Back in the Bosom…

Of the cold as a WITCH’S TIT Boreal North.

Yes dear reader we are indeed back to fabulous Sportsmen’s Camp. The trek north was uneventful and surprisingly warm! The first few days here were also warm – in the 60′s to 80′s F. I saw my friends the sandhill cranes as I travelled through Elk Lake at daybreak, a large bull moose on the road about 5 miles west of Elk Lake and a gorgeous adult bald eagle soared across the road as I crossed Miller Creek. So the trip was indeed “cool” but yet still warm. We arrived to find the camp in fine fettle with no black flies and just a few big snow melt mosquitos. There was evidence of the hard winter still lying around camp – small snow banks!

I got the boards off the windows and The Evil One went to hibernate. It wasn’t even cold enough to put a fire in! I just opened the windows and let the warm outdoor air evacuate the cold air from inside the house. The house is still completely underlayed by ice. The boys and I walked around camp enjoying being here and winding down from the drive. Baxter and Bart were in heaven! chasing mottled part white part brown snowshoe hares and stupid chickens. After they got over-heated they would run to the lake and wade into the cold swollen waters of Firth. The lake is cold enough that they didn’t let the water touch their bellies though! Smart boys! I slept about 5 hours and then Joan pulled in as The Evil One and I were going to the beach to watch the sunset and have a vodka tonic. So we made one for Joan too and went to the beach. Janet and me were in shorts and it was a delight – loons talking, the golden eyes were breeding and flying all over and the eagle was flying around. The boys and Riley cavorted all over the beach and showed us what joyful living is all about. The weather held for a couple of days and I got a lot of work done around camp – the generator up, and the water system started. We got to have showers yesterday – but there will not be water to the house for a couple more weeks depending on the weather. There was a little ice damage to the water system but nothing major yet. The water has not yet made it beyond cabin number 4 where the line goes under the cabin remains frozen. Two days ago we noticed the impending frigid weather and filled the wood kiosk with fire wood and layed in supplies (Labbatt 50) for the impending bad weather. The weather would start with rain so we put coolers under the eves of the lodge to catch water for flushing the commode etc. We watched the Pens take their series and went to bed with a good fire in the wood stove only to wake to SNOW!

After I got up and had breakfast (at the crack of noon) me and the boys went out to kick the diesel on and check on things. Its 38F and the wind is HOWLING directly from the north at ~35 mph with gusts into the 40s! Muther’s day fucker was it cold at the beach! The Old Lady Firth was flexing her spring muscles with 3 ft. rollers breaking onto the submerged beach! The boys loved the wind as it was bringing all the cool smells from the north end of the lake – “Wolves we smell wolves.”

The stick in the water at the edge of the lake is there to keep track of the lake level – as I have to let the lake recede before I bring the docks over to set. Otherwise the docks will be 3.5 ft. out of the water come August.

So we are spending a lazy Sunday here at camp stoking the fire reading and watching hockey (we’re in Canada after all and rooting for only Canadian teams – aside from the Pens) and I just got off the phone with Hogfish Jim fleshing out the details of the Reinhardt (sp) memorial wood fired pizza oven delivery. Jim was drinking margaritas on his patio and that has me thinking – what better way to defy the bad weather and coax in some sunny weather than a pitcher of that “frozen concoction that helps me hang on”? That being said, I have much “work” to do and can no longer waste time typing this drivel for my reader. So off I go on another perfectly ordinary day……….

And Away We Goooooooo…

How Sweet it is!!!!!!

We are presently in the process of packing and battening down the hatches here at Starbase Bryson prior to translation back to the bosom of the boreal north. We were getting a little anxious about how late the spring was up north. There was still a shit load of snow on the ground last week and ice on the lake! But summer arrived and the snow quickly melted by temperatures in the 80′s F! I just checked Quick’s Gowganda Lake Cam and there still appears to be a small amount of ice lingering on Gowganda. It will be gone tomorrow and Firth usually clears of ice the day before Gowganda – so we won’t have to deal with that and there will be many days before the black flies emerge (I hope). With the quick melt there has been flooding so I expect there to be high water when we get there too. We should have things up and running soon after we arrive there next week so stay tuned for the next blog from camp and/or the Evil Janeeto from the Planet Janetron may do some facebook stuff. Also watch for the announcement of who caches the first bass – will it be the Evil One (aka. Gloat master), The Favorite (yours truly), or the nasty upstart Joan?????? We can take side bets. We also need to get a start on dates for when the dragonflies emerge pool. We will be sponsoring even more fabulous prizes! I recommend that you get a report on the lake temperature before you make your guess. We have all sorts of hijinks planned for this year – new roofs, a wood fired pizza oven, another new wooden boat, happy hours at the beach, trips to the dump and all sorts of great fun times! Bart made me put that part about the dump in. That is his favorite thing to do. Me and the Evil One were getting supplies last eve at Wally world and I was even allowed to get a couple new discounted fishing rods! I wonder if the humming birds are there yet?  Well I have much to do so I will get moving again – next stop Sportsmen’s Camp!

See You There!

Trout Season 2013

Trout season and spring has come to Western PA.

The first day of trout was initially disappointing. Our friends Pat and Carol were visiting for a Doctors appointment in Pittsburgh on Friday so they stayed overnight for some fishing. Unfortunately Thursday brought several thunderstorms and major rainstorms. The stream of my childhood – Big Run was indeed a “big run” – it was roaring and muddy on Friday. It was dropping but even at about noon on Saturday was still pretty high and muddy. So Pat and Carol opted to take off for home. Later that day unable to stay away from the stream I suited up and trudged down to the stream from home to wet a line if nothing else. To my surprise the stream had dropped somewhat more and was clearing. Cool beans! I started at the bridge and promptly pulled 3 nice trout out of the small pool there and the riffles! It was great! The dilettantes were just fishing the pools not knowing that the high water had distributed the fish throughout the entire stream including the riffles and faster water portions. There was also enough water to provide good cover in the fast water for many active hungry fish. These fish were also the stronger fighters. Recognizing this, I proceeded down stream working every eddy and trough in the stream. It was easy for me as I know every slight trough and larger rock in the stream from years of swimming and mucking about, they are all old friends. In about 4 hours time I had a ball catching 7 fish. All really good fighters and generally on the terminus of my cast. What delightful fun. Tired, I walked up the hill, to home totally satisfied with the day’s fishing.

Sunday (today) I drove over to Ohio to pick up a used propane water heater on the cheap for Villa Colombi and got home around 5:30. The day had finally warmed so I decided to go back and fish a little more of the stream above the bridge. I walked up to the pool we call “monkey balls” and fished there first. The fish were voracious I pulled five out of there quickly – a mix of browns and rainbows. Being in the pool they didn’t fight real well but I did have a great tussle from a big rainbow – ~13″. Then I moved down to the riffles below and hacked 7 - count’em 7 - more ripsnorting little devils out! There was about 10 consecutive casts where I got a hit each time! What fun! These were all as my esteemed colleague Sloucho would term “riffle sniffers” smallish but fiendishly hungry and great fighters employing the fast water to their advantage at each run during the fight. I must say that my percentages of catches to bites here was deplorable! I must have fed the buggers 2 dozen minnows and meal worms! But they were delightful. Next I moved to the whirlpool riffle and caught a couple there. Then onto the pool near the Marks family homestead. There I stood at the head of the pool and drifted minnows into the pool of unsuspecting trout. I caught 2 or three nice sized rainbows then when I drifted a particularly large minnow into the pool  had a momentary snag. But it was no snag it was a big fat brown trout about 18 inches. He worked me like I wasn’t there – running, taking line, and one jump as I tried to move him away from the faster water.  He was absolutely gorgeous – perfect finnage great markings and broader than my hand. A fellow fisherman saw me as I unhooked the fish and remarked at what a fine fish it was even from the other side of the stream. I then left the pool to the new comer. The fisherman said I needn’t leave the pool that he would just watch a master fisherman, (oddly I left the straight line hang – I must be getting old!) but I told him that the pool was his and that I had other friends to visit before it got dark. I am sure he thought I meant people but I was actually referring to the rest of the stream and its denizens before I got to the bridge. On the way to the bridge I caught several more delightful riffle sniffers. At the bridge I decided to throw a couple more casts into the fast water there before calling it a night. Unsurprisingly I hacked out two nice rainbows and was about to call it a day but decided to put on another minnow – you know ah… just one more cast. Then in the middle of an extremely fast running trough another big assed brown hit my minnow like a ton of bricks! Then like a screaming bonefish on the saltwater flats of the keys he took off upstream! Holy shit! I was caught totally off-guard, then he turned and got slack from an unprepared yet seasoned fisherman. I thought I was cooked and that he would surely throw the hook, but luck was with me and the hook set was fast. Then the real fight began – realizing that his initial gambit was unsuccessful he began to use brut force to try to break my line. But sorry no my friend - though I had 4 lb test - I was using a nice light action graphite fly rod and I now knew the wiliness and mettle of my distinguished opponent. After about what seemed like an hour but was mere minutes I had my dear friend in my wetted hand and was gently extracting the hook with my forceps before releasing him like all the others. What a fine fish – the muscular cousin of the brown trout that I had caught up-stream - not much different in size, just different the way a Porsche is from a Benz.

Well that about sums up my hijinks on the “stream of my youth” this year – I know that if I ever need to smile I have only to recall one of the fish I caught this day or even one that I missed.

These are a few…

Of my favorite things.

I watched the first of the new Hobbit movies the other day. In that movie the wise Gandolph  replies to the elfin queen when asked, why he is bringing a hobbit on the quest, that unlike Saruman who believes that great evil can only be defeated by great armies (paraphrased of course) that he (Gandolph) thinks that great evil is defeated each day by the little goodnesses. I believe that Gandolph is right, small goodnesses of action and devices can prevent great evil. So we should all by our nature try to present a good example by being civil, positive and helpful. (sometimes very difficult for me!)

So along with one aspect of this theme I thought it would be a great exercise to recall and perhaps list some of my favorite things. We all have favorite things, but I want to address small things that I use on a regular if not daily basis that I have found to be of the highest quality and utilitarian value. Things that I have acquired over my many years and in some cases have had for more than forty years. My criteria for favorite things are that they be extremely well made (may be passed on for generations), require little maintenance, and be highly useful as well as have a certain wondrous functional elegance. Most of the things that we acquire these days fail these standards miserably and I believe that that is one of the sicknesses of our society – but I digress – and don’t have to write that tome of a book now.

The idea for this posting came to me when I attended an aquarist auction last weekend with my dear friend/mentor Ernie Lesher (it may seem odd to think that I have a mentor at age 58 but we should all know people of boundless curiosity and intellect as well as vast life experience. I recently lost one of my mentors, Earl Trimble and am still not reconciled with it – but again I digress). A stranger was sitting next to me and purchased a particularly nice pair of African Malawi cichlids and needed a pen to sign off on the purchase slip. I reached into my pocket and retrieved my pen for him. After using my pen he exclaimed what a great pen it was. I smiled knowingly and he asked where he could get one. The pen is a Fisher Space Pen made in the USA and lifetime guaranteed! It was developed for the space program (those crazy Russians  had pencils!) and uses a pressurized ink cartridge that writes all the time hot or cold, upside down and even on wet paper! A great field work pen. It’s small and bullet shaped with no clip. It lays happily in my pocket with my change and doesn’t wear a hole or chafe and is unaffected by the coins. I generally have one with me. Over my many years I have lost one and used one up. I returned the used up one and got a new one back free of charge! So if you don’t lose it, its a lifetime pen of the highest quality. You may ask how much for this “space age” antique miracle? I think it was 20$, nowhere near the hundreds for an inferior Mont Blanc! Over the years I have lent the pen to hundreds of people and everyone – literally everyone – has remarked at how nice the pen was after using it and I made sure that it went back into my pocket. I even got many comments about “your cool pen Mr. Newton” from jaded throwaway culture high-school students when I substitute taught. So there you are - a favorite thing!

Some others now.

My crockery mug – from “uncle Ralph” at Pandora’s Box in Fulda Germany. No logos, 0.5 liter (calibrated to the line) grey, heavily made, shaped just like my Grandma Iva’s favorite tea mug. Whenever I use it I think of uncle Ralph (German bar owner) and my Grandma.

My Rhino Pipe – Large black ebony pipe that will free stand, meerschaum lined and big enough for any sized cigar. Given to me (used) by the formidable Judge Clay from Moorehead, Kentucky about the fourth year that we owned the camp. Whenever I smoke it I think of the Judge’s basso profundo voice and him puffing on it deliberating on the fate of some minor transgressor… “You in a heap a trouble…”

My Swiss army knife – the smaller pocket model with two blades and a cork screw (very important) purchased by me in Heidelberg Germany. Many memories of its uses and the time I bought it – no need to expound on its quality. Along with it is a foot long heavy silver chain (purchased in State College Pa at an antique shop) with a stainless steel ”musky” ball bearing swivel (found on a massive lure from the bottom of Firth) and a clip for my belt loop so I can’t lose it. This is very important as I get older.

My “Canadian Snow Scoop” – It is the finest possible means of clearing snow with the least amount of effort. I got it many years ago at the Beauty Lake Dump, fixed it and have used it ever since. No back strain moving vast amounts of snow, lowering my time to clear the drive from 2.5 hours to 30 minutes and getting a little exercise.

I wrote a list of a lot of things to possibly go over here but I’ll leave you with those. The other things aren’t quite so memorable or personal – like 100% cotton wigwam socks, under gravel aquarium filters, diamond knife hones, binder clips, cast iron skillets, etc. All good/great small things. If you want to share some of your favorite things that would be great – since great things need word of mouth to keep them being manufactured.

The Back of Winter…

Is Broken!

At least that’s what HAL told me the last time I checked on the sump pump and asked him how much longer his mission of shepherding snow storms away from the New Castle region would be required. HAL was looking forward to his summer vacation to surf the electronic etherways of the internet. He told me he was really looking forward to visiting Australia for some nanoseconds of monitoring drunken email and texts and checking out all the dirty pictures and depixilating about a thousand or so faces where they will cause the greatest hilarity – what an electronic Imp! I’ll have to get him to recount what deviltry he perpetrates some time. I keep telling him that he should write a book when he gets a few nanoseconds of free time – but he always says, “That’s much too vulgar a display of power, Karras.” Whats up with that shit???? Oh well he often says crazy things.I usually just let that kinda stuff pass.

Along with the passing of winter comes my most disliked part of Spring – the switch to daylight savings time – I hate loosing an hour of sleep. Oh well – trout season is on its way. I ask Janet questions nearly daily about fishing choices on Firth Lake to get us thinking about the fun to come. The questions are like, “OK, OK, it’s a hot day in mid July with a 10 mph Northwest wind with wispy cumulus (Chris Murphy please note) clouds scudding across the sky after previous day of misty rain, there seems to be a very low-grade may fly hatch but not many….. where would you go fishing first and what would you use?” There are no wrong answers but the answer must be supported by fishing knowledge and the reasons for going where you will. I find it a very stimulating visualization and thus put that to all of you. You can also provide other details like – the water is high, the weeds are well propagated etc, In any case enjoy the exercise and the mini-mental vacation. Hey we can even elaborate to the point of what drinks would be served on the beach after a long day of battling the Firth Lake leviathans and whose ass you might kick at bean bags or cross-country croquet…………*SIGH*………. I hope HAL is right!

Poop Baxter…

Today the neighborhood, tomorrow the WORLD!

Baxter has once again embarked on another plan for world domination! With the recent retirement/abdication of Poop Ratzinger Baxter has seen another chance for world domination. I was listening as he and Caninale Bart (of the New Castle Archdoggiecese) were plotting their plans. They realized as lighteneing strikes that they could easily take over. They were ticking off what votes that they might call in the next conclave. They said that they could complete their nefarious plans by counting on votes from their fellow members of the Tibetan faction of the Buffalo archdoggiese Caninales, Kipper, Chompers, Rosey, and their friends in the Washington archdoggiese, Their Eminences Cooper, and Dizzy! Their plans were definitely gelling! He was also ticking off votes from the Venango/Meadville archdoggiese from their Eminences Riley, Gwen, and newly appointed Darby! They also counted on the vote from the Warren archdoggiese of Caninale Chanelle! They were also working with the outside chance that they would garner the votes from the Slippery Rock archdoggiese from Caninales Roxy and Barkley. It all seems so simple. During the conclave to signal the election they would have the squirrel and ground hogs all under lock and key controlled by Baxter. So that whenever some one other than Baxter was possibly elected a groundhog would still be released thru the Cistern Chapel’s drainpipe signalling to the world that the vote was inconclusive! They would not release the squirrel signalling election of the Poop until a time of their choosing. And that choosing would only be when they could announce the ascension to Poopdom of Baxter I. Oh the changes we will see!  The host will be replaced with milk bones, the summer residence of the Poop will be Castel Gowganda, there will be no red slippers, and supplicants will no longer kiss the Poops ring, replaced by - let us say, a more informal gesture! Of course many things will remain – the complete and total adoration of the masses of Poop Baxter I! But wait that’s the way things are now for Baxter. “Why should we go to all that trouble?” mused Bart. And they both concluded that they would prefer to spend their time treeing squirrels and chasing crows so it was all called off. We just dodged a bullet.

Changes in Attitude, Changes in Latitude…

Its all relative to where you are – location, age,expectations etc.

The spate of nice weather has allowed me to spend more time outside enjoying my home and its surrounds. I went and collected plankton from a nearby pond about a 20 minute walk away from home. On the walk I got to see several flocks of chickadees, a pileated woodpecker, some jays and a group of crows mobbing a red-tailed hawk. Great stuff! Nothing is better than a bunch of chickadees coming around you and giving you hell with their chick-a-dee-dee calls. I invariably give it right back to them mimicking their calls. So you see an old guy wearing a funny hat with boots on and a long coat smoking a pipe carrying a bucket and net shouting “chick-a-dee-dee, dee-dee-dee!” walking down an old railway bed. Obviously off his rocker, or definitely eccentric if not insane. My only hope is that it doesn’t come up in my sanity hearing! Luckily there are almost no young people outside these days – unless they are rapidly propelling their pulchritude via petroleum on 4 wheelers or dirt bikes. But they wouldn’t be able to hear me, and lord knows they certainly wouldn’t be able to observe any wildlife or notice the multitude of wild flowers and medicinal herbs they are grinding under wheel whilst they churn up the forest floor. But I shouldn’t be so much of an old curmudgeon, they are in a different place. They’re looking for speed and excitement not flora and fauna. I hope they get their fix but it just seems like such a waste. I also hope they grow out of it. Janet and I also noticed how the new snow after the last storm remained so untrammelled for days. The snow was perfect for making snow balls, snow forts, sledding. etc. and yet it went unused for days. So it seems the youth of today are working out their thumbs texting and gaming rather than their legs, arms and imaginations. We also got additional excitement by setting ambushes for unwary motorists – and then pelting them unmercifully with snow balls. Oh what fun when some one would actually stop and swear at us or even make moves to chase us! (You see New Castle is heavily populated by curmudgeons! Some things don’t change.) What folly on their part – we always picked a place where we were on a rise and separated from them by the dreaded “jagger bushes”. So we would stand our ground for a while and brazenly pelt the newly emerged pedestrian. Of course we’d have to then quickly adjourn to an alternate location since he would probably call the police on us once he got home. There’s another problem with cell phones, the snow ball pelters of nowadays would have to be much faster on their feet and have better planning as people who didn’t stop most likely would call the police right after they realised they’d been assaulted. So perhaps that is another fun thing that has passed. Changes in attitude.

In the changes of latitude - I miss my daily viewings of wildlife from my summers up north and now have to revel in more mundane wildlife contact such as the chickadees and seeing the occasional box elder bug or stinkbug walking around on my kitchen sink or cool little bright green crab spider inhabiting my Philodendrons in the bathroom. But aside from nightly dodging deer on the roads coming back from work I have gotten to see some cool stuff. I was talking to Patty Martino (she and her family came up to camp last summer and made the trek to Spider with me) at work about the many bobcats that inhabited the alder bottoms of the many tributaries of Slippery Rock Creek. I was telling her how we often saw their tracks even if an actual sighting was seldom and fleeting when we were at my parents cabin near Boyers. Patty was saying that she thought they were probably in decline due to the recent upsurge in the coyote population. As so often happens with me, all I have to do is think about something or talk about it and it is soon to appear. The Evil Janeeto says that I’m a witch but that is nonsense. But in spite of the nonsense I got to see a bobcat the very next night on the way home from work. It was sitting placidly like a house cat right next to the road and he tracked me with his eyes as I drove past. As with the lynxes I’ve seen up north the hair stood up on the back of my neck! So every latitude has its perks they’re just a little different, we just have to adjust our attitude and expectations.