Fishing With Ray

Fishing With Ray


This story is about the last trip I took into the wilds of Canada with the boys. My companions on this trip were Ray Bennett and a friend of several trips Dave Pryor. Ray was a diving buddy of mine and Dave was an electrician I had worked with for many years. Ray was a heck of a man. He had had heart problems all his life. He died a couple years ago at the age of 55. He had his first valve replacement at the age of 19 and that means they were experimenting on him. He had had two replacements since. That is what finally killed him. He was 5ft 7 and 220 lbs. I always told him if he was 2 inches taller he would be a perfect sphere!! That would always get his dander up. He was a hairy sucker too. Geeesh! Ray was the guy that was running down the shore a cussing me at Lorenze lake! Dave was a feisty sucker. Bad nerves. While we were working together he would take up to 10 valiums a day to keep cool. I didn’t know a person could live taking that many. After two days in the woods, he seldom needed any! Those were great trips and he could unwind up there. He had never done anything like that until he started going up with us.

I can’t remember the name of this lake so maybe I will call it Gore Lake because as I remember it, it sucked. We flew into this lake in early June and the weather at that time of year is pretty iffy. You can have beautiful weather with millions of blackflies or it could be snowing and cold. The cold never bothered my much but some would get a bit testy. Like Ray! He was on blood thinners and it bothered him. I remember flying into a lake and we had to dodge the squalls on the way in. That is another story! :D

Well when we flew into the bush the weather was beautiful. The camp was a tent camp at the south end of the lake. The reason I can remember the end of the lake it was on will become apparent in the next story. I’m gonna bust this one up a bit.

We were flying in a Dehavalan, Beaver. Now if I spelt that sucker right it is pure luck. You pilots will know what I am talking about. They are a single engine floatplane that has power to spare. I think it is about 400hp or so. They are one of the primary planes that are used by the bush pilots.. The Beaver and Otter. I have flown in on a Cessna but don’t remember which. 172 or something like that. The Beaver it noisy and they fill them with all the gear they can get in them. On my later trips they had instruments and even radios in them but the early ones didn’t. I have flown into the bush with the pilot navigating with a dang map on his lap!

As is usual the pilot circled the lake before approaching for a landing. Checking for floating logs and fishing boats in his landing area. He then lines up on the longest stretch of water and at treetop level, slips it to the water. Those guys are great pilots. Course they fly from dawn to dusk all summer long with probably a landing every half-hour or so. They get plenty of practice.

On this day the lake was like glass and it was a fun flight. We landed and the pilot swung the plane around and taxied up to the camp. There was no dock but a bit of a sandy beach which he just ran the pontoons up on. .

There were people fishing the lake the previous week and their gear was setting on the beach awaiting the plane. We got out and said our hellos. As usual we asked how the fishing was and had them mark on the map where they had caught fish. Then they helped us unload our gear and in turn we aided them load theirs.

It was a beautiful camp. Two tents, which were on frames, which meant we would not be sleeping on the ground. We would have a wooden floor. :D They were unheated but that was never a problem. The openings of the tents were facing the water, which meant they were facing north. There was a campfire and a good pile of firewood right in front of the tents. We heard the plane preparing for takeoff so we walked down to the beach to watch. I always loved to see them take off. As they leave the water and disappear over the trees. As I stand there, listening to the sound of the plane disappearing, I start getting the feeling that we are alone. That is what we go up there for. The solitude and freedom to relax which not many of us get the chance to do.

We then started lugging our gear up to the camp. On the way I looked down and saw a damn mouse!! Fat hairy little sucker reminded me of Ray. I called them over and pointed him out. He was just a setting there, next to the path eating lichens. Wasn’t scared at all. We had become accustom to that because the wildlife in the bush aren’t normally scared of us. Heck the damn Canadian Jays and chipmunks will get right on the table and fight us for the dam food sometimes. Anyway he was cute. I reched down and could even touch the little guy. He just hunched up and kept on eating. I called him little Ray to Ray’s objection. More about him at a later time. Ray took a liking to the little guy

We were anxious to get fishing but we had to get camp set up. Like I said, there were already two tents set up but we had to organize our gear. Only time the whole week that it would be organized, I’ll tell you! One tent was for gear and the other was for sleeping.

The facilities in some of those camps were a bit crude. There is no woman on the planet that would live under the conditions that we did in some of those camps. The toilets were a bit crude to say the least. The best thing that could be said about them was the fact that they were up wind. Usually! :D The one we had at this camp was, about 50 ft downwind of camp, a 4 inch log, tied between two trees about 3 and a half ft off the ground or so. A hole was then dug in the ground and you had to drop your drawers, take aim at the hole and let er go!! Had to keep your heels out of the way so as you didn’t load up your britches. One thing that was a problem at that time of the year was the fact that the air was full of black flies. You could always go at night but the skeeters weren’t much better. Both would chew on your necessaries horrible like. Ain’t no place to have no swolt necessaries!! Itches too.

I was smart on this trip. I had gone to Kmart and bought a portable toilet. Only cost 6 bucks so it wasn’t what you would call real sturdy but it was all I could afford. All it was was a seat with legs and a bag that attached under it. I figured all I had to do is spray it full of Black Flag and then when I used it the fly could not get my parts. Never gave a lot of thought to what Black Flag would do to my parts though. Anyway, I figured it would beat the heck out of a damn log between two trees!!

Now Ray took exception to my toilet. He laughed at it and gave me a hard time. Course I took it like the gentleman I am. Damn cow! Our toilet was, as I said about 50 ft downwind of camp. Which would be to the west, on a rise. All brushy so a person could have a little privacy. Like who the heck would want to watch anyway? I found that the thing worked pretty well. I didn’t trust to put my full weight on the thing as I weighed about 220 myself at that time, but with a little balancing and concentration, it was a hell of a lot better than the log they were using.

I would always come down from my trip to the hill and laud the advantages of my portable toilet. Ray laughed at first but the flies were pretty bad at first and he was getting pretty much fly bit on his trips. I laughed and told him that I did not have that problem because of the Black Flag. I also told the boy he was not gonna use it no matter how much he begged!! Well we got to bickering back and forth and he said he was gonna use it if he wanted to. Course I didn’t care but I got to squalling just to make him feel good. He grabbed up his paper and headed for the hill. I told him to take a new bag and change mine and course he told me to go to hell and I was gonna burry HIS crap for him! He did have a testy streak in him at times.

Well up the hill he went. I yelled, “Don’t put all your fat assed weight on it” He told me to go to hell, that if it would hold me it would hold him. I guess I failed to tell the lad that I didn’t put all my weight on it. Hummm. I thought I told him. Anyway Dave and I were setting at the fire and Ray was up the hill. I grabbed my camera and ran up the hill to take a pic. Corse he was in a no position to run. He was just getting settled and ran me off!! I then went down to the campfire with Dave!
All of a sudden we heard a hell of a squallin’ noise! He was a using the Lord’s name in vain, I will tell you. In conjunction with mine it seemed. That and a bunch of noises that I didn’t really recognize as humanoid. We didn’t know what the heck had happened but when we looked up the hill he was gone. That is where the damn noise was coming from though. The boy was a calling ME names!! Heck I didn’t do nothing! We started up the rise and thin he appeared. He was pissed! Sorta red faced like as I remember. He was sorta on his knees and trying to drag his drawers up. The looks of his drawers made me wonder just why he wanted to do that. He got them up enough to hide what we didn’t want to see anyway and headed for the lake. As he turned around we saw that the portable had collapsed. He had put all his weight on the darned thing and smushed it. Course when he smushed it he sat in it. Bet he wished he had used his own bag now!! I said,”Hey, you smushed my terlet!!” Dave and I were laughing so damn hard that I almost peed myself. Ray was a bustin brush a trying to get to the lake so he could clean his fat ass! He had a bit of a waddle anyway but with his drawers around his knees and him trying to push through the brush with his elbows it was a sight to see! I wish I had a video of that!! He was just a bellering all the way down. I wasn’t all that sure I was gonna live through this one, I’ll tell you!
Thing about June in the bush is the fact that the water is cold. Ice had only been out for a couple weeks and it was bitter. Didn’t stop my buddy Ray!! He sat right down in that water and glared at me. I figured he might want some privacy so we went back to camp. I went up and looked at my terlet and yelled at him that he had to fix it for me. He said something about shoving it somewhere so I thought it was better to bury it. Couldn’t be fixed anyway, I guess.

After Ray got cleaned up a bit and changed, he settled down. That is until he found that I had forgotten to tell him that I didn’t put all my weight on it! He would not have listened anyway the way I figure!!

This is but one of the events in this camp and I will tell more later.