Our Second Annual Fishing Trip  #42

I always look forward to this time of year when many of my friends come to Northern Maine and we spend three days in the North Maine Woods fishing. We are fortunate that two of the guys in the group have a camp that we use as our jumping off point.

Now, the cast of characters includes a guy from Minnesota, another from Pennsylvania and some from central and southern Maine. It is always good to have them here and to catch up on their stories from the year gone by.

To set the stage for this weekend, if you watch the Voice or listen to country music, you know who Blake Shelton is. Blake Shelton just happens to have a song out right now, and the lyrics just seem to fit and tell the story of our group once we get to camp. It starts like, “Well the boys round here, drinking that ice cold……. “Then if you don’t know the rest, it goes like this. “Chew tobacco, Chew tobacco, Chew tobacco, spit…. And there you have it. You should now have a mental picture in your mind of nine guys on a fishing trip.              

It’s one thing to find a weekend that we can all commit to. It’s another to find a weekend where the weather will cooperate. During this trip, the entire weekend was fraught with rain, heavy at times. I dare say that we must have gotten at least three inches in the three days. Did that hamper our fishing trip, heck no; we braved the rain and cold and fished from daylight until dark.  We hit a number of ponds in the area and did remarkably well with some of the trout measuring upward to 14”. We also walked down through the woods to a thoroughfare between two lakes, waded in and caught some salmon, which we released instantly. If you have never caught a salmon, you are in for a treat. Once you hook them, they jump right out of the water a number of times before you can get them reeled in and released. It is just good fun.

As always, we did have an educational component to our trip. Here are a few highlights of what we leaned.

    

Cameras do not float

Black bears can come out of nowhere and are faster than a speeding truck

Trees don’t move, even when a fly rod is pushing them

Beavers are not always man’s best friend. If you break their dam to get to a pond, they will come and rebuild

Ear plugs don’t always prevent the sounds of snoring. Especially when the snorer wears them

You should always put your rain gear on in a rain storm. It is no good in your fishing basket. HOWEVER, if you forget to wear it, it can serve as a set of dry clothes for the ride back to the camp.

Always have a backup power plan because generators are not invincible

When it comes to food, you cannot possible eat everything you think you should and do bring.

Float tubes are a valuable commodity to have. They do not go as fast as a canoe in the event of a lightning storm no matter how big the flippers or how hard you kick.

And as our trip came to a close, we were happy that we had all gotten together and we promised to do it again next year. I sensed a bit of sadness that it was over and we were again going our separate ways. The fishing had been great, the group time was excellent, and the stories told and new ones made will last until we do it again next year. To all of you on that trip, Roger, Mark, Scott, Corey, Doug, Matt, Jeff and Jon, thanks for another memorable weekend. Until next year.

One afternoon, we split up and a group of guys went to a certain pond. On the way to the pond they ran into a bunch of pesky beavers who had dammed up the road. The guys decided to teach the beavers a lesson, so they began breaking out the dam so the water would drop so they could go through to the pond. As they were doing that, they noticed that the beaver came out of his house to investigate. That darn beaver kept his eye on them the entire time they were there. Eventually, the guys dropped the water enough so they could drive through. When they were done fishing, they started up the road and came to the beaver dam. That beaver had dropped a tree over the area they had broken out. More than likely, he was not wasting any time in getting his house in order. Beavers are true engineering marvels. I remember watching an episode with TC called “North American Beaver” on Nat Geo. If you get a chance to watch it, it is definitely worth your time. We could take a lesson from them because, they never give up, no matter what they are facing.