A Monster Lake Trout

Steven Allick and his family have camped here at Agimac for close to two weeks every year. This year his brother caught two nice Lake Trout, about 12 pounds each. Not to be outdone, Steven just caught an 18 pound, 35 inch Lake Trout yesterday on Indian Lake. In fact, this week Steven has caught every kind of fish in Indian Lake including Lake Trout, Walleye, Pike, White fish and Perch. He's quite the advertisement for fishing on Indian Lake.

A Visit With The Larson Family

My niece and her family came up last week to spend some time vacationing with us. She and her husband have four very special young children and we had fun hiking to an overlook on Indian Lake, roasting hot dogs and marshmellows over a campfire, and lots of fishing. In fact, one night I took Adam and his eight year old daughter Heidi to my favorite fishing spot on Indian Lake and in a short time we caught 7 nice keepers for Walleye. Heidi was the Walleye queen of the evening. It seemed like her pole was constantly bent over double as she struggled to reel in one fish after the other. One was 20 inches. Adam and I were trying to figure out why she was catching so many more than we were because we all had on jigheads and were fishing from the same side of the boat. We figured it must be that she was singing. So Adam and I started making up songs hoping the fish would like our hooks as well.... all to no avail. Ha. Even though they left a day early due to motor failure, I think a good time was had by all.

The Heavies Moved In

My brother Rick is up visiting from Georgia and we are having a fishing marathon.  We take him to different lakes around us to fish, but his favorite place is on Indian Lake at the end of a gravel peninsula.  I have to admit it is my favorite place to fish as well.  I like to go out there about an hour before the sun sets over the trees in the west as that is when the Walleyes start to bite.  You feel like you are sitting in the middle of the lake, all by yourself with a gorgeous sunset to the west and the moon coming up overhead.  It's a special kind of quiet.  Then the fun begins.

I never take a camera with me so I was thankful Rick was with me to capture a special moment when I caught my biggest Walleye to date... a 29 incher.  I was just using a simple standup jighead with a leech in about 12 feet of water.  What a fun little tussle that was to bring him in.  Right after that, I pulled up a 28 inch walleye.  Actually the first Walleye I got with a cast bait which was 23 inches long.  So, my pictures are in reverse order below.

All three Walleyes went back in the lake so they are still there for the next person to have some fun.

We Sure Have Some Nice Folks at our Camp

John, Joanna and I really enjoy the people that come to stay with us.  It's getting to be more and more like a big family and we look forward to seeing these returning customers each year.  I wish we could get all the fantastic pictures they take of the fish they catch.  It's really amazing. 

One of our recent guests, Carrie Nelson, just emailed us such a sweet note that I wanted to share with you.

"I just wanted to tell you how awesome your resort is. I was there from July 2nd to the 9th with Reid Wells. We enjoyed every minute there. This was my first time there and I fell in love with the place. I got to see a moose right there on Indian Lake and the fishing was awesome. As I promised when we checked out, here are a few photos from our awesome vacation.  Thanks for the wonderful stay and keep up the Great work. I will definitely be back again. "

Carrie Nelson


Here are some photos of their trip.

Happy Fishermen

Charley Hizer's group brought in some very nice fish last week. It seems that Indian Lake was a little slower than usual for our fishermen last week, but the surrounding lakes offered some great fishing to take up the slack.

New Kid on the Block

Last August we said goodbye to Sabre, our large Beauceron, due to old age problems.  We really like the Beauceron breed because they are an intelligent, loyal family dog, and a good guard/bear dog.

Joanna was able to get another one free from the breeder in California where she got her first Beauceron, Shekinah because she had some physcial issues, so the breeder promised her a free replacement.

John thought it would be nice to have another male, so Joanna put in the order to the breeder requesting a pet quality since it was just going to be a camp dog and we would not be showing it.  There was to be a litter born in February and ready to go in April, which would have worked perfectly for us to pick the puppy up at the Minneapolis airport on our way back from Florida in early May.  We then got word from the breeder that she didn't have enough males in that litter which meant we'd need to wait for the next litter due in July.  However, she was running short on males from that litter too because of her other buyers which was quite disappointing.   

The Beauceron needs lots of socializing to help encourage a well rounded personality.  We knew we had to get the puppy in time for meeting with our summer guests or we'd have to wait another year to get one.

The breeder came up with another idea.  A family in Connecticut had purchased a female show quality Beauceron from her but was concerned because though she was a wonderful dog,  her bite was not quite right and it was considered a fault in the show ring.

The breeder encouraged them to wait just a little longer to see if it corrected itself, but they were impatient and wanted a replacement.  So, the breeder asked if we would like that 12 week old female instead of a male.  We agreed to take her and are so glad we did.  Trinity was flown from Connecticut to Minneapolis the end of  May where Joanna picked her up and brought her home.  Only something happened that changed the original plan.  That cute little puppy endeared herself to Joanna's heart and now she wants to keep her for her own.  She is such a cute, smart , sweet little girl and gets along very well with Scarlett.  They have lots of fun chasing each other around the yard and tusseling to beat the band.  Trinity is bold and confident and just plops right down next to Scarlett to chew on a bone or toy.

The funny thing was that after we had her for only a week, her bite corrected itself is now perfect.  So we ended up with a very nice show quality female Beauceron for free.  You will get to meet her when you come to stay with us this summer.

Wildlife Week

 

Last week was pretty amazing in that folks from our camp were able to see lots of different forms of wildlife in various places in the area.  For a couple of days, a young moose would emerge from the woods across the bay from our camp and eat his way slowly back to the boat landing on that side of the river.  Usually we don't see moose this close to camp when there are so many people around, but he didn't seem to mind.  Our side of the shore was lined with people looking through binoculars or taking pictures of the impressive animal. 

A father and son who were camping here took a walk up the 325 road heading south and came face to face  with the moose as he was attempting to cross the road.   That's what you call a close encounter.  This same moose was seen swimming from the boat landing on the other side to a point in front of the camp. 

One day I was outside talking to some campers when I noticed movement on the far shore.  I looked up and was thrilled to see a mama moose trotting along the edge of the river followed by a wee little calf.  I've never seen such a small moose.  It was a brief viewing because they soon headed into the woods.   Wish I could have captured that on a movie camera.

Some guys headed to Heathwalt were driving along and came across two lynx who were slowly trotting down the road.  The lynx didn't seem too afraid and the guys were able to get some pretty close shots of the pointed ear cats.  Perhaps this is what some other folks saw in the same area when they told Joanna they had seen a mountain lion.  At least I hope so.

Lastly, a guest who was headed back to Ignace for some supplies caught a bear on camera not far from camp.  Ontario has reinstated the spring bear hunt because there were getting to be a lot of nuisance bears in Ignace and other communities with some bears actually attacking people.  So we haven't seen as many bear around this year.  However, a mama bear and three cubs were spotted north of the Pigeon River border walking across the road.  They weren't able to get a picture taken, but said it was fun to see.