What Luck

Summer was coming to an abrupt end and there was nothing I could do to stop it. I had to finish writing a marching show before we could go on one last family camping trip before band camps and the beginning of school would seriously limit my available time. I pushed through and got the show written (as well as I could, anyway) and invited some family to join us. The question of where was answered when I had a conversation with Loah (Utah Water Log) about where he'd caught some really nice fish and found out that it wasn't too far from home for me. After a relatively short drive we got camp set up in a really great spot and I headed out fishing alone before dinner.

With the intel provided by Loah I knew right where to start fishing and on the 3rd cast I hooked into a monster of a tiger trout on an olive simi-seal leech. The fish worked me over with some long runs and attempts to get buried into the tangle of weeds, but finally I brought it to the net. Luckily I'd brought my big net...

I managed to catch one more fish before dinner, a healthy tiger but not huge like the first fish. After a great meal (the wife always goes all-out when we go camping) Atley agreed to join me in heading back out fishing until dark. I can't believe how jumpy he's become if we're out in the woods after dark. We heard an owl and saw some bats flying around, but nothing to be scared of. Fishing was about like it was before dinner, and we managed to catch a couple including one that would've seemed huge if it wasn't for the earlier fish.

Early the next morning I headed out fishing alone again so everyone else could sleep in. I threw everything I had at them, but mostly my efforts were ignored. I ended up only catching one small fish before heading back to camp for breakfast. Apparently the dogs wanted to go for a swim so badly that they drug the kids through the mud, literally. Even Del got in to try and help the boys out. Glad I missed this....

We took it easy in camp waiting for my Dad to arrive. We shot Atley's new muzzloader, napped in the hammock and just took some time to relax. When it became clear that he should've already arrived we headed to where we had some cell service to find out where he and his wife Deb were. Once we had some cell service we received messages from several people that were pretty panicked. Dad had taken a wrong turn and pulled his fifth wheel trailer over one of the worst roads on the whole mountain. His truck was totally trashed and they were lucky to have made it back down into town where Dad called me from. He wasn't sure what to do, but I told him if he still wanted to come up I'd meet him halfway to make sure he made it to camp.

I hadn't realized how bad the damage was until I met them on the road. The whole bed of the truck was messed up. Right when we pulled up along-side each other I had another concern though. I could hear that he had a flat tire. Normally a flat wouldn't be the biggest deal in the world, but with the truck bed being damaged it made it really difficult to get the spare out from under it. When they had finally made it to camp they spent the evening cleaning up the mess that was inside the trailer. Despite everything, we had a nice night in camp and the boys were really excited to be camping with Grandpa.

The next morning Dad and I went out to find the fish had all decided not to cooperate. Dad managed a couple of small ones and I got one. A storm rolling in made us head to camp for breakfast and to wait out the weather. Once it cleared we headed for another lake in the area to hopefully find some more willing fish for the boys. The fish had finally gotten the script and seemed to be everywhere just waiting for the boys' offerings. 

We didn't have the lake to ourselves for long and between the loud new arrivals and the afternoon storm that was on it's way in made our visit to this little lake shorter than we had hoped. It sure was nice to see the boys catch a bunch of fish on their own!

The final morning Dad and I gave the big fish spot one more chance. We started in the dark and fished until breakfast time. Dad managed to catch a couple and I scraped out one little guy but the big fish that we could see were willfully ignoring us. Oh well, it'll make us want to come back soon!

Back at camp Dad had more problems. The fifth wheel's batteries were so dead that his pop-out wouldn't retract and he didn't have enough gas in the generator to run that either. We also found out that his stabilizer jack had broken and we had trouble hitching the trailer up too. Rather than fight the trailer all the home just to turn around in two weeks and take it down south to go hunting, Dad decided to drive straight there and try to avoid further complications. Of course, he just had to have a flat tire on the way.

Once we were home (uneventfully, thank goodness) we tried to clean out Atley's muzzloader. Somehow the breech-plug broke when I was trying to remove it. It seemed a fitting end to the trip. What luck...

Hope you're LUCKIER!

Kidder