TR and Jeff asked me if I could come up with any stories about my hunting experiences for the Magazine. They wanted me to come up with something that might be a little light hearted. Now my detecting is usually done alone and not all that funny. An old fart like me has lived through a few things that made me laugh and I figured I might share a few of them. Tell the truth, night before last I laid in bed and couldn't sleep because I was going over some of my trips and laughing my butt off as I remembered them. Woke up Mary around 12:30 am laughing. She thought I was nuts.
I will never say I am a writer. I don't know much about writing but just put them down as I think them. I don't think I can really do justice to these stories but they were funny at the time. I will say
that every thing I put down is true. It happened as I tell them, or at least as I remember it. Hope you like them. If you have suggestions, Let er rip!!

This is about one of my Fly-in trips into, uh…I sorta misremember the name of the lake. Must have something to so with my advancing age! :0) Anyway. I have made 20 of these trips, over the years, and had a ball on all. When I first started flying in to these lakes it cost 42 dollars per person and that included the camp, flying in and out, a boat and 10 gallons of gas per person. We had to get a license and bring our own food. The lakes were usually great fishing. Pike and Walleye! The walleye weren't all that large but the Pike were big. I caught 76 pike one week. That was the only time I ever bothered keeping track. The lakes I flew into were normally rather small. They had to be large enough for a floatplane, usually a Beaver or small Cessna. I usually chose a smaller lake as I wanted to have it to ourselves. Some of the larger ones will have more than one camp and the solitude is one of the things I always looked forward to. Normally I would try for at least 4 people so we would have a euchre set. Six was better. Love to play it !! :0

 This year there were 4 of us, Jay, Ray, Dale and I. It must have been some time in the early 80's. We would always rotate partners so we would not have any casualties by the end of the week. We fished two to a boat and they get pretty small after 8 or 10 hours of fishing each day. You get the urge to strangle your best friend after you have heard the same tune hummed for a full day and we have found that rotation is best! I had one buddy that spent a whole week burning OFF to keep the black flies away!! Heck they weren't out in the middle of the lake in the breeze!! He had a can with a rag in it that was soaked in OFF, Had that damn thing smoldering for a damn week!! Should have strangled the sucker. Nobody else would fish with him though. :0(   I was fishing with Jay this day. Back then I fished all the time. Usually I would get out 3 or 4 times a week during the summer. Usually casting for bass or using a fly rod for sunfish and bluegill. I could flip that lure almost anywhere I wanted to. I could skip cast the sucker back under cover and lay it, with pinpoint accuracy in the Lilly's. Jay only fished on these trips! I was always stuck with running the motor. It was my motor but It gets tiresome after hours of it. Jay wouldn't touch the damn thing and said that we could fish anywhere I wanted and I was to make the decisions as to where to and when we moved. 

We were fishing a small bay in this lake I can't remember the name of and the fish weren't interested. This was a beautiful lake. Lots of small bays with a rapids feeding the lake and a rapids at the discharge end. It was like glass and it was nice to listen to the Loons. Very peaceful.  Now in times like this I would normally try to wake things up by messing with my partner. Maybe that is the real reason we rotated. I messed with all of them! Ole Jay was easy though! I would start off by bragging about how good a caster I was and how he wasn't in the same league with me. I would flip that sucker up tight to shore and just rag at the poor guy. Along the lakes we normally fish the trees come up tight to the shore.

You can't even get out of the boat in most places and this bay was no exception. There were cedar trees along the shore with their roots half exposed because of the wave action. Many of them were dead and leaning out toward the lake at about a 30-degree angle or so. Skeletons of trees actually, with all the small branches but no foliage. Well here I was just a ragging and braggin at Jay and watching him just a chewing at the bait. Now he knew what I was about as I had done it to the lad on more than one, slow fishing, afternoon. Jay was pretty good with that rod, I gotta admit. He was tough to beat, considering how little he fished. What really put a half hitch in his shorts, at these moments was the fact that when we had these contest, he would do pretty good and sometimes rub my nose in my own brag. I usually had a tough time wuppin him, if he was having a good day. This was one of his good days :0(   I would say, "Try this sucker" and flip that Rappala right up under those cedars and the little vermin would match me. Or better me on occasion. I would never admit it to him and he will never read this :0) HAHAH He was making life just a little tough on a braggart that day and I thought I would lay one in as tight as I could, to shut him up. There wasn't much wind and it was great for control casting. I took aim at the base of one of these old dead cedars and after giving the sucker a sarcastic grin, let fly!! Well that sucker got away from me and headed for the top of that dead tree. It was leaning right at me and about 30 ft high or so. My story. It's as tall as I want it to be! :0) Thirty foot tree and a cast that went at least 35 ft high. That sucker went down directly on the top of that tree ! Now let me tell you a thing or two about a Rappala. They are a lure that is shaped like a minnow with three treble hooks and a nice lip at the front that gives it a swimming action. It is a great lure for Bass, Pike, Walleye and Cedar's! That sucker went up and came down through those branches. All the way to the water..........................................................................           

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