May 25th

10C overcast - supposed to rain later.

I just sat down at the computer and I see that there are already 4 visitors to the site. Good morning.
Here is the new story. Just remember I have rattled this one off pretty fast.

. Carp Lake was at the end of the road, another fifteen miles.

The interesting thing about this road is that it followed what had been known as the War Lake Trail and was actually part of the Grease Trail that at one time went all the way to the coast. This portion was named for the Indian warring raids back and forth between The Mcleod Lake Indian Band and the Fort St. James band.

We left home fairly early in the day and were setting up our camp by mid afternoon. I had brought a wall tent that fitted to a tent frame we had constructed the year before. In an hour or so we were well set up and then dragged the twelve foot skiff that had been stored inside the tent frame down to the lake and put it in the water.  It was somewhat dried out and leaked quite badly, I decided to leave it in the water to soak and hopefully swell the cracks shut. We then spread out along the shore and tried some casting. In a short while we had a decent feed of half a dozen rainbow trout averaging about fourteen inches in length. Even Jim who was only six caught a nice one.

We cooked our fish over an open fire, supplementing them with tinned beans. The kids were all in their sleeping bags before eight, my wife and I sat up for  only a short while then also turned in.

The next morning we were all up early but didn’t hurry as we had two more nights ahead of us and after all we couldn’t fish all the time.

I remember that occasionally I would get an uncomfortable feeling but had no ides why. I decided we would be extra careful and make sure no one got hurt. We bailed the skiff dry and only a couple minor leaks kept trickling in. I convinced the kids we should wait a little while longer and we headed out on a short hike, this included going out to a spit that ran out into the lake and where our lookout men  had earlier in the year erected a log building. I noticed some tracks in the sand from a fairly large foot and passed it off as a “fly-in” fisherman as the area was popular with a few of the local guides.

After a weiner roast lunch I checked the boat again and decided it would be safe, so made the kids draw straws to see who would fish first as I only wanted two lines out at a time. The four of us headed out leaving my wife on shore. The fishing was a bit slow so after an hour we headed back in, but not before I promised we would go out again later. By the time I was ready to head back out the two younger boys had decided that they liked casting better than trolling so they and their Mom casted from shore and Andy who was ten and I trolled back and forth a couple hundred yards off shore.

We had been fishing for about an hour when I thought I saw some movement in the bush behind our tent. We had caught several fish so I said “How about leaving some for tomorrow and go in and clean today’s catch?”  Andy was good with that so we pulled in our lines and I rowed into shore.

The “shore birds”  had caught three more; we (me) quickly cleaned them all and I said I would take them to where the river ran out of the lake – it was about five hundred yards away. I refused help and suggested they gather some wood and help their Mom get a fire started. I gathered all the fish parts into a bag and quickly walked the short distance and dumped everything but the bag into the river and hustled back part way then decided to make a half circle around our camp.