What can I say? ---This 16th year of the Bear Lake trip was an excellent adventure.  We had great times, great weather and great fishing.  I will do the best to frame our story and sincerely hope others chime in to round out the week.  I apologize in advance for the Borcheltness of the tale, but I can only tell what I see and what I hear.  Please beef up the parts of the story by sending email to me that give more details or sign the Grapevine.  For example, I need details from the four old men that huffed and puffed their way out to BurntCabin on Friday.  I wan to hear from the other BearLakers who struggled for Walleye.  I have dozens of pictures to scan and will update the gallery as soon as I can;  My scanner is currently disabled (12/8/98).  Now, for the rest of the story...

Table of Contents

  The Journey to Lang Lake
  The BurntCabin Bonanza
  Journal Notes from BearLake
  New for 1998

The BurntCabin Bonanza

The fishing on BurntCabin this year was the best I have ever seen.   I believe it was the best fishing anyone has ever seen, and I am convinced I will never have two days of fishing that produced as many hits, as much quantity and as much quality ever again in my life.  That may sound hard to believe, but after reading the story of the BurntCabin Bonanza, I think you too will be convinced.

Half-way through the week, MattK, NickK, BrianK, ToddS and I were making plans for our annual overnight trip to Howry, Gem and Fish Lake.  This year, I felt less energetic than I have in previous years so I began to make a case for visiting one of the back lakes that no one has fished for a long time.  I mentioned BurntCabin as a possibility.  Although the lake is no closer than Howry, BurntCabin is smaller and easier to fish with five people.  Howry is such as massive lake and so susceptible to wind that powering a canoe raft is very hard work.   However, I had not fished BurntCabin in five or six years, and the last time I visited the distant lake, I was fishing with ChuckH and did not have much luck.  Everybody seemed up for the idea, so we made plans to pack our overnight gear and meet at the Main Dock Wednesday mid-morning.  I am still amazed how much gear we all pack for an overnight trip to a back lake.

From the Main Dock on Bear Lake, we took a lake boat down Long Bay to the Lower Cranberry portage.  Gathering all our gear, we humped up and over to Lower Cranberry where we ferried over in two groups.  We feared we had too much gear and personnel for the old boat to carry us safely across the swampy lake.  No one felt like mucking through the shallow lake if the boat were to sink.  From the opposite shore by the cavernous logjam dam , its a long hike through old forest and bare Canadian shield rock to Wayne Swamp. 

Wayne Swamp is one of the most beautiful sights around Bear Lake.   The original swamp has changed much since we first came.   The swamp was drained by high-water or Howard's People during the winter/spring of 96.?.  A small creek now winds its way through a bright green meadow spiked with old cedar poles under which we once canoed.  Now we have to pick our way around a treacherous rocky shoreline and then over a mossy, boggy meadow with hidden muck holes and dotted with the unmistakable impressions of moose hooves.  Finally, the hike leaves you at the West end of Stoney.  At this landing you relax a moment, pull out the canoes from undercover and repack the canoes with all your gear.

Since it was still early afternoon, we decided to try fishing Stoney for dinner.  We were not confident that BurntCabin would produce for us the dinner we were hoping to catch.  Within 90 minutes, we had a few bass and I caught a nice Northern which would end up being the winner for the week.  With this success, we decided to test our luck on BurntCabin.  MattK guided us to the East end of Stoney where we found the steep trail to BurntCabin.  Up and over and retying our canoes together on BurntCabin was exhausting even though I did not have to hump a canoe.

First thing we noticed, standing on the quiet shore of BurntCabin, was the low water.  The lake had dropped about 3 1/2 or 4 feet.  Black dry mud and ghostly pale dry logs rested all around the shore.  It gave you an eerie feeling similar to looking at Little Lake on the Hill after the dam busted and half the water drained out back in 94 or 95.  We decided to head across to the campsite and set up camp so we would be ready for dinner when we came off the lake.  Upon approaching the flat campsite on-top, something large came flying out of the field East of us.  The two huge birds launched into the air and flew barking away looking more like pterodactyls than anything I had ever seen.  The wing span must have approached 6 to 8 feet long.  Huge birds.   They were rare trumpeter swans and were obviously unhappy at being disturbed. At one point early in the century only 33 pairs of swans remained in North America.  They were removed off the endangered species list in 1968 after making a strong recover.  However, they are still rare in the Eastern North America.  All of us stood spell bound as the birds flew low over the East Swamp and out of site.  Awesome.

Excited by the sight of the swans and the prospect of great fishing, we returned to setting up camp.  The first few times I fished this lake, we were attacked by mosquitoes worse than I have ever seen.  They came pouring out of the dark forest thick and thirsty.  You could hear them stage in the boggy wet fields and swamp land surrounding our campsite.  The sound of so many mosquitoes is almost frightening.  I remember my father attempting to cook dinner in the dimming light surrounded by clouds of mosquitoes so thick, they were falling into the frying pan with our fish.  This time, we wanted to be prepared for dinner so we could eat and hit shelter as soon as possible.  The Kline brothers brought a tent for the three of them.  Todd and I brought individual mosquito shelters... or so we thought.  I had my shelter up within a few minutes.  A simple tripod of sticks held the netting over up over my sleeping bag.    Todd discovered he forgot his shelter and was preparing for a night in his sleeping bag under the stars and at the mercy of the thirsty mosquitoes.  I did not envy that man this night.

Eventually I grew impatient with the camp setup and decided to head back to the canoes to prepare my fishing gear.  I was giddy with excitement to discover how the fishing would be this week.  In a few minutes, I had a crawler tied on and tossed it behind me in the dark waters.  Within 3 seconds the line began pouring out of my open spool and into deeper water.  I quickly set the hook and brought in a nice 13" bass.  With only half my worm left, I threw out my line again and just as quickly as the bait hit the water, I saw multiple swirls and the bait disappeared.  I set the hook and brought in another bass.  Just as I was beginning to get super excited, I was distracted by the sound of water splashing to me left.  I looked into the shallows and saw schools of bass, 15 or 20 at a time make runs through the shallows like packs of wolves.  The bass were hunting small bait fish through the protective cover of weeds and shallow water.   Witnessing aggression I had never seen before fired me up and as I tied on a yellow jitterbug, I started yelling for everyone to get in the canoe.  It was time to start fishing.  The first throw of my jitterbug was a perfect cast about 3 feet off a lilly line.  The lure sat on the water for 2 seconds before disappearing in a splash of water.  I set the hook and began reeling in a small bass.  Within 10 seconds, my drag kicked in as my line starting pulling hard.  I was amazed and a little stunned.   How could this little bass pull so hard?  My question was answered after I brought the fish to the side of the canoe.  I did not have one fish but two fish on the same lure.   The small bass had only hooked on one set of trebles.  The larger bass had attacked the lure hanging out of the smaller bass and now I held up  two bass on one lure.  Needless to say I started to shake realizing what these first few minutes of fishing meant for the rest of our time on BurntCabin.  I stood up in the canoe and shouted for the others to come to the canoe immediately.  I yelled to them my forecast for the next two days of fishing.  I yelled, "Man, this is going to be the best day of fishing you have ever seen."  I had no  idea how true that would be.

Its difficult to explain how great the fishing was on BurntCabin that afternoon.  I started using a yellow 1/8th oz jig head tipped with a crawler. However, I discovered that the bass would even hit a bare, blank jig head.   Absolutely amazing.   Almost every cast drew a strike and well over 70% of every cast produced a fish.  This was true for almost the entire day.  We only had a chance to fish from the North West end to the East side of the swamp in two days of fishing.  There was no reason to explore the opposite side because we could not have caught any more fish than we caught those two days.  By the end of the second day, my thumb was aching.  Fishing Friday brought tears to my eyes every time I landed a fish or used my thumb for anything.  The small sandpaper teeth of the bass we caught wore off layers of skin from lip landing so many fish.  My arm ached from reeling in fish and casting continually for hours.

After using up all my lead jig heads, I changed to a floating jig head called a Northland Gum Drop Floater.  The head floats and it sports a small stinger hook 2 1/2 inches back from the main hook.  The second hook is great insurance when fighting larger fish.  However, it was not long until I lost my last Gum Drop Floater.  We lost so many lures because the abrasive teeth of the fish was tearing up our fishing line.  Imagine how many fish we had on our line in just one hour.  Many of the softer lures we used did not last long either.  NickK had a small supply of rubber shads.  We found the bass liked the gray 3" shads better than any other bait.  However, bass tore off the shads tail and even pulled the bodies off the jig heads after a few dozen casts.   Both ToddS and NickK exhausted their supply of shads in a few hours because of the constant action and aggressive hits.

After catching literally hundreds of bass ranging from 11 inches to 19 inches, I was ready for a different type of action.   Besides, I had two fishing poles and was only using one at the time.  On my 6'6" Ugly Stick, I tied on one of the smaller Perch that we frequently caught.   The Perch fishing was also tremendous.  I hooked the perch through its top dorsal fin with a large treble hook.  I then added a large bobber and set the length at 6 to 8 inches.  I knew any bass large enough to hit my perch would make a commotion on the surface of the water to alert me.  This was some of the slowest action of the day.  I thew the doomed perch out into the middle of the lake and quietly set the rod down.  I actually had to wait a few minutes before a hungry bass grabbed the perch.  A thrashing splash caught my attention.   When I looked towards my bobber, the bobber was gone.  In a few minutes, I brought in a nice 17" largemouth.  Fishing went on like this all day.  Since we only had one net, we often had to net the larger fish together.  Frequently, 4 of the 5 fisherman in the canoes would have fish on at the same time.  After netting one large fish, we would simply pass the net across the canoe and net the second without removing the first.   There was just no time, no pause in the action.

In a short while, we had a fantastic stringer that would make a great dinner.  I nervously watched the light begin to fade from the gray sky as evening approached.  I feared the mosquitoes were becoming restless but I did not want to stop fishing.  We fished and fished and fished until the very last moment.  Finally, we hit the shore in slow run.  BrianK and NickK cleaned the fish on the shoreline while MattK, ToddS and I collected fire wood and prepared the food.   That night we feasted on fresh fish, bass and perch.  We had potatoes and onions, and red beans and rice.  The heavy sky whispering of rain gradually darkened.  The mosquitoes came quietly and grew in intensity.  I was surpirsed how different an August evening is from the early July evenings when I had come before.  Eventually we finished, cleaned up a bit and then I made my way to my mosquito proof shelter -  exhausted. 

Before falling asleep, completely comfortable in the warm August night, I heard the sounds of chaos.  It seemed the Klines were concerned about a Black Bear attack during the night.  They felt it best to hang the remaining food in a bear bag hung over a nearby tree.  From the quiet calming darkness of my sleeping bag, I heard three bothers discussing trajectory of weighted objects, rope length and perfect branches for bear bags.  I could hear someone breaking through brush trying to get close to a large birch tree.  laughter floated over our campsite as the three attempted to throw a weighted rope over a branch tall enough to discourage bears.  Each throw of the rope toward the tree would bounce off and fall back on the three who would then jump out of the way before they were struck with the weighted end of rope.  laughter, arguments, curses... as I finally started to drift away into sleep, I heard the splitting sound of a rotten tree branch break away and crash onto the forest floor.  The night awoke around our campsite... birds took flight, frogs silenced and beavers awoke to the sound of the sky falling.  I am not sure who came closest to meeting that big fisherman in the sky, but I know it startled me awake for a few more minutes.  After the laughing finished, I think they finally found a branch, hung their bag and hit their tent.

I woke up later in the night to rain falling gently from a black sky.  The night was warm.  I looked over at the Klines tent.   All three Klines, were laying half-naked on top of their sleeping bags suffocating from the heat in the little tent.  Too afraid of mosquitoes (and bears), they could not open the tent door for ventilation.  Seeing them sweat on top of their sleeping bags reminded me of the early ears when all the kids were piled in the guides cabin with only propane lamps for light (and heat) and tiny windows for ventilation; or nights on Howry after cooking dinner in the big fireplace in the cabin which was like ringing the dinner bells for mosquitoes.  It was far to hot to sleep in your bag but far too dangerous with all the mosquitoes to sleep outside of the bag; or the first time to Canada when the kids decided everyone would save money by having the kids slepp in Grandpa Hershes Van instead of the hotel in Espanola.  That night with all those bodies in the van, the temperature and humidity must have approached 100.  We could not roll down the windows for cooling air because of the swarm of thirsty mosquitoes that lie in wait for any opportunity.  A cracked window was all they needed.  So we slept on top of our bags half-naked baking in the heat and humidity of a tight space. 

However, no matter how bad the Klines had it, I think ToddS had it worse.  I looked over to see how ToddS was faring out in nature with no mosquito net.  He had built a little shrine of protection.  I could make out the sleeping bag and a wisp of his blond hair.   All of his exposed skin was saturated in Double Deet  lotion to repel mosquitoes.  Glowing around him in several strategic locations were the green smoking spirals of mosquito coils.  They burn like incense, releasing a smoke that is supposed to repel mosquitoes but looked this night more like the burning incense of a sacred place, a holy place for sacrifice.  And all around him buzzed little mosquito natives waiting their turn to punch a hole through the Deet saturated flesh. 

Morning came early and punctuated with the sound of boulders lobbed into deep water.  I could hear the explosion of water echo off the far shore of the lake.  The first time I heard that sound, I was fishing Little Lake on the Hill with MattL.  We were convinced that local Indians were angry for us invading their land and were throwing rocks into the water from secret hiding places to scare us or the fish away.  As I was brushing off the soft dementia of sleep, I finally was able to figure out the sound.  A nervous beaver was splashing its tail as it dives underwater in an attempt to scare away an invader.   I looked around, saw the Klines quietly asleep, simmering in the morning air, but ToddS was missing.  I stood up, and spotted him fishing alone.  He had awakened early and snuck down to the water for solitude and fish hogging.  I woke the klines up and joined ToddS for the second day of fishing.  Could it possibly be as good as the first?

To be continued.

Of course, some of the boys could not survive without their toys.  The newest TOY is the Motorola TalkAbout+.   Its a newly released radio based on FM frequencies the FCC released in 1997.  They have a 2 mile range and C L E A R sound.  Both my father and I have one.  They will make Walleye fishing on Bear easier because we can track where the Walleye are biting without all the travel time.  Coordinating lunch between Little Lake and Billy will be a snap.  And the group that works its way to Howry will have an easy time calculating dinner by talking to each other even at the farthest ends of the lake.  Could be cool... fun at a minimum.

This page outlines all of the additions for Bear lake 1998.  Its an excellent reference to keep up with all of the additions as we approach our 16th trip to Bear Lake.  Email me with questions or additions. Your friendly webmaster, ScottB

The Journey to Lang Lake

JerryV, this years only rookie drove from his home in Liberty, MS to GarlandH home in Alabama.  They drove up together and arrived Thursday in Flint.  BobT arrived before them coming 8 hours from Crawfordsville, IN.   DaveB had arrived earlier in the week? from Marietta, GA.  Of course BobT had his video camera out and caught valuable footage of dinner that night while Dave and Garland spun stories for JerryV.  GeorgeT was there to contribute as well but had already decided he wouldn't be going.  This would be the first year without GeorgeT.   He was one of the original gang the first came to BearLake He has been promising to quit every year for longer than I can remember.  We all missed his big smile and unorthodox fishing techniques that seem to work wonders... if you believe they produced the mount hanging on his wall, the largest walleye we have ever caught from BearLake.   I personally missed his help eating one of the huge wet burritos we always share at the Antlers on Friday night.

ToddS and I pulled up right behind the Klines and LarryC.  The camera was out and we did the usual, "hey how's it going? Haven't seen you in a year.." greetings.  We packed up all the cars driving North.  This year, my father and I had picked up all the beer in Indiana to avoid paying the deposit.  While in the beer store, we debated weather a 24 case is the same as a 30 can case when crossing the border.  We stroked our chins and decided they were the same.  At least we could always claim ignorance if they disagreed at the border crossing.  3 cars headed north with 11 anxious people looking forward to the next morning and first day of fishing.

Of course, we did not make it far before some people became more anxious to find a bathroom than to arrive in Espanola.  So we ended up exiting the expressway south of Houghton Lake and driving a country mile to the nearest bathroom.  Eventually we arrived in Gaylord to pick up MikeG and JimP.   From here we headed to dinner at the Antler's in Sault Ste. Marie and finally the border crossing into Canada.