Seven days of living large

Hello friends, I always write two columns on my Canadian fly-in fishing trip with Chimo Lodge and Outposts because, with travel, it is a nine-day experience. In a year's time for this outdoor adventures writer, this seven days of 100% escape is as good as it gets.

Thursday, June 19 High 67, Low 50

I am with eight friends and family members. It is day six of this journey and simply put we are having a blast. A story that I do not mention often is that whether it is the big buck bet at camp, the big gator or walleye bet in Canada or even playing simple games, no one in this group wants me to win, especially my brother Mike. Seems I won too many of these games and I am like the Chicago Bears to a Packers fan, not fully appreciated! I love giving each of these guys crapola and that is why they want me to suck.

At night we play games and last night I learned a new dice game which is called Left/Right/Center. I had ended up having a tiebreaker with my brother 'Mikey' and that meant everyone got to play another round. I won the second round as well and that really got the Boo Birds out.

Today all nine of us met in the middle of the afternoon on this incredible chain of lakes that you can only get to by float plane and we are in the only cabin. We had a shore lunch and forever it's been pretty much the same. I fillet, Trent fillets and my brother Tom cooks walleyes that were swimming minutes earlier. We fly back to the real world, Red Lake, on Saturday morning and everyone of is well aware that Thursday is our last day to absolutely let your hair down and cast all cares away.

When you do an annual trip since 1982 with the same people plus a couple of 'every other year people,' you are filled with thousands of memories. I often think about when I was in my early 20s and it was my brothers, my dad, my brother-in-law Dick Schuster and our buddy Jeff Moll. We were just young men and had more energy than a horse.

The second adventure here my brother Tom decided we needed to become bear hunters. Our bear hunt was the definition of 'self-guided.' We whacked a good bear as the suckers were spawning, and we set up near a stream. That was a learning experience as the bears were so smart that they would scoop dozens of suckers out of the stream and just eat the spawn, saving the rest of the fish for later.

At that time our cabin had a hand pump for water. In what is now the gas house, everyone wrote their name and where they came from on the wall and our names from '82 are still on the wall.

I added my daughter Selina to the mix when she was 8. She became a contest winner right away and netted what to date was our biggest walleye in our history. That fish actually pulled our boat around for five minutes.

My brother Tom lives near Denham Springs, La. and each year one of his four grandsons makes the very long adventure and grandpa pays for the entire trip.

My brother-in-law Dick Schuster is a regular and his boys Riley and Trent who 'really do not want me to win any bets' are now leaders on this expedition as in figuring out the food purchases and are regular drivers with their own vehicles, which is an important task. I remember very well when these kids could not catch a cold much less regularly land big walleyes and northern pike. These days if I have not had much sleep and am living in 'don't caresville' they have at least a slim chance of maybe beating me in a daily bet for walleye or gator.

Another subject that happens to every group is men and women aging out. Six of our guys are 64 or older and the clock is ticking, just like deer camp. The positive reality is that this journey is an annual way of life that is so successful that everyone of us will fight tooth and nail to make the trip north, get on that plane, fish hard, stay up very late and laugh the day away until we simply cannot do it.

I’m sure that before I croak, Mikey and company will be rooting for me to win the big fish contest and cheer loudly when I win Left/Right/Center, and that my friends is how I roll!

Sunset