Thank You, Sheep

It was the last winter camping and lake trout fishing trip of the season this past weekend. The Colonel, Rocket Man, and I got things loaded on Thursday morning and headed north on a warm, sunny day. We met the Captain at a lake access parking lot where he had been camping since Sunday. He reported slow fishing and sloppy conditions. We headed to our lake of choice and loaded the camping gear in the sleds, hooked them to the snow machines and hit the ice. We tooled around a bit looking for a good, easily accessible campsite and found one in an out of the way bay. We got the canvas tents and woodstoves set up, then headed out to fish. We found a lot of machine sucking slush in the bay, but we were able to set up out of the slop at a steep point. We failed to get any trout, the only fish caught was a small walleye. We stopped fishing fairly early and got some wood cut for the stove. We had a favorite meal, the Colonel's smoked ribs-they are fantastic.

On Friday morning, it was cold and sunny. The day started off with a bang (See Hubs' Flub below). We decided to fish a bay we hadn't tried in previous trips to this lake. It was slow fishing overall, but the day warmed, the wind was calm...I could have used a beach umbrella. I caught two smallish trout and a big cisco. Captain caught a couple decent trout, but the Colonel and Rocket Man were skunked. We fished fairly late trying to conjure up some action, but it never picked up. We had gnocchi in a tomato alfredo sauce and fried fish for supper.

We woke up to rain on Saturday morning. Rain or wet snow is the worst weather for winter campers. Canvas tents soak up the water and dampens gear. Fortunately the rain morphed into fog by the time we set out to fish and before long a west breeze blew the fog off and it was sunny and warm again. We went to a proven lake trout spot, but fishing was only slightly better. I caught a couple lake trout, the Captain, Rocket Man, and the Colonel caught one fish apiece. The Colonel lost a big fish at the hole at the end of the day, which was a real kick to the groin. The lake was pretty much a complete wet snow/slush slop fest by the end of the day, but the machines never bogged down on the trip back to camp. I made a new thai curry rice dish that night, and it turned out pretty well.

Sunday dawned with strong winds and falling snow. It was determined that conditions were not amenable to fishing, so we packed up camp at a leisurely pace and took off in blizzard like conditions for the landing. It was a slow ride on refrozen slush and blowing snow. We transferred the gear to the trucks, headed south, had lunch and buzzed back to Duluth with no issues. As usual it felt a bit odd to put the winter gear away in the garage for the last time this season. It was a good trip, but like most trips this year, fishing was slow. Not a good fishing catching winter season at all, but snow conditions were deep and often prevented us from fishing the spots we would have preferred. Now it is time to get switch the gear to open water angling.

Nature Moment: It is surprising how fast nature wakes up when the temperature goes up, despite there still being a ton of snow in the woods. We saw moths, flies, and even spiders. Won't be long and the black flies and mosquitoes will be out and about.

Hubs' Flub: This one was a doozy and I am lucky it wasn't worse than it was. It was pretty cold on Friday morning. The Colonel attempted to fire up the propane heater, but only the pilot light would come on. We goofed with it for a quite a bit and couldn't get it to go. I was a little frustrated and decided to just light the little camp stove on a 1 pound propane tank instead. I made the big mistake of attaching the 1 pound tank to the little stove inside the tent. Of course the little tank was cold and as sometimes happens, frost plugged the stove line. Propane sprayed out, hit the lit pilot light on the non-functioning heater and exploded. Whoosh. Big fire ball. My lap was on fire, and the little stove was burning at the tank, which was still leaking. I dropped it to the ground and slapped out the fire on my legs. I yelled Fire!, Fire! to get help from the Captain and Rocket Man in the other tent. The Colonel got our tent door open and I grabbed the burning stove and tank and threw them out the door, where Captain and Rocket man used snow to smother the fire before the tank blew. Wow, that was a wake up call. How could I be so stupid? (Don't answer that, dear.) The only permanent damage was a melted nylon hanging shelf that was right above my head. I was very lucky that I had my wool pants on. Wool doesn't burn well and doesn't melt. If I had had my fleece pants on? Melting and burning synthetic fibers would likely have burned my legs significantly. Thank you, sheep.

Quote of The Trip: "Fire!"