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Hello friends, I had two very interesting experiences last week: one was bad; the other was very good. First the bad: I got an infection in my left thumb that spread to my hand and arm, and by the time it was diagnosed, I could feel it in my chest and I had what was like a brain fog. That worked out with good doctoring and meds, but was a very close call. I ended the week on a positive note with my old buddy Scott Polencheck of Glidden and his 19-year-old son, Preston, on a Canadian fishing trip near Valora, Ontario, which is about an hour north of Ignace. The Polenchecks have a cabin and I love hanging out there.

Friday, July 28 – High 75, low 48 This would be one of those fast-type trips with a total of 24 hours of travel time, round trip, and 72 hours at the cabin. Every minute was spent either fishing, getting to the fishing, doing some maintenance or sleeping. I met Scott when he gave me a call back around 2002 and asked me to come up and hunt bear with him at his family’s resort, which was called Wintering Resort, on Wintering Lake. Scott’s fatherin- law, the late Dick Butler, ran the resort and I went there with friends and family about six times. I took a bear with a bow on that first hunt.

These days Roger and Karin Simon of Ignace own and have 100-percent rebuilt “Wintering Getaway,” and I found out these two true bush people are a ton of fun. Today, Scott, Preston and I did a lengthy ATV trip on a very narrow trail with all gear required for a day of fishing on a lake that seldom gets fished. I might add that we just arrived at 5 this morning. In my world and my phone, Scott is not Scott; he is Superman, and today Superman and his crew had a blast, as we caught about a gazillion walleye with next to no effort required. We were in a go-for-it mode and had a top-notch shore lunch, which was followed by another bush ride and then lots of laughs back at the cabin. Though I still was having problems with the infection, I was confident it would heal. Saturday, July 29 – High 74, low 46 There are grouse everywhere up here, and I mean like chickens in a barnyard. As fall is approaching, all the locals – which Superman knows most of them – are talking about making meat in the form of grouse and moose. The population for this maybe 50-square-mile area is 2.6 trillion grouse or “chickens” as the locals call them, 925 moose and 46 humans! Then there is lake after lake of walleye and northern pike, and I am thinking I need to spend more time here. Today it was back to the secret lake, 1.2 million laughs and a fish fry at camp.

Preston Polencheck is 19, I have known him for most of his life and I wanted to wrestle him and destroy him in an arm wrestling match but decided to go easy on him. Preston is about as full of life as a kid can be and his main goals are hunting, fishing, possibly barley pop when he turns 21 and chasing girls. Either I was verbally abusing Preston or he was doing the same. This kid attended Northcentral Technical College and became educated in gas/ utility installation, as in underground lines. Preston also got his CDL and is working in the Eau Claire area for InterCon Construction. After I teach him how to hunt and fish and some other things, he should do OK.

On the last day of our trip, we did another major journey of “about 12 miles total” with Roger Simon, and we were pulling a boat and lots of gear with an ATV and UTV. Rumor has it I kind of sucked at fishing, but the rumor tellers want me to tell you that I caught the biggest fish of the weekend with my old trusty Rippin’ Rap!

Live till your heart quits beating! ~Sunset

Mark Walters