Everywhere I go I find a pal

Peter Weinschenk, Editor, The Record-Review

The standard wisdom is that the fishing gets better the more lakes you are away from the parking lot.

During my trip to the Sylvania National Wilderness in the Upper Peninsula last week, the standard wisdom rang true.

I slayed the bass with my fly fishing pole on Cub Lake, a smallish puddle located four lakes away from the park parking lot. The key was poppers, both yellow and dayglo orange. The bass, both smallies and large mouth, would not leave these commercial lures alone. I caught some dandies and enjoyed the lunkers dancing on top of the water.

I have been trying for three years to get some decent bass fly fishing chops. One year, I had the wrong pole. Another year, I had the wrong flies. This year, my system seemed to work nicely. I used an old fiberglass trout rod and a heavyweight flyline. I was able to achieve plenty of distance.

What was great was having the lake to myself. I could whoop and holler with all of the fish I snagged.

It was just me, the bass and a few wood ducks.

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Rough camping in Sylvania is always a challenge, but this past week’s trip was, perhaps, especially so.

I didn’t mind too much two days of storms and rain. And I didn’t mind too much eating mostly dehydrated food. But the mosquitoes this year were really bad.

There is always mosquito pressure in Sylvania and, if you happen to pick a lowlying campsite, you can be greeted by a cloud of the buzzing insects at your fire pit.

As a result of global warming, however, lakes all across the Upper Midwest are overflowing with above normal rains. The extra water creates brackish pools, a perfect habitat for mosquitoes.

The Sylvania lakes are all high and their white sand beaches are mostly submerged. Mosquitoes thrive.

That means that the skeeters would not just attack you at the campsite, but follow you into the canoe. They would invade your tent in the brief seconds it was unzippered during entry and exit. In a week’s time, I was bitten thousands of times. I was stabbed more times than Caeser.

All I can say is…thank God for DEET.

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The point of rough camping is to appreciate our modern life with all of its conveniences.

I was stunned, actually, when I, dirty, wet and rumpled, returned to my house in Edgar after a week of camping in a federal wilderness.

I was gobsmacked by how huge the house was. It was the size of 50 or 100 tents. I was amazed, too, by all of the stuff in the house. There was a stove in the house. That’s wild. You wouldn’t operate a Coleman stove in a tent. There was water, too. You could take a shower. That was like having the lake inside your tent. And there was all kinds of information available about the world… computers, television, radio. It was like having the night sky and stars inside one’s tent.

It’s so easy to take all of our modern life for granted. But pump fresh water for a week. It makes you appreciate clean water from a tap. Cook on a Coleman stove for a week. It makes you appreciate a modern kitchen. Use a canoe for basic transportation. It makes you appreciate a car.

Camping is a very good teacher.