Algonquin Park May 2006 Photo Essay

[passthepitonspete]

This is Page 4 of a five-part post, and is the beginning of the May 2006 Algonquin Park photo essay.

 

If you have somehow arrived at this point without quite knowing how, please click here to return to the beginning.

 

 

Can you hear it? Listen – it’s calling!

 

“Petie! Ronnie! Come drink me!”

 

Arrrrrrr, may-tey, shiver me timbers! Algonquin Coffee. Insidious stuff, that. You’re out on the water, busy fishing as evening approaches, but you can hear it calling you from miles away. No point denying it, or trying to ignore it, cuz it always gets you in the end. You might as well just give in and get it over with. Mix coffee, hot choco and whisky, and Bob’s Your Uncle. Have a few more and Bob just might become your aunt. It is recommended you bring along freeze-dried coffee for such occasions, because when your Algonquin Coffee calls, you have to maintain an appropriate sense of urgency – it’s highly unsportsmanlike to waste time using the coffee press. Clearly this was a particularly diabolical brew, for the sun is still quite high in the sky.

 

 

Believe it or not, both of these differently coloured fillets came from speckled trout caught in the same location. I can’t explain the variation – maybe one is an insect eater and the other a fish eater? Whatever – you couldn’t tell them apart once they were cooked. Truly delicious!

 

 

Here you see my dad constructing what we Tarp Pros call a White Man’s Fire. Note the huge pile of firewood stashed upwind of the fireplace. Not visible and directly above the flames are a few holes melted into the tarp from a similar White Man’s Fire built on the Wakwayowkastic River a few summers ago.

 

Before long – oh, maybe an hour or two – this fire will burn down to a nice bed of coals for cooking the fish. Unfortunately we will have to wait, throw in more wood, and probably have yet another cup of Algonquin Coffee. {sigh}

 

 

After supper, I decided to perform a cunning little stunt whereby my lure snagged, then as we drifted helplessly in the 2 mph gale, we watched as my rod and reel went flying out the back of the canoe and down to the bottom of the lake. Fortunately I had practised this maneuver, and knew exactly what to do. After I finished screaming, cursing and crying, I reached for a heavy spoon, put it on my dad’s rod, and carefully dragged it along the bottom ninety degrees to the presumed direction of the sunken fishing line, and retrieved the rod and reel which you see in my dad’s hand.

 

I have successfully executed this party trick on two of my last three Algonquin trips, and it is my fervent hope not to do so again this year.

 

 

Just before dark, we picked off one final brookie trolling across another rocky point.

 

Please click here to move to Page 5 of the Algonquin Park photo essay. If you have somehow arrived at this point without quite knowing how, please click here to return to the beginning.

 

In order to reduce clusterfriggage and to keep everything together, may I request that you please do not reply to this post. Thanks,eh?

Edited April 22, 2007 by passthepitonspete

[pigeonfisher]

do I reply here?

[Dondorfish]

No! - There are to be NO REPLIES HERE! - See above! LOL

 

 

Don