Doug and I got out a little after 8 on Monday morning (19th), and were in Eckerman around 10:30. It was still sunny but it was forecasted to rain a lot later in the day. Doug was going to stay in B.B.'s trailer and I took my tent. It sleeps four tightly (I've done it) so I knew I'd have enough room. I treated it with camp dry, and Doug has a tarp to pretty much cover it, so I knew I'd be fine. He did bring his boat this year. The last two years, we've brought up a couple johnny boats but we'd pretty much covered the lakes where we could use those. He had a key to the cabin so we got off loaded and everything set up long before the rain showed up. Jamie Crandall came up a couple hours behind us and he came in just as it was starting to sprinkle. He set his tent up quick and we got a fire going. There was some wood still there from whomever had been there last, and using my burn's-O-matic we got 'er going. B.B. came in an hour or so after that, and it was pouring. Jeezuz H. Christ! but it rains up there.

There have been times over the years when I was about ready to go screaming into the deluge and just drown myself. Two years ago, during Eckerman IV, it would at times slow down to a gentle pour and that would only last for an hour or so. It didn’t seem to matter most of the time; we’d be standing around the fire shooting the bull and spontaneously start laughing. Nothing would be said before then, but we all knew why we were laughing. Every once in a while though, we just wished it would stop.

When we had pulled in, Doug went over to the rain gauge and emptied it out, and by the time B.B. came in later that afternoon, we had an eighth. We all put our rain gear on, and stood under the coupla pine trees in the yard and looked at each other. We started talking about how many times we'd stood there getting our asses soaked to the bone over the last six years. Jamie started talking about what he'd do if there was a tarp around and Doug went over to his little hut and pulled one out of the bag. We collected twine and cut down saplings and had us an A one, number one, rustic lookin' lean-to in no time.

Unfortunately, I didn't spray camp dry on the bottom of my tent.

I went back to get something out of my bag, and when I stepped in, I had running water passing through the thing. Fortunately, I brought a double wide air inflatable mattress, and collected as many dry items as I could find and put it on it. My duffel bag isn't waterproof, so the bottom items of clothing got soaked, but the sleeping bag was high and dry.

Something that didn't get high and dry was the slippers I was wearing. I don't have a pair of sneakers and had been wearing my moccasins as regular footwear. Hell, I'm a house bitch, what'd ya expect? Anyway, I didn't take them off until they were pretty well soaked. My Red Wing's were already in the cabin, so I went in there and changed. After I did that, I put the slippers up on an empty shelf, so they'd be out of the way. A little while later Doug comes out of the cabin and asked me if I'd smelled anything dead. I walked in behind him and looked around. Shoot, I didn't smell anything. We looked around for a little bit and then went back outside. A little while after that Jamie went into the cabin and came out gagging. "Fuck you guys, something is dead in there!" We all walked in again and this time I noticed it. I knew immediately what it was and where it was, and I went right to the shelf.

"I got the dead critter here guys," I said and started walking out of the cabin. Jamie says, "There ain't no way that could be you, Gooch, but if it is, you got some serious issues." That's when I put the slippers up to his nose. Oh God. He didn't make a mess or nothing, but it was quite the show. I set 'em outside my tent, under cover, to see if that would help, but on Sunday morning when I packed up, they hadn't improved any.

A nice feature we designed into the rain tarp was its water-collecting ability, and that did come in handy. We'd watch it collect into a nice pool over our heads and then begin its quest to the discharge point. Me, being a house bitch, went in the cabin and got the biggest dish washing pan we have and found the flat spot in the grass where the water came down. There was some wind blowing, so the exit spot would change now and then, but it didn't take long before we had 3 gallons of dishwashing water. For some reason, Jamie wanted to put it into a water jug and lost most of it in the transfer.

We had hoped to do some fishing the first night but decided to just stay there and get really screwed up instead. Damn that was fun. No one had anything prepared for dinner, so we all put in our brat’s collection and Jamie cooked up some rice. Nice hot dinner to thwart off the lousy weather. By the next morning we had .9 of an inch in the rain gauge.

This year, Jamie brought up two boats. A 14' (I think) runabout and a 10' johnboat, and B.B. brought along his 10' johnboat. Tuesday morning we headed back down the road towards Trout Lake. It's a town and a lake. Actually, it's three lakes and we went to Frenchman's Lake. Doug had fished it when he was up the middle of August and he caught a LOT of bluegills and he saw a lot of walleye. We decided to fish that lake all day, from first light till after dark and try and fill as many limits as we could. We all got up at 6, which is quite an accomplishment considering the night before, and were on the lake by 7:30. Doug's sonar wasn't working well the last time he'd used it, so I borrowed a friend’s portable unit to use. Turns out, Doug's worked fine this trip so I used the other. Good thing I did too, it gave me something to do. As soon as I turned that thing on, it started chirping. There were fish EVERYWHERE! After Doug and I cleaned up the fronts of our pants we baited up and started fishing. Fishing, not catching. Those fish were not hungry for anything. Three guys with their respective tackle box's and Doug with his portable Cabala's store and we caught: three under sized pike, four bullheads; and we kept two, one large bluegill and five small ones, one 20" walleye, and three fish that snapped our lines before we found out what they were. That it was just before B.B. caught the only walleye were we made aware of a new type of fishing: ANCHOR (Assisted Nautical Concussive Horrors.)

As it turns out, ANCHOR has been around for a long, long time. Back in the day, when they were launching all those boats to go get Helen back from Troy, they were actually over in Turkey trolling for walleye. Later, when the Spaniards were supposedly invading England, they were trolling for walleye in the Channel. As a matter of fact, the reason the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock was because of the school of fish off the point.

For dinner, Doug got out some marinated chicken he'd brought and cooked it on a tripod over the fire. It was truly a bitch to stand there down wind and put up with that aroma.

Wednesday we got up at 6 again and headed to the northeast to another lake the guys had picked out last year, and never got to. Monocle Lake looks like its name and it’s a gorgeous setting. There's a ridge that runs along one side that's a couple of hundred feet high and is filled with hardwoods and squirrels. There wasn't a breath of wind blowing and the lake looked like a mirror. We figured to split up and do a quick search and go to whoever got fish first. We spent the entire morning searching. The lake runs to 55' and it's the bottom half of the sand dune that’s above us with all the hardwoods and squirrels. Very little vegetation, an abundance of baitfish, but NO game fish. That's when we started talking about getting rid of those lousy "prairie niggers", and "wagon burners". I'll tell ya what, those guys were ready to do some ungentlemanly things to our native brothers. When we finally came off the lake, there was a guy there from Wisconsin who did maintenance for Wisconsin State parks. He was saying that lakes like this one are planted with under sized fish, and after three or four years the Indian’s come in and net it clean. We're gonna come back in two or three years and see how it's doing.

The rest of that day we spent hanging around the camp and getting generally "in tune". My older brother had customized a 10/22 for me so I figured this would be a good time to check it out. Jeez, is that thing fun. A couple of the guys have them, and they could tell there had been some adjustments made. We racked off ten rounds as fast as we could, and it worked like a fine watch, including the accuracy. When it got to be late afternoon we went over to Highbanks Lake and did some trout fishing.

I fish there the same way I used to fish trout at lake I grew up on. Hook, splitshot, about 3' up, a barrel sinker. Something we use now and didn't have then was a hypodermic air injector. The weeds in the lake are about 2' high so we have to float them up above the grass. Also, over the years, we've found that the farther you throw it out, the more numerous the catches. Each year we'd bring longer rods and heavier sinkers. This year I went to the basement and found one of my pencil sinkers. This one was about 4oz long. I got me a side hopping head start, with two skips and then a heave and she was on 'er way. It was beautiful, great arch, good trajectory and distance you've never seen before. And about 150' of six-pound test...all gone on the first cast.

Another method we’ve discovered was found by chance. During one of those mishaps, a newly inflated crawler was thrown from the hook and landed about 30’ out. We watched it for a while and after a few minutes it disappeared in a swirl. B.B. mentioned that he’d fished that way with flies and didn’t see any reason why it wouldn’t. Doug and Jamie tried it for a while without any luck, but it’s still something with potential. Doug got three and B.B. and I got one.

Something I haven’t mentioned yet but should have, is the new outhouse back at Don’s. This one's beautiful, sorta. It's clean, well-built, dry, semi-sanitary (it IS an outhouse) and highly functional. We had a campfire discussion about the new one and the old, and this is what we all agreed on; this new one doesn’t have what we found quite favorable in the old one, it's only got one hole; the other had two. We like that feature in an outhouse 'cause sometimes we like to puke while we’re crapping our brains out. Ya can't do that in this one. The old one you could sit and watch what’s going on outside through the holes in the walls. This one is tight, when you close the door; it gets really dark in there. Out of habit when I opened the door I reached in to turn on the light. There was a wall switch there but it’s not hooked to anything. I had brought an extra lantern, so I left it in there so the guys could see what they were wiping. After I saw how nice it was, I went down to the store and got some skin magazines for it. On the first morning, it took about 10 minutes for a guy to take a dump, after the magazines were in, it took 30. I’m usually the first one up so I bring my tent heater in with me so we’ve got all the comforts of home. Don had told me that the following weekend, his brother was going to come up and do the wiring. It’ll have lights and electric heat, 21st century indeed.

All right then, after we got back from the lake, I headed over across the street to watch the woodcock fly into the watering hole. I was there for about a half-hour and saw 18 birds. Twelve of those I could have shot at. The season doesn't open until Saturday and I didn't want to make too much commotion quite yet. We had venison cheeseburgers and Ramen Noodles for dinner. B.B. always brings venison in one form or another and it's always great.

Thursday morning I got up at 5:30 and immediately put on the meatballs. I had cooked them the proceeding Friday, and then froze 'em. I got 4# of ground chuck and a pound of Jimmy Deans breakfast sausage. I also used a half bottle of Jack Daniels BBQ sauce, 6oz of Wild Turkey and a sprinkle or 7 of Lawreys seasoning salt. Two eggs and a coupla handfuls of Quaker Oats and it's a done deal. My wife walked into the kitchen while I was pouring the bourbon in and shook her head. "That’s not part of the original recipe there Mike," she said and I answered, "If you loved bourbon like I do it would be."

We'd decided the night before to take today off and just fish the river across the street and generally get hammered. Doug's been having some serious trouble with his guts and I don't think he coulda taken another day in the boat. We also needed firewood, so I helped Jamie and B.B. in getting some.

Jamie took us to the U.P.’s version of "Firewood B. Us", a couple miles up 123. We turned left and soon the road turned into a two-track which turned into cleared lanes. The trees had been harvested off and the crews left the limbs along each side of the trail. As the guys cut up the pieces, they’d throw ‘em out to where I could pick ‘em up. We covered maybe 20 lineal feet of trail, and brought back a healthy load of wood. We made comments about how this was going to be plenty enough for the duration, but none of us believed it.

As for firewood… There’s something that should be brought up here. One of the conversations we had during the week was about the firewood collection point at the bridge. It seems to be a point of view that all the wood being collected at the bridge is later being sold to the "troll’s" after they get farther down the road. I sure hope it’s just one of those "Urban legends". I don’t remember ever seeing groves of Chestnut trees, but I do remember the avenues of Detroit lined with Elm’s. It would be a shame to see another species disappear.

When Don came in, we were all standing by our trucks with everything on 'em, ready for fishing. Highbanks Lake is about the only place he goes to while he's up here, and that's pretty much ok with us. We take our lounge chairs and fishing gear and a LOT of beer, and we have a great time. We all got one trout, so we were getting closer to having enough for a Saturday night feast.

That afternoon as we were heading across the street to "the range" a young man from the neighborhood pulls in and asks, "Where’s the two track for the shooting tonight?" Dave walks to him and says "The big boss bought the place across the street, and he ain’t happy." He told us if ANYONE goes down there we’re to drop a tree across it and lock ‘em in". Dave smiled, pointed the way to the two track and wished him a good evening. That guy has a way with words.

When we got back, I opened the slow cooker and stirred up the makin's in there. BOURBON! Boy, that stuff smelled good. We sat and ate and looked at the fire, and after about 10 minutes Don says "Holy sh** Mike" and keeps on eating. For the most part there wasn’t a whole lot of conversation going on, so I took that as quite a compliment. I guess that's what I'll be making for the Eckerman trip from now on.

Right after dinner Doug told us that he had to go back home the next afternoon. Becky had been out of work for two years and she'd just got a job. She'll be working part time for some automotive supplier in Bellaire and she had to start the next night. I got a sick feeling in my gut and then Jamie told me he'd drive me back on Sunday. Boy, for a minute there I didn't feel so good.

The next morning I got up at 4:30, and I had to TAKE A DUMP. I had borrowed a urinal from a friend to use in the boat, and I had it in the tent with me. When I woke up, it was because I had to piss, and reached over and grabbed the urinal, and got 'er goin'. When it came to the fart'n part of pissin' in the morning, I had a wee bit of a suprise. What I thought was a fart turned into a turd, and turned takin’ a dump into giving birth. It's amazing how fast a guy can move as when he faces such a dilemma. It was out to the front shoulders when my butt plopped down upon that seat of joy. I'm glad I brought the heater too, it got cold that morning. Really quiet too, just sitting there with the door propped open, the heater kickin' it on, and whatever it is that makes those strange noises out in the woods keeping me entertained. I had prepared the coffeepot the night before, so when I felt I could take a break, I went in and turned it on. Then I went back out and crapped some more. Sure smelled good when I went back in the cabin. I brought the heater in with me so I spent the morning (the early part) drinking coffee and writing in my notebook, and in Don's cabin journal.

I had the campfire going pretty good when the guys woke up. Since we weren’t in any yank to get out of there, B.B., Jamie, Doug and I made ourselves some breakfast. I had the toast job, so most of my time was spent sitting by the fire smelling venison sausage frying in one pan and potato's cooking in another, and heaps of bacon cooking in a third. I sat there and went crazy till Doug started cooking the eggs and I had to go cook toast. Damned good food.

I felt like hell as we sat there and watched Doug pack up his gear and load it in his truck. He was a trooper. Ida kicked and scratched and spit.

After he left, Jamie and B.B. went as far downriver as they could get in a jeep, and Don and I were going to fish the upper part of the river, which was just across the street. One of my old bosses from Site Planning bought the property across from Don's and over the last year, he's really cleaned it up. There used to be a junkyard, including a school bus, in his back yard. During the weekend of Eckerman I, that school bus caught holy hell. It wasn’t for three more years that I finally went over and checked it out, and it looked like a terrorist training ground. When the guys got back to the cabin from that little trip, two of the guys had to shoot left handed. The cabin was habitable maybe 40 years ago, and he's cleaned that up pretty good too.

Anyway, he's opened a trail along the river and we can get down to it and fish. Don left me at the first hole we came to, and he moved on down the river a ways and fish another. Maybe ten minutes later I hear Don talking to someone down river, and 10 minutes after that Don comes walking out of the woods. He met up with 5 guys who'd been fishing the river from way above us. They were having a great time and had been catching trout out of every hole they'd fished. When Don told me that, I was REAL glad I'd only walked from across the street. Don hadn't packed anything when he came up, so we decided to head up to Paradise and do a little grocery shopping.

We stopped at about the weirdest grocery store I've ever been in. The store looked like it was being run by a couple of people off the "Witness protection program", and the couple were working that day. Two thirds of the lights were either burned out or missing, there wasn't any fruit in the bins, or items in the stand up freezers. In the middle of an empty produce counter, there's a big bag of unshelled peanuts with a sign, "for sale". No bags, no scoopers, just the frigging sign. I turned towards the guy up front and asked him if they had any bags. This dude comes out from behind the counter and he's wearing cheap shades and a hat. He hands me a dozen or so bags and walks back to the counter, without every saying a word. Don's over on the other side of the store, and over there, things are different. All along the wall are coolers filled with beer. Lotsa light in the aisles, nothing creeping in the corners. Don got some steaks and some seasonings and we got the hell out of there.

The guys hadn't been back yet when we got there so we drove over to Strongs to get something he'd forgotten. Me being a tea totaling father of four, and Don who said "Ya cant say that you've drunk all day, if you don't start first thing in the morning", was of a condition which needed my able assistance. What he'd forgotten was something to drink. Maybe someday I'll remember what the name of the stuff was that he was drinking, and I'll tell you. 'Till then don't drink anything lime green nor ruby red. Don got really screwed up.

He was passed out in his camp chair when I decided to play with the .22. I collected a basket load of the apples that one of the trees had produced and spread them out about 100' from where I was going to shoot. Jamie's boat was sitting there and his boat is similar to an Alumacraft FDr, so I laid the camera and the rifle across the hood. I got the camera zoomed in and lined up right and let go 10 quick ones, spraying apple guts all over the grass. I looked at the camera lens and it said "standby". No problem, I re-fill a clip, set up the shot, and let 'er go again. I check to see if the camera had moved and written across the upper right corner is "standby". Jeez, but I got pissed. I did all this crap again, worrying that there wouldn't be any apples left and tried it AGAIN. Confidently, I check it out and ..... After 100 rounds I got a pretty good picture of apple pieces getting blasted into even smaller ones. It sure does shoot nice though. Squirreldom will rue the day I get to go hunting again. When I got done, I went back over to the campsite, and taped Don being passed out.

Just about then, Dave Crandall; (Jamie's cousin) and Karl Johnson, who started coming two years ago, drove in with their boat. After Karl had thrown a couple packages of firecrackers in the campfire, Don woke up and was pretty much ok. Jamie and B.B. came back from the river and B.B. got one 12" brookie. It was getting about then we decided to go across the street and take our shot at infamy.

I gave Don my shotgun (16ga) and I got in a corner and started videotaping it. B.B. had his 20ga exposed hammers, side by each, I think Karl had a .410 and Jamie had a .12ga pump. There were a couple of birds shot at but I was the only one who scored. I noticed that there wasn’t nearly as much shooting back in the woods either, so Dave’s pep talk did some good.

Don cooked up the steaks he bought and Jamie worked on the fried potatoes. We brought out the rest of the smoked whitefish that Doug brought, and I got out the oysters and crackers. B.B. brought out some more venison, along with a couple bottles of "Home brew". I shan’t even get close to talking about that stuff. That night I put the heater in the tent before I went to bed. It was starting to get real cool and looked like it was going to get crispy.

Saturday we all got up about 5, and it was indeed crispy. There was a pretty good layer of frost over everything and I was glad I didn't have to high tail it over to the crapper. It didn't take long to get things moving ‘cause we were going up the river to the lower falls.

As fisherman, we all hold our own expertise, our signature style, and our modus operendi as it were, where we shine. B.B.'s is Muskie fishing. He gets excited about all types and methods of fishing, but when he heard the word "MUSKI", he takes on an aura. He headed over to that magic trailer of his and got out the gear. B.B.s about 5' 5 and weighs maybe 110 pounds, and not an ounce of fat on him. He has Willie Nelson's good looks and Jessie James' mustache with a five-day stubble of beard. I’d be willing to bet that if Earnest Hemmingway had met B.B. that big fish he wrote about would have been a Muskie. We stopped in Paradise to get some more beer, so I got to walk around that grocery store again. It didn't look any better, but the two guys were gone and some old lady was running the till.

Believe it or not, Don hadn't been up the river since he was 8 years old. He's been going up to Eckerman since he was hanging in his dad's gonads and he's only been up the river once. I rode with Jamie and B.B. and Don rode with Dave and Karl. Dave and Karl had fished for these things before so they had two rods out. Jamie and I were there for the ride and take pictures of B.B. pulling in something 3/4 his weight. B.B. started out with a mepps #6,000 and he used that for about half the time, with no takers, and then hooked up a lure with a whirlygig necklace. I was videotaping B.B. while he changed lures, when I lost my glasses.

Last year I started videotaping our annual saga, and I felt a little uncomfortable doing it. The guys were pretty polite about me using the thing last year, but I think they were a little dubious too. This year, they were used to it and except for a couple times I forgot it was on, it turned out pretty good. Those I’ll edit out and give out a couple copies so the guys can watch too. The editing I do is so it’s almost ok for the family to watch. Anyway, every time I did some taping, I’d have to pull off my glasses and set them down. I made it almost half way up the river before they slipped over the side. We all searched around the boat looking for something that was definitely not there, and Jamie got a little nervous. Then he asked me if I could still drive. When I told him that I only needed them to read, he felt whole lots better.

While I watched B.B. go through his "lure aisle in a box" we hit something floating just underneath the surface. From what we could tell, the water level had increased significantly and I think we touched something that we’d normally drive around. In any case, it made a pretty good thump. B.B. just continues to tie on his next lure and says "The pumps are running, we’re holding our own, and we’ll see you at first light." He looked up to see I was paying attention and then tells me that’s the last transmission from the Edmond Fitzgerald. It’s something to think about the next time your boat hits something that goes bump in the night.

After a while of trolling with the new lure, the other guys came up and we decided to abandon that tactic. We were almost at the Smurf Cabin by then and decided to stop and see the guy who owns it.

A couple years ago, Jamie, Karl, and Doug came up on a fishing trip and met him then. From what I’ve heard, the word eccentric may be part of his overall personality. I’m going to neither discuss his name or the position of his dwelling, as I’ve never had the chance to meet him. He’s lived there, on a seasonal level, all his life as Don has, to his cabin in Eckerman. As the name implies the buildings are rather small and are painted the same color. The view from his front porch is what sets this place apart. You can see up and down the river, and as far as you can tell, you’re the only person on Earth. Its surprising that I hadn’t met him, if that place were mine, I’d have U.P.S. bringing me food by the "Brown boat".

From there we just hauled ass on up to the pool that’s at the end of the falls. There is a turn in the woods between where we ended up, and the falls themselves, but we could hear it. We anchored in the pool and jigged for walleye for a while. Don got one that was a little undersized, and that was about it. It’s one hellava beautiful ride though. It looks as though this may be a yearly event and I'm all for it. The ride back was all "balls to the wall" and it was just as much fun as the trolling.

This year there wasn't any banquet. Don was a little sick from the weekend’s activities and he crashed in the cabin. The rest of the guys went up to the "Bear Butt Bar" which is about a mile up the road, and I ate some peanuts and watched the fire. While the guys were up at the bar, Jamie ordered some cheese-sticks. All three guys were munching away at the sticks, when the bill was brought out to Jamie. After he did some quick math, it was determined that he was paying about $2.00 each for those things. The guys quickly ate every one of them, and thought about taking the silverware and the beer glasses to make up for the difference. As for the fire; I'd had visions of me staying up 'till 1 or 2am every night watching the fire and enjoying the peace, but I usually fell asleep about 10 o'clock, sittin' in my chair. This one was no different.

Sunday morning I slept in 'till 7, which is pretty good since I'd been normally getting up around 5. I wasn’t particularly in any hurry to get this day started. The campfire was already going when I got up, and not long after I got up, everybody else did too. It was all pretty quiet as we were packing up and we got out of there about 11.