. Another time and another story.

We gased up and headed north toward the little town of White River and then on to White Lake. We were really getting fired up and seeing all the lakes stoked the fires.

I have to tell you that in the hundreds of miles we traveled north of the Soo we saw only a couple houses back then. There was nothing for miles and miles. Not a telephone pole or a gas station. It is a bit different now but not back then. There is not much now but at least if you got in trouble there would be a chance of help. Mary and I took the drive around Lake Superior a couple years ago and it is much more civilized now days.

We finally arrived at White River and it was not much. We had to stop to buy our fishing licensed and call home to let our familys know we had made it. I saw a pay phone and walked over to the booth. It was a dang Crank Phone!! In a phone booth. I didn't know how the hell to use a crank phone but figured I could not go wrong by cranking it! I picked up the reciever and stuck it to my ear and cranked the sucker. An operator came on and I gave her the phone number and she took care of the rest.

I can not remember what time we got to the lake, it must have been around eleven in the morning, maybe a little earlier, I am just guessing but there was gonna be plenty of time to find a camping site. It did not get dark until after 10pm up there.


We were not gonna camp at a campsite. There were none. We were gonna launch the boat and head north. That is what Orie said to do. We had a map of the lake and he said we could camp anywhere we wanted. There were absolutely no homes on the lake or roads anywhere near it other than highway 17 that we were on. We could camp anywhere at all. Heck that was easy enough.

We finally got to the lake and crossed the bridge at the narrows. The boat launch was just across the bridge and to the right. We pulled off the road and drove to the launch. There were maybe a dozen cars there, most from Michigan we noticed. I swung the car around and backed the boat to the water. We pulled the tarp off and loaded our fishing tackle, which was in the car. I backed the boat in and after it was floating and Gary had the rope I pulled the car and trailer out and parked it.

Man was I excited. I was a bit disappointed though because there was nothing exciting about the launch area. It was all flat land and grubby looking. Nothing like the wonderful lakes we were seeing along the highway but what the heck, we were there.

We three climbed in the boat and I took the motor, started it up and headed out to the chanel and north. Man was that a lot of water and we had no clue where we were going or where we were gonna camp. We had no clue what that lake was like or what we were getting ourselves into. Hell we never even listened to a weather forcast but we didn't care. We were on a northern Ontario lake and that was like heaven to us.


Well I just et an threw out a little corn for the deer. I am setting my deck waiting

for the deer and figured it was a good time to write a little more.

Now Bruce, Gary and I were heading north on White Lake in my boat, loaded with camping

and fishing gear. My little 5 and a half horse Evinrude was doing all it could to make

it up the lake. The lake was dead calm and we never realized how fortunate we were.

Ever since we had gotten into Canada at the Soo we had seen these idyllic lakes, shores

lined with fallen cedars and pine. Now we were finally on a Canadian lake and it was

just a huge body of water. I was disappointed at what I was seeing. For one thing were

we were there were no hills. It was fairly level country, not like Texas but when I

looked up lake all I could see was a sliver of the far shore. It was a long way off and

you can see by the map that once you were out on the lake it was impossible to know

where you were. Heck, it would not have done us any good if we had known where we were

because we had no clue where to go. I just headed north.

Bruce ask me where we were going and I just nodded ahead but I didn't know. He asked

where we were gonna camp and I told him that Orie said that an island was best, because

of the bear. If you look at the map you can see quite a few islands--A deer just came

to visit me :D- Nope, there are two of them- anyway, because of the size of the lake

and the area it was impossible to even distinguish an island. I told Bruce and Gary

that I was gonna stay near the right hand shore and look for a place to set up camp.

I kept heading north and everything looked the same. I edged toward shore and it made

me nervous because I had seen rocks sticking up out of the water in the middle of the

bloody lake. Last thing I wanted to do is bust a prop on some under water obstacle.

Finally Gary pointed ahead and toward shore and said, "Is that an island?" I looked and

it sure looked like it, a small one but at least something to head toward. As we

approached the small island we slowed down and looked at the bottom. It was sandy and

even though the water is stained with Tannin we could see bottom in ten ft of water.

This was because of the sandy bottom. We looked and was amazed! We saw Pike! The

dang things were all over the place. Wholey Crap! This was it. There were some big

suckers too! We were all standing up by now and I slowly cruised around the island and

I bet we saw over twenty nice pike. Man we were excited now. We could not fish yet

though because our gear was at the bottom of the dang boat somewhere. Man we had to

set up camp and start a casting to those baby's.

I headed toward the island and asked if it was OK with them to camp there. Hell yes it

is they said in unison. Man we were pumped. I easily bumped the boat to the shore and

Bruce, who was in the bow, jumped out with the bow line to tie us off. There was not a

lot of vegetation on the island, some small pines but that was OK. There were pike all

over the place and some dang nice ones.

Bruce looked around and asked where I wanted to set up camp. Heck, I don't care, what

do I know. We tied the boat up and started looking around. Crap! It is all rock! I

asked Gary to give me a tent peg and a hatchet, which he did. I walked around that

little island and tried to find a place to drive a tent peg in and there was no place.

Well Crap! :(

We were sure not gonna camp there! We jumped back in the boat and headed to shore but

it soon got so shallow that we could not get within a hundred feet of the shore.

Double crap!

Well we went out deeper and headed north again. We could always come back to, what we

for ever after called, Pike Island. The real name was Rock Bolt Island but to us it was

Pike island.

As I cruised north I could get closer to shore, From time to time I would go up to shore

and Bruce would jump out with tent peg and hatchet in hand and try to drive the peg in.

Time after time we did this until we finally found a place that we could.

There was a sandy beach there and low pines, maybe ten or fifteen ft high, I can not

remember for sure but that is the impression I have. It has been a long time. There was

a lot of underbrush we had to clear to make a camp site but with a bit of work it was

soon cleared. Now we had to set up the tent. That was one heavy arsed tent and we

rolled it out, Gary asked where the poles were. I looked sorta stupid I imaging because

I did not remember any poles. Heck we had not bothered setting up the tent at home and

now we had no poles. Well we would just have to cut some.

Like we knew how to do that. Duh! We staked out the tent, dang thing did not have a

floor. I didn't know that either and started figuring out what we needed for poles. We

finally cut some poles and managed to set the tent up. Man that was one piece of crap

tent I had borrowed but what the heck, we were in a Canadian lake and only a couple

miles from Pike Island. What could go wrong?

Like I said, there was a sandy beach, about ten or fifteen feet deep as I remember it

and we pulled the boat up as far as we could, after emptying it out and as it was

getting pretty late by this time, decided to whip up some food and relax. The fish

would wait.

The tent was fairly big, I forget how big but it was big enough for our sleeping bags

and a card table we brought for our camp stove and such. Man we were prepared. Yeah

right :(

I whipped up something for dinner, I forget what but we went out on the beach and ate,

setting on a log and watching the sun go down on one beautiful day. Life was good. We

could hear the loons calling and those pesky Canadian Jays were actually trying to take

food from us. How cute. Those dang things can be a pain but we did not know it at the

time.

The next morning was clear but there were some nasty looking clouds off to the west. We

ignored them and got out gear ready for a days fishing. One of us suggested taking the

rain gear, probably Gary as he has a bit of sense and it was a great decision.

We loaded up and headed for Pike Island and true adventure. We closed in on the

island-Hummmmmm, dang Blue Jay just scared off my deer :( anyone know how to cook

Jay?:D-anyway, we closed in on the island and as per agreement, nobody was to cast

until everyone was ready. It was probably my idea as I was running the motor :D

We putted in close and looked around. Not a dang Pike to be seen! Not one!! Where the

hell have they gone? Gotta be around somewhere! We started a casting and liked to have

worn our arms out but not a fish. We tried trolling around the island but still no

luck.

The sky was getting darker and the wind was picking up and we decided to get into our

rain gear. It started raining and then pouring! I suspect that is what drove the fish

away was the front coming in but we kept fishing and fishing but didn't catch anything

that I remember. We had better catch something because we brought very little meat,

depending on fish for our meat.

We looked across the lake and could not even see across it now. Heck, it was hard to

see across it on a clear day, it was so dang big. It was funny but setting down we

could faintly see the other side, on a clear day that is but if we stood up we could

see the sand of the beaches, where there were beaches. The shore we camped on was the

only one with much in the way of beach. In the spring, when I came for the rest of my

trips to White Lake, the water was so high that there was no beach at all. In fact,

where we set up our tent was only about five feet from the water line in the spring.

We didn't know where the hell to fish and we were afraid to wander too far from camp in

that weather. Heck, we would have done well to find it if we got out of eye sight of

it. Everything looked the same on that shore and the idea of getting lost on that dang

lake sucked. This was before GPS and we only had a compass. I was thrown out of Boy

Scouts before I mastered that sucker too but Bruce bailed us out on that one. I just

didn't trust the boy and wanted to go slow and not get lost.

The problem with the Canadian lakes up in the Algoma country is that they are all

stained and thus you can not see the weed beds. I like fishing the edges of weed beds

but where the heck are they? We started a looking and found none. Heck, we needed

meat!

I decided to start trolling, if nothing else with would eventually snag weeds and find

the weed beds. We all put on a floating Rapalla and off with went. We trolled a ways

and we were a ways off shore. This whole shoreline was shallow. All of a sudden one of

us gets a strike. It was more of a tug and pull. I slipped the motor out of gear and

started reeling in when I got one on too. We reeled them in and they were both

Walleye. Not huge but good eating size, maybe 12 to 15 inches, if memory serves me. We

tossed them in the live box and started trolling again.
t
The problem with Walleye is that they are school fish and if you stay on the school you

catch fish, if you loose them you are wasting time. What I have done and it is illegal,

is tie a line with a balloon on the first fish and toss it back over board. The fish

will swim back to the school,towing the balloon and you just follow and fish the balloon.

Works great. The problem is we had not balloon, in fact if we had had one with us we

would not have known that trick anyway at the time.

Needless to say, we soon lost the school but not until we caught enough fish for

dinner. I am guessing but I think we had maybe eight fish.

I was getting bored of looking at that same dang shoreline and so were they. We didn't

come to Canada to look at no dang boring shoreline and what the heck, life is an

adventure ain't it?

It was still early and we were not far from camp, I was watching for it and it was

hard to see at all and I doubt that we were more than a mile or so away from it! We

decided that since it was only eight or nine in the morning and it does not get dark

until after 10 pm we might as well go back to camp, put the fish in the live box we

had, which are now illegal I understand, get food for a shore lunch and explore a bit.

Everyone agreed.

We headed for camp and got a package of hotdogs, bread and what ever else we wanted to

eat, threw the fish in the live box and I asked, "Where to?" and got a pair of shrugs.

Well we had a dang compass and were on the south east shore so we ought to be able to

find our way back if we came back early! Right? Lets do it. and we done it.

Now to give you folks some idea where were were on the map. See that itty bitty island

under the "H" on White Lake? That is Pike Island. See where the "E" is on Lake? That

is near where we camped. See that little peninsula above the "W" in White Lake? That is

where we ended up on our first excursion.

Well we could not see diddly as it was still raining. I will tell you right now. It

rained almost every dang minute for the full nine days we were on that lake. Nine days!

It would let up and just be misty at times but it never cleared up once unless it was

at night and that did us no good. Anyway, we could not see the far shore and just

headed out to the west, following the compass. We must have passed those islands but I

don't really remember them on that excursion. We headed west until we saw the

shoreline. That was sorta spooky because we knew there were huge rock outcroppings in

the middle of the bloody lake and the water was low. I had to watch for them.

We got the the west shore and found that little bay, behind the Peninsula. It was

beautiful! Lots of Pine and Beach trees and the beaver had really been busy. There were

trees leaning every which way. A beaver can chew down a tree and build a dam but they

can not aim a tree worth a crap. I have seen some dang huge tree, chewed plum through

by a beaver and it fall about a dang foot before it is leaning on the next tree. Gotta

Pizz off that beaver!


This little bay, it is not all that small but compared to the lake it is little, was

really nice. It was covered with reeds and lillypads and the pads were in about four

feet of water. Lots of room under them to hide lunkers and the pike love those

conditions. The shore and the water up in the belly of the cove was littered with years of logs and other floatsam. They were flating with lots of whater under them to hide fish. We watched the reeds and lillys and could see fish working through them, a swurl her and a dash there. Man the exctememt was building. I just knew we were going to catch fish. Down home I would see the same thing while bass fishing the same type of area. They will wander under the cover grabbing anything living thing that they can get their mouth on, minnows, frogs, perch, other pike or walleye fry. One time I was reeling in a 16 inch walleye and a pike hit it. Didn't just hit it but fought me for it! The pike was huge and finally let the walleye go.

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 :D

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.