On Number Fifty

            I’m 50 and a ½ today.  I wanted this to be my 50^th blog entry on my official half birthday in my 50^th year, but then I went and had a couple of adventures two weeks ago, and so that idea went out the window.  I simply had to write about those outings, if only for their uniqueness.  I started this blog two years ago today (See past blog “Half Way There”).  I’m still trying to figure out if it really is very “funny” how time flies.  When I think back to my 50^th birthday last summer, I do feel a smile spread across my face.  Not because of anything funny, but rather something very memorable.  I had just come off from running an ultra marathon that spring; 50 miles for 50 years.  That was definitely memorable, but my birthday was in a class by itself.

            My birthday was on a Sunday this past July 24^th, ironically on “Cousins Day.”  I’m not sure what that means, but I was with three of my cousins on that day while on our annual camping and fishing trip in the North Country of Michigan.  Having already been in the woods for two nights, we awoke early with the sun.  I fixed everyone my classic breakfast of potatoes, eggs, and sausage.  Afterwards, I read a few verses from the Bible that seemed to fit where we were at in our spirit and environment.  It’s kind of a tradition on the Sunday morning before our day’s outing.  It seems to provide insight before we hit the river to fish.  By then I could hardly contain myself, as I had been hiding a gift for each of them.  Over the years, we’ve caught some great trout of great size.  Those memories run deep for each of us, as we had some lean years back when we first started coming on this trip, when we basically caught nothing.  On this day, my birthday, I presented each of them with a framed picture of themselves with one of those trout; Brian with a rainbow, Brad with a brown, and Sean with a brook trout.  This meant a lot to me, as I had been fortunate enough to have been with each of them personally when they caught the trout pictured; great stories and great memories.  They returned the favor, and gave me a hammock that Brad had made for me, and a shirt that Sean had designed and had made for each of us.  Those were heartfelt gifts.  I wear the T-shirt all of the time, and I’m looking forward to this summer when I can fish, set up that hammock to take a snooze in the woods, and then fish some more.

Brad, Brian, and Sean - Pictures of Memories

The setting moon opposite of the rising sun

            By the time we were finished giving gifts, the sun was rising, we were getting antsy, and someone was probably mumbling something about whether we were going to sit around all morning or get our waders on and head out.  Actually, when it comes to fishing in the morning, the someone who is usually mumbling is probably me, but others have been known to utter such things depending on who we’re waiting for that has wandered off somewhere, or who’s still down in the outhouse.

After a long hike in
we're ready to rock it out on the water

            And so we took off hiking the trail, several miles downriver.  The skies promised to be overcast as the morning progressed, which usually means you can sneak through the water without your shadows giving you away.  We fished for hours.  It was a bit slow going, but we each caught little ones at various points.  Mine was a rainbow fingerling; small, but a trout nonetheless with the telltale, pink stripe and jet black dots.  That was it for me that morning.  Soon after, I broke the end of my pole, two tippets back.  I couldn’t believe it, but I tried to make the most of the situation, despite the fact that the flexible end of my ultra light pole was busted off.  I fished on.  Near some deep water, Brad caught a couple of nice brookies and had a big brown trout chase his lure several different times, but to no avail.                            

                                       

            Sean had caught a big one in the bend just around the corner from that deep water the year before, so we had hoped for a repeat performance.  Regardless, Brad really appreciated all of the advice that we heaped upon him; things that he should have done differently if he had wanted to actually hook and land that trout.  You could tell he was profoundly contemplating our loving advice while silently glancing our way.  In the meantime, our cheering section of three decided it was best to sleep with one eye open the rest of our time at camp.

            A few hundred yards up from there, we reached a classic run in the river with beautiful grassy banks where big fish typically come charging out from their shaded lair.  Instead, the banks provided excellent seats for us to jump up onto with our legs dangling in the water.  We relaxed, talked, and ate our apples and sandwiches; drinking water from the spring back at camp.  Soon after, we reached a bend with a really deep hole where I had caught a beautifully large brown trout a few years back.  We fished it, but got nothing.  Brian and I decided to try hugging close to the bank, and climb up and over a log jam. It was risky, but fishable water was on the other side.  We were mere millimeters from the tops of our waders, while walking on the tips of our big toes.  Forgoing the ballet of synchronized swimmers, Brad and Sean got out and walked the bank, while looking for a place to get back into the river.  Brian and I safely made it over the obstacle, while eyeing the inside bend, opposite of where the bank walkers were.

            Flipping my copper colored #3 Mepps from the less than flexible, broken tipped pole, I made the cast.  No sooner did my lure hit the surface of the river when a huge wake, pushing lots of water, surged out from under the overhanging grass.  Fish on!  It was a monster brown trout, as the video from Sean can attest to.  To believe it you’ll have to watch the video from where it starts, following a jump and several runs.  (Sorry for the continuous dialogue...I need to learn to keep my mouth shut when I'm in those situations and on video...nervous chatter I guess and part of the excitement).

            Once brought into my new landing net, I had to work to get the barb out of the brown trout’s hooked jaw; normally something I’m quick with.  I worked for five to eight minutes to try to revive the fish in the water.  His fins were moving and he was trying to gulp oxygen, but he wouldn’t push off on his own.  It made me sick, but I didn’t want to let him go and watch him go belly up in the current only to become otter food under a bank downstream.  My wish, as it is with all big trout, was to release him as cleanly as I had on my trout two nights prior.  (See past blog entry: A Refreshing Beginning)  He just wouldn’t stay upright though, and scoot out from my hands.  Because of that response I decided to keep him, but I’ll admit it hurt to justify it.  While I have kept some fairly big trout when I first started fishing, and while I do occasionally keep medium sized fish to eat, I like to know that the big trout that I’ve caught are still swimming somewhere in a favorite river.  I did smile for some pictures, however, as I was still pumped from having caught my biggest trout ever; and that on my birthday.

A Twenty Three Inch Brown Trout

            After the rush from that experience we were all pretty excited; part of the reason that we will fish all together from time to time.  It’s fun to watch when one of us can catch an unexpected big one.  We fished to the next bend, only to allow Brian the chance to throw a lure though a run where he had caught an equally big rainbow a few years prior.  Hiking back to camp became our priority then, as storm clouds loomed in the west.  We arrived in time to strip off our gear, change, pack the trout in ice, and head out for a few hours towards civilization; an easy drive beyond our camp.  The Straights area was our destination; near Cheboygan.  Brad and Brian were scheduled to pick up some fish mounts there.  They were mounts of some trout they had caught a few years prior.  They’ve caught other big trout since then, and while they always release those, these that were mounted were their first.  They were special.  Jeff Migda had performed the artwork and taxidermy of their trout.  We contacted him as we drove, catching him in his boat as he was fishing.  He said he wasn’t catching anything anyways, the storm was approaching, and that he would meet us at his shop.  We told him we had brought my recently caught brown trout for his new project.  When we arrived, we talked, caught up, marveled at the mounts he was currently working on, and showed him the brown.  It’s one I’ll look forward to picking up next summer after he’s done designing it.

            The rain had slowed by then, night time was settling in, and we were powerfully hungry.  We ate at Mulligan’s in town.  Their Mexican food really hit the spot, and it beat trying to fix a meal in the dark and rain back at camp.  For my birthday, we also went to The Big Dipper for some ice cream.  The cousins extended their generosity and covered the cost between them.

            Typically once we’re in the woods we hate coming out into society.  After a long, memorable day however - a day when I turned 50 - we made the most of that afternoon.  On a day that was dubbed “Cousin’s Day” by somebody, somewhere, we spent most of the day in the woods and in the river, and a little while in town.  We were looking forward to heading back to camp though.  The following day was another day of fishing on a different river.  Home is where the heart is.

            See you along The Way…

A Refreshing Beginning

Caught, Photographed, Revived & Released

I’m not sure what happened, but somehow over the course of the last several weeks, the amount of time that I sleep throughout any given night has slipped away like sand through an hour glass.  As the summer goes along, a person tends to stay up a bit longer anyways, but with my family’s schedule involving work and practices, we continue to get up early.  That, coupled with some health issues and surgery that my wife has bravely battled through, and you have the ingredients for some short nights and long days.  None of the issues involving time mattered now though, as I was once again back North with my cousins; in the heart of Northern Lower Michigan.  We travel to camp in one of Michigan’s beautiful state forests once a year, next to where I grew up as a young lad.

I slept last night for just shy of four hours, or maybe it was five.  While camping we don’t keep track of time much, but I also get mixed up between reading my watch that I have laying next to me, seeing it’s time, and also moving it ahead one hour for the eastern time zone.  The point is that I got some sleep and it took the edge off.  When nature began to call, as I lay within my new tent, I knew it was time to get up.  After slipping in and out of the tent under the declining light of the waning gibbous moon, and the gentle glow of a rising sun an hour or so off from breaking the horizon, I turned on my lantern, tucked back down into my sleeping bag, and began to write.

I had begun thinking about last night, and I had to get it out of my mind and onto paper.  I would have documented it in my daily journal, but after two full years, and the aforementioned schedule lately, I’m like two or three weeks behind.  It presents itself as a bit of a problem.  My wife says I simply need to draw a line and start afresh.  I’m kind of under the notion though that I’d like to at least briefly document each day’s events for the last few weeks; in brief snippets of facts for all that’s happened recently.  Regardless, I pulled out my writing journal instead.

After only sleeping two and a half hours on Thursday night, I got up and put the last few things into my Jeep, said goodbye to my wife, and left our driveway and Northern Illinois at 3:00 a.m.  I wanted to beat the heat, as my Jeep doesn’t have air conditioning and it was supposed to be “up there” with the temperature and humidity.  I made great time traveling through Illinois, Indiana, and into Michigan; rolling into my hometown after about seven and a half hours of driving.  I stopped at the familiar State Park for a vehicle sticker, now known as a recreation pass, which I needed for camping out in the state forest.  Together with my cousin Brad, we then met my high school friend Tim for lunch.  Afterwards, Brad and I picked up my fishing license, bought enough food for one meal, and headed out to the woods.  We would complete our grocery shopping for the trip in the morning when we came back out to meet my cousin Brian; as he was coming up a day later.

Brad and I found a familiar site along the river that we’ve had twice before over the years.  After determining who could set up camp where, we began to start the process of unloading our gear.  Cousin Sean joined us at that point, as he had had to put in a couple of hours of work before driving up to meet us.  Brad and Sean hung their newly made hammocks to sleep in, and I pitched my tent.  After jumping in the river to rinse off and refresh, following a hot afternoon, we cooked up a dinner of beans, brats and sauerkraut.  It hit the spot, although as Brad and Sean said, “The only thing missing is the feeling you have that’s close to exhaustion; when you’ve worked hard all day and then eat that kind of food.”  It wasn’t as though we hadn’t worked to drive and then set up camp, it’s just not as much work as when we hike and fish all day (See our past blog entry entitled: “Bogged Down”).

Following our meal and cleaning up, we got out our waders, boots, and gear.  All of us had invested in new boots and waders for this trip, as time and use had ravaged our old ones.  And so there was the usual routine of rushing around to get our suspenders adjusted, and the feel just right.  Not much daylight was left, but we hiked down the valley a way so we could fish back.  The efforts were relaxed and we talked as we walked.  Upon entering the waters we thanked God for the tradition we’ve been able to continue now for nine full years, released a plug of sacred cedar, and then started fishing.  Of course Sean hooked a fish on his first cast.  That’s a bit of a tradition too.  Not that he catches fish on the first cast every outing, but that he catches fish fairly consistently with some obscure spinner that he’s simply picked out and uses as his “spinner of the week”.  Luckily it was just a small little trout; a brook trout; and it fell off the hook before he could bring it to his hand.  Brad and I smiled, shook our heads while mumbling something about how he does that, and then started casting as well.

We continued on in the dwindling light for several bends without anything to speak of, other than little hits from trout that wouldn’t fully hook on; that is until Sean remarked that he thought the copper colored spinner I was using should start working for the brown trout who would be coming out to feed in the growing darkness.  No sooner had the air for those words left his lungs, when my lure suddenly hit a snag; a snag that was moving!  It was a load.  It was a slab.  It was big.  It was beautiful.  It was the first monster brown trout of our trip.

As the male ruffed grouse drummed its wings off in the distance, and a whip-poor-will started its distinctive call that mimicked the sound of its name, we all knew at that moment why it is that we do this trip.  This was going to be refreshing.

         See you along The Way…