Wilderness camping day two

We did not make it to Umbagog state park that evening because it was getting dark and the gps had us traveling on some rather bumpy roads. We pulled off at a rest area up past Fryeburg, ME and spent the night there. We were up early and to our surprise we had a wonderfull view of the Saco river just outside out window. After a short walk along the side of the Saco we boarded our coach and headed to Umbagog. The journey was short, just under an hour from were we had spent the night. Arriving we found our site and plugged in the rig. Our first order of business was to find out when the camp office opened for the day. You see we could not find a way to attach the canoe to the camper. So we would have to rent one from the campground. The boys went to scope things out. First the water, and docks, then the camp office. When they saw that the office was open they ran back to the camper were I was preparing breakfast. After eating some of the food that the girls had sent along we went to rent the canoe. Upon paying $ 40.00/day rental for the canoe I was informed that I would have to return it before five that evening. This was a disappointment to all of us as we had hoped to fish that evenig and again in the morning. Later the campground attendant let us take it overnight and return it in the morning.

With the canoe in possesion we loaded our equipment. Our equipment consisted of three life jackets, ores, poles, worms, and fishing gear. We began our fishing along the shore just to the left of the campground. This was a small alcove just past the boat launch. We did fairly well here catching over a dozen fish. They were all yellow perch, but fish non the less. After an hour or so I was getting greedy and wanted to catch some bigger fish. We decided to make our way around the lake to the left. This did not work out so well. We spent a lot of time paddeling and not much time catching. Each place we tried we had nothing. Tired from roeing we decided to head back to shore and take a break. The sun was high when we brought the fish back to the camper. We set up a fish cutting station on the picnic table, which we dragged under the canopy to stay out of the sun. I knew it would take some time to clean up the fish and since many of the fish were small I wanted the boys to help out. Benjamin was excited about the prospect. I did a few to show him how it is done. Then he tried one, starting with the smallest because he did not want to screw up a big one. He was doing really good but there were a lot of little fish. I found another knife that I could use to help him out and we were both working on it for a while. Meanwhile Joshua was trying to brake open some mussell that he had gathered from the beech. When all was complete we had a pound of fish and a hand full of mussells. We cleaned it all up with the spicket and put the fish in a clear zip lock.

With that big project complete I wanted to take a break. The boys wanted to play on the beach with the canoe. I set up a chair down by the beach and had a little time to video tape them and read a book. I was reading the Three Weavers Daughters and the bible. The boys spent the time playing with the canoe. They tied it to a rope which prevented it from drifting out too far into the lake. Then they would take turns pushing each other out into the water. Once out in the water they would paddle as fast as they could back to shore. A couple of times they would come ashore with an ore in hand and dig with it. It sounded like they were pretending to bury or unbury a treasure. They did this for several hours it seemed.

Having found all the treasures on this beach they wanted to do a little fishing. I let them fish the spot that we had good luck with that morning. This was just fiffty feet from the boat dock, so I setup a chair by the docks and watched them from shore. I had walkie talkie's with me so I could talk with them from time to time. They caught some of the world's smallest fish of record. We thought to keep them for bait, but we had worms gilore so we put them back. They did this for another hour or so and then decided to come back ashore.

For dinner we cooked over an open fire. We had some packages that the girls had prepared that consisted of potatoes, keibasa, and onion wrapped in tin foil seasoned with butter and salt. It was an excellent meal and we thank them for that. Then we hit the lake again, this time in another alcove that was directly across the lake to the right. The sun was setting and we figured the fish would be bitting. Ben was the first to get some bites. He pulled in the largest yellow perch yet. Josh was a little bummed but wanted to check out Ben's spot since he had not yet landed a fish. Shortly after I caught a nice sized Smelt. I didn't know what it was at the time, but it looked good for eating. The last fish we caught hooked Josh's line and it was a large mouth bass. We got a few other little yellow perch, but we did not keep them. The sun was setting by this time so we decided to head back toward camp before we couldn't see anymore. When we had made it back to the other side we fished the alcove just to the right of were the campground is. Not much action there and we worked our way back to the boat landing. On shore we had three more fish to carve up.

With no daylight left we had to cut the fish by flashlight. Josh was in bed before I was all cleaned up from that little project. He had played hard this day. I took a shower and did a little reading before bed. That evening I was awaken to a beautifull display of God's creation. A storm passed through that evening and it was amazing. The sky would be completely dark and in an instant would light up with lightning. I got out of bed to enjoy it for some thirty minutes or so.