Pulp Fishing - Fishing Journal

DAY ONE - Jerry and Fred took off around 1:00 for the State of Maine, boat in tow and ready to fish, many (many) hours later we got to Clearwater Lake, and Fred expertly backed the trailer into the water and UH OH, no juice to the engine, pulled it back out and Fred got to work, tools came out, and things were tested. Of course Jerry proved totally useless in the arena of mechanical/electrical repair, but was able to fetch quite well. Fred found the problem, missing fuse, replaced it and we were in the water and motoring. Beautiful warm/hot day, gorgeous lake, but no fish, did come upon one spot that the folks in the cabin on shore had some real mellow jazz playing, add that to kicking back and fishing, it was a real nice place to be. Sunset began and we headed to shore and UH OH, the frame on the trailer cracked as we (Fred actually) was pulling the boat onto it, but using his McGyverish abilities he rigged a few belts and cables and we got the boat outta the water and headed down the road. And Fred has an agreement with "The Farmer" that he can park the boat in his area, instead of hauling it up the psuedo-road to the camp.

Now lets talk about the Farmer. Seemed like a nice enough guy. HOWEVER, he kinda creeped me out, first of all, he had no shirt on and old guys, real old guys, Stephen King bad guy. Old guys, should always wear shirts. And then it got interesting we headed to “the camp”, as we left the main road and bounced along a dirt road, I’m starting to wonder how far into these woods is this place, My answer came soon enough when we left the dirt road, and started driving along the muddy, pot hole (real potholes, not like them inverse speed bumps in the city) riddled, branches touching both sides of the vehicle foot path. Mind you I say footpath, cuz from where I sat it wasn’t a vehicle road, but we traveled deeper and deeper into the dark lands we finally came the camp, set back of a road a bit, in total blackness. Fred bounced out and we started unloading as he started turning on the lights (propane globes) and I started opening windows to let the air in, we put our food supplies away and picked our sleeping spots, we got first choice cuz we were the first ones there and it was Fred’s camp. Now being a city boy, which I really became aware of quickly, being out in the dark and quiet can be quite traumatic, if that was the only scary thing that night, which was not to be the case.

Around 10:00 Bud and Tommy called from the end of the road not quite sure which way was to the cabin so Fred was going to down to meet them, I had offered to walk down to Fred’s surprise, till he realized there was no way I was leaving the cabin alone. He asked my to join him for the ride to meet them, I asked if he was scared too, but he said no. Quick trip down the road and the team was assembled, Fred, Bud, Tom and myself. We set our alarms and sat at the table and played some cards and munched, till about 2:00 AM.

First let me tell you about the “reptile bugs”, they were about 5 or 6 inches in length, when at rest, long green shiny things, apparently they are moths, but they were all over the windows and if you were outside, in the dark, with them they came at you, like getting hit with a stick.

OK, so we’re playing cards and out of the darkness comes a voice, “Hello, hello..” mind you we’re in the middle of freakin no where but now we have company of course all us manly men went right the door and Fred approached the two boys, who had obviously been celebrating, one of them was pretty much only wearing mud covered pants, dried old mud, and started asking who they were what the hell they were doing up there and so on and so forth. Apparently they were sorta hanging out in the woods and their car died. They needed a jump and Fred McGyver agreed, so Fred walked up with them, Bud drove his car behind and Tommy grabbed a flashlight/lantern that would blinded Stevie wonder and took off after them. I stayed back at the cabin, nope not for any noble reasons, I have seen way too many movies and read way too many books to take part in this little adventure, I KNEW how this was going to turn out. So I stayed back, behind closed doors, with the Reptile Bugs locked outside and hoping I wouldn’t need to resort to hiding in the house when they came back to get me. Once they got the car they found a bunch more of the boys friend and a big ole red headed girl waiting. At which point the driver of the car got out and pulled a big ole hunting knife from his pocket, Bud wasn’t sure if he sure drive forward and run them over, or back up and get the “flock” outta there. Turns out he needed the knife to open the hood, only to find out that no one had battery cables. Fred to the rescue he brought the original two of the Bodine boys back to the camp and donated a battery to them and off they went.

DAY TWO - We slept a little bit and 4:30 AM Fred got up and made some man coffee, not that wimpy crap you buy locally but coffee that you have to chew, and off we went to fishing. Hit the water and shot across the lake, Clearwater Lake, and started fishing the shoreline, lots of rocks, lots of cover and Fred was tossing out a diving crankbait, big ass orange thing which he apparently bought from the fishing gods, since by the end of the day he dragged in about 20 smallies. Bud grabbed a few good ones, one huge thing, Tommy picked up a bluegill, I on the other hand, got a lot of casting practice and nice day on the lake. Bud hopped out and did some wading, little scary since we didn’t know the water, but he did well, pulled in about 5 more fish, Fred was still banging away with the Almighty Orange thing, occasionally getting it snagged up pretty good, but the boat made into whatever it was snagged on and it was retrieved. Tommy was mostly hiding from the sun at this point, he is a much white guy who goes from white to burned in a heartbeat, I on the other hand got some more casting practice and a nice day on the boat.

After we pulled in for lunch someone suggested we try another lake, and I was all over it, and we headed off to Long Pond (maybe?) and Tommy took a nap while we headed off to harass the bass population and harass we did, I finally caught a few fish, bud was hitting fairly regular and Fred, well Fred finally killed his lure, all he managed to retrieve at this point was the bill, which I think we should mount on a plaque as tribute to the fishing gods. Not that we weren’t all saddened at the loss it was nice to have everyone on an even playing field. The day ended on a lull, but the weather was fairly nice and it was back to the camp for Tex Mex BBQ.

Fred hooked us all up with hot water so we could shower and as I came out of the shower I heard Fred introducing more people. Company again! In the middle of nowhere? What the hell? Apparently his neighbors had popped in to say hi (probably a 2 hour trip as the crow flies) and man oh man talk about hill people. The spokesman was a big burly guy, and his little friend was right outta Texas Chain Saw Massacre, which became apparent when Fred mentioned hunting deer in the winter. “Varmints! I hate them varmints” was the little ones instant response, of course it was accompanied by bouncy jerky motions. Other then Yosemite Sam and the Clampetts I never actually heard anyone use the word varmints when they weren’t spoofing something. They also told us a funny little story about how they sunk a backhoe into some swampy area, but then they got a dozer and sunk that also. Well not actually funny, more odd, then funny.
Dinner was great, and we crashed about 11:00 to arise at 4:30 again,

DAY 3 - Tommy slept in and Fred, Bud and I hit the water. I nailed the first fish of the day, bout the only thing I can actually be proud of from this little trip, on a topwater, sweet way to catch the little buggers and it was a pretty slow fish day from there on in. We all ended up with one or two fish by the end of the day, and headed back to civilization.

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