The Bear Lake 1999 Story

• My Fishing Schedule
• The Endurance Award
• Incredible Meals
• Butter Tarts
• Euchre Tourney
• Big Fish
• Neighbors

• Vauhgn II's bad days
• Northern Lights
• Burntcabin Gills

We arrived at Stoney shortly after noon.  The weather was about perfect, blue skies, big white fluffy clouds.  We started chucking crawlers at the portage side.  Most of the Cabbage you once saw through the clear water at the West side is gone.  We were only able to find small bluegills and an occasional bass.  The few logs submerged in the West end provided our only reasonable fishing.  Through the clear water in the shadow of our boat, hundreds of blue gills and small glass floated... waiting for a stray hook to dip in the water.  After making our way down the North side with the prevailing Westerly winds, we stopped for lunch at the far East side.  We crawled up the shoreline, ate lunch and lied down on a mossy rock.  We were quickly asleep in the shade of an old tree and did not wake up for nearly 3 hours.  The air was perfect, the fishing weak and we could think of nothing better to do than nap in the soft sun of a Sunday afternoon.

About 4:30 we were motivated to hump our gear over to Burntcabin.  We made two trips, the first with our gear, the second with our canoe.  I felt much stronger this year than last and made it easily over.  At 5PM, we were fishing on Burntcabin.  At first, we were shocked at the heigth of the water.  The water seemed higher than it ever has.  Very industrious beavers had worked hard over the winter.  Then we were surprised at the fishing.  We were getting few strikes at the South end near the portage.  We eventually moved over to the North side where we camp and the fish were on fire.  Bass and big bluegill were hitting everywhere.  All along the shore line to the East end was great fishing.  Nothing compared to last year but the evening fishing on Burntcabin was the best fishing of the week for me.

Unfortunately, we could not leave Burnt until 8:30 PM.  We figured it was a 2 hour trip and darkness fell hard at 10.  We were in trouble.  We humped over to Stoney as fast as we could.  Chucked through Stoney and then nearly ran through Wayne Swamp.  The hike to Lower Cranberry was darker than I would ever want to do it again.  Frequently, we only knew we were on trail because of the hard packed earth under our feet.  The trail was so overgrown it was tough to see through the dimming light.  Occasionally, I stopped and had to guess which way the path continued through the woods.  We hit the bald scrape above Lower Cranberry and knew we had it made.  Though dark, I was confident I could crawl my way over to Bear.  

Polling though Lower Cranberry was no fun.  We did not see the boat pulled against the shore until we were 100 yards away.  Slowly, ghostly shapes pulled together to form boats.  A short hike to Bear and we were home.  By the time we made it back to the island, most of the cabins were dark.  We still had not heard from my Jack and my father.  Mysteries yet to solve.

Vaughn and I hit the fish cleaning hut under flashlight and then spent the rest of the beautiful evening sitting on the porch of cabin 6 drinking a beer and watching for Northern Lights.