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Sunday, June 06, 2010

Local Boys Go North



In May, six men from our church went to a fishing and hunting resort in Canada.  Hunting seasons weren't open, so we went to fish.  Make sense?  We brought fishing equipment along, so that is perfectly logical.  However, since we were acquainted with the resort owner, we grabbed scrapers, paint brushes and rollers and put a coat of new paint on some of the cabins that needed it most.  in the late afternoon, we would go out to some remote lake and try for walleyes.  As I said, the lakes were 'remote'.  In this case, what that meant is that the lakes were about 20 miles or so back on logging roads.  The resort had a cached boat hidden on the lake.  The boat was adequate for 3 men, but were six, so do the math, we had to trailer an additional boat.  one of the reasons lakes around more populated areas are not so full of fish is that fishermen have easy access and the lake gets fished out.  These Canadian lakes were not easy to access.  As I have mentioned, we had to negotiate maybe 20 miles of gravel roads.  Just navigating to the right spot, was a job requiring skill, diligence, persistence and maybe a little luck.
When we arrived at a given lake, we had to find the hidden boat and launch the trailered boat.  finding the hidden boat was not too big a deal.  Ever play treasure hunt?  fun and not too difficult when the object is a 14' aluminum boat.  On the other hand, launching the other boat was quite the experience.  Road access to the lake?  Concrete or at least gravel pad?  Not on your life.  This was a real man's boat landing.  The  boat and trailer would be unhooked from the vehicle and the whole outfit pulled through the woods by manpower.  Almost there?  Not really.  As you can imagine, the edge of the lake is wetlands, with a silty, muck soil.  This where it really got fun.  You then pull, push and cajole the boat, motor and all the fishing and personal gear through this mushy mess to the water's edge.  The water at the margin of the lake may be deep enough to float the boat or may not be.  In one case, we had to continue walking the boat out for an additional several yards before it would float with fishermen in it.
So anyway, that was challenging and fun.  After that it was just boring old fishing.  The first day the walleyes were very cooperative and we caught and released many fish and brought home our limit.  The second day on a different lake we had to work a little harder to catch our limit, but the launch effort was easier.  We would fish until sunset and then pull out in the encroaching dark.  We would arrive back at camp around 10:30pm, clean fish and have a fish fry at around 11.  Uhmm good. 

Thanks to the mercy of God and the good graces of our host we had a most enjoyable trip.  As a bunch of guys we had a lot to share, had some good cooking and hopefully contributed something to the resort as well.  We demonstrated once again that disciples of Jesus have a blast!

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