This weekend was probably the last bit of fishing I will do the rest of the year. I may get to do some winter steelhead fishing later on, but I am not sure yet. Anyways, I got to be out on the river for a little bit, and I spent a whole lot of time on a private lake up north.
I went to the Men’s Retreat at Camp Barakel this weekend. It is a yearly event I always go to, but this time was especially warranted. I had an amazingly busy and long week leading up to the retreat. I was working on some new things at my new job that kept me late a little bit, plus everything else going on, I was trying to pack for the weekend as well. But the two events that really made the week busy were my Jeep and my masters project.
On Tuesday morning, I was driving to work and my Jeep died. Luckily it wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be. Something got sucked into the oil pump, and then into the distributor, and the shear pin in the distributor busted. So, my timing went all haywire making my Jeep run extremely rough. I had to get a new oil pump, some hoses, and a shear pin for the distributor, but it is running like a champ again. I was able to rent a pretty slick Ford Taurus for a couple of days which was fun though.
My masters course work finally came to an end on Thursday afternoon when I gave my capstone presentation. I did a usability study of Microsoft Excel versus OpenOffice Calc to finish off my Masters Degree at Oakland University. I had to wrap up some last minute items for my project and presentation, so that added some more items to complete this past week.
So, between, work, church, family, friends, school, a vehicle in the shop, and trying to get ready for my trip up north – it was a busy week.
My Pastor was gracious enough to go up to camp early with me and he even offered to drive his vehicle. We went fishing on the private lake that morning and it was the best fishing we’d both had at the camp ever. Between the two of us we had over 40 fish caught before lunch – mostly blue gills with a few bass mixed in.
Friday afternoon I was able to visit the North Branch of the Au Sable river. I caught no fish, but just being on the river was enough. My Pastor drove the “car-less” fisherman, and he read a book while I waded in the river. Shortly after starting, a fellow who was probably just a bit older than me came along and said he was from the local TU. He was heading up a habitat project the next day and would be dropping some logs along the stretch I was in. Here are a couple glimpses of the river:
That night I talked my friend Jose into coming out to the lake before it got dark, and we fished till we couldn’t see anymore. He had some good luck:
Saturday, I fished in the morning off of a dock with no luck. I headed out with my friend Cal in a row boat after lunch and he said he would read a book while I fished. I told him I had a spare fly rod, and he said he’d give that a try. He didn’t read – the fishing must have been too fun. We were having no luck at first, and then I noticed a big log sticking out of the ground and just barely breaking the surface of the water. I said let’s try fishing around the log and see what happens. Next thing you know, we were reeling them in one after another. All on my hand tied pan fish flies to boot.
I didn’t fish the rest of the weekend, but I did enjoy the outdoors. I’ll write up another post about the spiritual refreshment I received from the weekend.
