Winter fish camp
Blanchard Springs perfect base for overnight
BLANCHARD SPRINGS — Next to fall, winter is my favorite time for camping.
Campgrounds are vacant. There are no bugs. A hot meal tastes better in the cold, and there is no amount of cold that a big campfire and a good sleeping bag won’t cure.
Bill Eldridge of Benton suggested a December campout in October. Some members of our group were unenthusiastic. Their aversion is understandable. For nearly a decade, our usual winter outings in late January have taken place in warm lodges with comfortable beds and satellite TV with big screens to watch NFL football.
In other words, we’ve grown soft.
Our last tent campout during the winter was in January 2010, at Blanchard Springs Recreation Area. That group consisted of Eldridge, Rusty Pruitt of Bryant, my youngest son Matthew and late son Daniel. The boys lodged a few memorable incidents. One was a fishing stop on the second day at a nearby public access on Sylamore Creek. The temperature was below freezing, with ice on the roads. Clad in neoprene waders, Daniel stayed warm and dry.
Matthew did not have waders, but he followed Daniel in multiple creek crossings in blue jeans and tennis shoes. We cut the fishing short because Matthew was nearly hypothermic. It’s one of the few times I have actually seen skin turn blue.
The other incident occurred earlier that morning. The boys climbed a nearby ridge and rolled boulders off a cliff. The noise was thunderous and was accompanied by wild shouts and cheers that echoed through the canyon.
Like a dervish bursting forth from a cloud of flash powder, a guy wearing a machete on his hip materialized in front of Eldridge, Pruitt and me. He was very agitated.
“I’m very concerned that those kids are going to destroy the bathroom!” he barked. Regarding the machete warily, we calmly assured him that the bathroom was far beyond the range of the rolling stones.
We, minus Matthew, recalled it all fondly when we arrived at Blanchard Springs Recreation Area on Dec. 14. As in 2010, we pitched camp at the group site overlooking North Sylamore Creek, whose murmuring waters are as soothing as Scripture. The group also included Ed Kubler of Benton and Richard Phelan of Benton. Phelan, a dentist, endured a fair amount of grief at a fast-food stop in Clinton when he got a sugary soft drink.
A big stack of firewood was beside the fire ring when we arrived, but it wasn’t nearly enough. We like our campfires tall. It was a bonus that the U.S. Forest Service had thinned the woods in that area. A crew had left a large amount of logs next to the road. After unloading our gear, we drove back up the mountain and appropriated it.
After making camp, we rigged our fishing rods for
trout fishing at Mirror Lake. It’s a small impoundment that once powered a grist mill whose ruins stand beneath the dam. The spring-fed lake is stocked in the winter with rainbow trout, some of which go over the dam into the creek below. The creek is lightly fished, and Eldridge believed it might harbor a big holdover.
Eldridge used a Trout Magnet stickbait and a drop shot rigged with Berkley Power Eggs. His first stop was in the last big pool between the dam and the creek. After several unsuccessful casts with the stickbait, he tossed the Power Eggs at the base of the dam. A colorful 15-inch rainbow took the bait and gave Eldridge a good fight. Though not giant, that’s considerably bigger than a fresh-stocked rainbow.
Then, we clambered up the hill to the next pool which we thought was even more likely to hold a good fish. None bit, so we joined Kubler and Pruitt to cast in the lake.
Kubler had already caught and released eight trout with Power Eggs, and Pruitt had caught six. It was late afternoon, and trout were hitting bugs on the surface. It was the ideal situation for Eldridge’s Colorado rig, which he uses with great effect on South Fork Reservoir near South Fork, Colo. It is a Royal Wolf fly on a 3-foot long leader behind a clear casting bobber. You can cast the rig halfway across the lake. Retrieved slowly, the fly rises behind the bobber like an emerging stonefly. Eldridge caught half a dozen in short order.
Walking back to the truck, we encountered a family from Newport. A boy of about 9 asked if we caught any fish. He got excited when we answered affirmatively, but we were disappointed that we had no fish to show him.
“But, I do have a video,” I said. “Wanna see it?”
He wanted very much to see it, so we encircled him while I played the video on my smart phone. It showed Eldridge hooking and fighting a jumping, thrashing trout. Online subscribers can watch it in the video that accompanies this article.
When it was over, the boy declared, “I want to go fishing!”
“And well you should!” I chirped.
He spun to face his parents and reiterated his desire. His parents appeared not to appreciate it. That is why Pruitt calls me “The Instigator.”
Back at camp, we lit a bank of lanterns and piled a big mound of firewood. Before long, we had a tall, roaring blaze.
Kubler grilled our customary meal of hubcap-size ribeye steaks, salad, baked potatoes and the sweetest corn on the cob I have ever eaten. Kubler and I washed it down with a celebratory shot of Droptine 12-Point Bourbon. It displaces Jefferson Reserve Ocean as my favorite sipping bourbon.
The bonhomie prompted Kubler to share stories of his youth in Pittsburgh, including watching Tony Dorsett’s Heisman Trophy winning season in 1976 at the University of Pittsburgh.
“They won the national championship that year, but hardly anybody went to the games,” Kubler said.
The community beer was a brand called Iron City. Kubler said it was brewed with Allegheny River water downstream from a steel mill.
“It was some real rotgut stuff,” Kubler said. “Pittsburgh Brewing Company had one called Olde Frothingslosh. ‘The Pale Stale Ale with the Foam on the Bottom.’ That’s what it said right on the can.” Kubler showed us a can of Olde Frothingslosh for sale on eBay.
My favorite Kubler tale is about his brother that worked for a welder. They and an apprentice were working near the elephant enclosure at the Pittsburgh Zoo. One of the elephants held a grudge against the young apprentice.
“That elephant picked up a big pile of dung with its trunk,” Kubler said. “When the kid saw that, he took off running. That elephant flung it and splattered his whole back from head to toe.”
And so went a long night of laughter and fellowship beside a roaring bonfire as we toasted boys who have grown, boys who have gone, and the stones they rolled.