Fishing White Lake 7

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. :D

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 prick 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.