Barking Space

The Boys of Summer: In Spring!

Well, it definitely wasn’t summer. I took the bus up to my friend Brad’s place on Thursday night, and he picked me up from the bus station. We hung out for a bit, had some barley juice, and chatted about the plan. The original plan was to do a jaunt through the woods, covering between 25-30 km in three days.

However, heavy rains were called for. Rain is not usually something that would dissuade nutcases like us. Rain in the cold temperatures, on the other hand, made for a prospect that spoke of no relaxation whatsoever.

The plan changed from interior camping to cottage-dwelling with extensive day trips. This way, we’d have a warm place to hang out in at night and still enjoy the outdoors.

Brad then proceeded to give me my birthday present, which was a beautiful finished wooden paddle for canoeing. Very cool.

I slept well that night, as my bus ride was crapola salad.

Freaky Friday

Brad had some stuff to do on Friday morning, so I just took a hike for a while, picking up empty beer cans along the highway (which is scary). When Brad was done what he needed to do, I tossed the Beer cans in the recycling bin and we went over to the cottage.

Then we realized that we forgot bait for fishing, and went out to get some, and then went back to the cottage.

And so, we tried to figure out the best way to proceed with our afternoon.

Originally, we had thought to canoe to the places we were going to be fishing. However, this meant that hours would be spent canoeing, cutting into the amount of time we could realistically fish. Thus, we dragged the canoe to the portage by tying it to an outboard motor boat.

We reached the portage, tied off the motor boat, and hiked the canoe over to the next lake, paddled around looking for fish, and then portaged over to another smaller lake. No one was there, and it was quiet. We paddled around for a bit, taking a few test casts, and getting some nibbles.

Soon after, my line was straining against a Speckled Trout, I reeled it in, Brad netted it and tossed it into the bottom of the boat. We started to fish again when our prisoner began flopping around…

Brad: Hit it.
Jorge: What?
Brad: Hit it!
Jorge: With what?
Brad: I don’t know. The back of the net. Use the handle of the net.
[Jorge makes a very lame attempt to clobber the fish. He ends up getting blood all over his jacket (which was sitting on the middle thwart of the canoe) and guts on his jacket collar.]
Jorge: [Sheepishly.] I’m no good at this, and I can’t quite turn around…
Brad: Not a problem man. [Soundly whacks the fish on the right part of the skull, sending it to..er…sleep with the fishes?]

Side note: I’m not really very good at a lot of things that I would like to be good at. Fishing and boating and swimming, as well as a million other things. This just reinforces the fact that Brad is one of the coolest friends on the planet. Not only does he know a million times more about all of those things than I do, but he also never makes you feel inadequate for not knowing how to do something…

Brad caught one shortly after and noted that mine was larger.

It started spitting shortly after, and then the mild rain turned to hail. We were very happy that we didn’t go interior camping at this point.

Figuring that the hail was wrecking our chances of catching anything, we headed back to the portage point where we originally left the motor boat. On the way, we trolled around the interim lake with no luck. When we reached the portage, we decided to try a set of nearby rapids for fish. We had just pulled into the rapids and anchored ourselves to a cedar stump when I cast in and caught a Lake Trout. Brad, who was still putting his worm on the hook was excited, and put this fish in with the other ones.

In next to no time, Brad caught two more, but had to throw one back, as it was in fell in the slot limit (optimal breeding size).

We stayed for a bit longer, and then called it a good day of fishing and headed back to the ranch.

Brad showed me how to clean and fillet fish, and then proceeded to analyze the stomach contents (it was like CSI: Fish).

We saved the Speckled Trout for breakfast the next morning, and battered and fried up the Lake Trout using three different seasoning combinations. I made some sweet potato home fries, and we had screwdrivers to drink.

Despite the cold and odd precipitation, it was a great day.

Brad nasty bastard tricks of the day: Yanking my fishing line when I wasn’t looking during our first jaunt into the first lake. Making a loud noise as I was turning on the propane oven.

Brad pearl of knowledge for the day: Holding a fish is like holding a muscley bar of soap. You just have to make sure your grip is tight, and you’ll be all set.

Stay tuned tomorrow for more adventures of Brad and Jorge

Filed under: Anecdotes, Friends, Spaces Archive | 10 Comments »